Painful diaper rash - did I damage our relationship?

amother

NeonPink

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 11:49 am

amother OP wrote:

DS age 2 has a very painful diaper rash and seems to also have some diarrhea today and yesterday evening. DH had to hold him on the changing table - he was writhing and flailing and screaming in pain as I cleaned him off (I tried to be as gentle as possible, dabbing instead of wiping, getting the wipes wet in lukewarm water to loosen up the teeny little black feces pieces, etc) but I am worried that he thinks I hurt him on purpose c”v. I was apologizing left and right the whole time and telling him I was cleaning him to help his tushy feel better. We had already given him a bath baking soda, which has helped calm down the rash in the past. I don’t know if this is irrational, but I’m really afraid that he might think that I was trying to hurt him chalilah because even when he was begging me to stop I couldn’t because of course I had to clean him properly. I gave him lots of cuddles and sang to him afterwards. I tried to end off bedtime on a good note but he was upset that I was putting him to bed after doing the bedtime routine a second time and because the baby started crying and needed to be fed.

Poor little guy. Am I completely overthinking it about being worried about this causing him to trust me less?

Maybe next time put him in the bathtub with running water it hurts less.

amother

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 12:07 pm

Thank you ladies. He was in so much pain and I was trying to be so so gentle. He had already had a bath a couple hours earlier for the same rash. BH the rash looks somewhat better today, we’ve been putting a ton of diaper rash cream on and that seems to be helping. He was cuddly with me this morning so I am reassured that he doesn’t resent me, it was just so hard in the moment when I was changing him, and he was looking at me with so much pain and saying “Mommy!!!!!!” and crying and flailing around.