Diaper rash...

We have been extremely lucky as far as diaper rash is concerned. My son has never had any signs of it at all. He doesn't mind a wet or dirty diaper and will never cry if he needs to be changed. I am constantly checking him because I hate the thought of him sitting in an uncomfortable diaper but if I left it up to him, he would sit in it all day.

My husband works a couple evenings a week so he drops off my son at my parents house and I go pick him up after work. It is a good arrangement. They get to see their grandson and they usually feed me before I make my way home. Usually they are waiting for me at the door. But this time I walk in the house and my father is standing in the kitchen which is down a long hallway from the front door. I could hear my son crying hard and my dad had a strange look on my face. As I walked toward him, he said "His scrotum is so red." Then he turned and walked back into the living room. If I hadn't been so concerned by the seriousness of his face and voice, I would have thought it was extremely comical. My father is pretty conservative, or at least that is how I see him. Before I had a baby, I would have been mortified if he had used words describing a person's private parts.

I followed him into the living room and my mother was trying to comfort my little boy. I ran to him and hugged him hard. They said that they were just changing a poopy diaper and he was bright red. My mother said that as soon as she started to wipe him he started screaming. But it couldn't be helped, she needed to get him clean. He was finally calm but I wanted to see it for myself. I pulled back his diaper and was appalled by the sight. It was as red as a tomato. I freaked out and wanted to take him to the doctor immediately. Now it was my turn to calm down. My parents put some diaper cream on it and told me to wait and see if it got better. He was eating so many new foods that something probably just irritated him. And he wasn't crying anymore, just seemed perfectly content.

I called my husband and asked him if he had noticed anything that day. He said no but the day before he had noticed some redness. It had gone away by the next diaper change though so he had forgotten to mention it.

We stayed and ate and I took my son home. When my husband got home from work, I showed him the redness. He was more shocked than I had been. He said the redness he had noticed the day before could not even compare to this.

We kept him lubed up with the diaper cream. Usually I don't change his diaper in the middle of the night but that night I checked on him and changed it. I didn't turn on the light but I have a small night light in the corner of the room so I can see what I am doing. It still looked bright red, even in the dark. In the morning I checked and the redness had gone down significantly though it was still pretty bright. And I noticed that it had spread to his little bottom. We changed him often and let him go diaper free when we knew it was safe. By the next day it had gone down even more and was pretty much gone by the day after that.

I know that it was just diaper rash but it was scary. I have been careful not to give him the foods that he ate in the day before and of the rash just in case that was the cause. Luckily it has not reappeared.