Welcome to the post to help you with your baby’s yeast infection, or thrush problems. To learn more about thrush, go here. To help cure Mama of thrush, go here.
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*Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, so please consult your physician before attempting any of these suggestions. Use your best judgment. What worked for me may not work for you. Each body is different and unique. Do what you feel is best at your own risk. I am not liable for any consequences. I am a blogger. This is a blog meant to provide opinions, suggestions, experiences, and information. Not medical advice. I am human and make mistakes, so information may not be 100% complete or accurate. Thank you, and enjoy!*
Yeast infected diaper rash: this is usually a rash that lasts for more than 24-48 hours, is raised, red, hot, and bumpy, and may even have white spots with the appearance of cottage cheese. Or white peeling flakes. The white is the yeast culture overgrowth. You could go in and get it cultured by your pediatrician, or you could just cure it yourself. Just be careful it is not a bacterial infection, or a virus.
- First of all: if you are using cloth diapers, STOP. This is way too young for you to know, for a fact, that your baby is allergic to disposable diapers, so bleach your fluff, and buy some ‘sposies. I recommend everyone use disposables until the umbilical stump falls off, even up to the first month, and yeast infections are a big reason why. They are significantly worsened with cloth diapers, and it adds stress for you.
- There is contradicting evidence about whether hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, UV rays (sunlight), grapefruit seed extract, tea tree oil, dryer heat (drying your diapers on hot), and all manner of stuff people can come up will actually kill yeast. Some say those all just damage the cell wall, then the yeast repairs itself and continues living life. So just use bleach. Do the best thing for your baby and your sanity and bleach them once, wash them, then wait to get them out until 14 days after the last sign of a yeast infection in your baby. I know you are excited to use them, but just wait. FMI: here
- If you want to use cloth diapers regardless, and you decide to use liners to block the creams from getting on your diapers, you still need to bleach the diapers every time, because there is yeast in urine. Bleaching the diapers so much can wreck your diapers (frequent bleaching is not nice to fabric).
- Anytime you use cream, use a diaper liner. Even the “cloth diaper friendly” ones leave residue. My diapers always came out of the dryer smelling like the “CD friendly” creams and lost absorbency until I washed them with Dawn dish soap and started using liners. And even the thin, flushable liners did nothing to stop the cream from seeping through. Which is why I finally had to just turn to disposables.
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- Change diapers FREQUENTLY. Like, every hour. All the time. Change them as soon as they poop, and like once or twice every hour if it is just pee. Air him out each time and make sure he is dry before you secure that diaper. Yeast loves warm, moist environments, so do something about the moisture. (more on airing out later)
- Clotrimazole cream (athlete’s foot cream) is magical. We smeared that sucker on all over, put Vaseline on top to seal it in, so it wouldn’t wash off with urine or rub off onto the diaper, and BAM. The next diaper change his butt looked SIGNIFICANTLY, DRASTICALLY better. We continued using clotrimazole until it cleared up for both of us officially, but I changed from using petroleum jelly on top to using Motherlove diaper rash and thrush cream.
- Use sterile cotton pads or some other applicator to apply it, because you don’t want the yeast on your hands to worsen the situation. Preferably a disposable applicator, or else you will have to bleach a reusable one EVERYTIME. Yeast is a fiend. (and remember not to double dip, or you will compromise the cream)
- Wash your hands. It is going to be annoying (just stock up on hand soap), but you are going to have to wash your hands before AND after you change a diaper. I know. Weird. But it is very important. You don’t want it to get worse by introducing some new germs and new yeast, and you don’t want it to spread. You still need to use a clean applicator to put creams on the baby.
- If the clotrimazole cream does nothing, it is probably not a fungal (yeast) infection! It could be bacterial, or viral, or a food allergy, or something else, so if you have not yet gone to your doctor, please do so now! They can get a swab, or get it cultured, and find out what exactly it is.
- Use the most minimalistic wipes you can find. At first we used Huggies and Parents Choice wipes, but I realized that they actually made his rash worse. He would wail as they burned across his bottom. Apparently some ingredient(s) in wipes feed the yeast. (Ack!) If you use cloth wipes, you need to bleach them after every use. So we just used Water Wipes! Yes, they exist, and yes, they are fabulous. They are 99% water, 1% Grapefruit seed extract (you’ll hear more about the fabulous thing that is GSE in the mommy post). We also used Honest Company wipes, and they are fabulous too. And Amazon Sensitive Wipes that came with the free baby registry welcome box, but these were used a bit later in the thrush crushing process, so I’m not sure how they affect new baby bums.
- Give your baby frequent baths! We would hold IV over the kitchen or bathroom sink, and just wash his rump in warm soap and water about every three days. I wish I had done it more, but I was following the doctor’s suggestion. I am very passionate about giving babies showers, so go here to learn more.
- Give your baby diaper free time. After we would wash him, we would let him hang out on the towel diaper-less, so that his nether regions would get some air out/dry out time. Also, at each diaper change, before I sealed up the diaper for good, I would cover his penis with the diaper (to catch pee), and let him air out a bit. I got peed on a LOT, but I feel like it helped a lot.
- Use unscented castile soap. You don’t want your baby to have a reaction to anything else while you are dealing with this, so just use the pure, unscented, reliable stuff.
- Sanitize! Sanitize Baby’s pacifiers, bottles, burp rags, bibs, towels, wash cloths, anything that touches baby slobber, baby’s butt, or baby urine. Bleach or boil if you can.
- No Gentian Violet. I don’t really recommend it, because it stains everything from your skin, to your mouth, to your clothes, and it seems like more of a mess than a helper. There are plenty of other products out there that will help without an insane amount of side-effects to worry about.
Oral thrush:
- Don’t rub the cottage cheese/white spots, or they will come off, and you will see red, irritated, possibly bleeding flesh underneath.
- We used Nystatin for about two or three weeks, and I felt like it did nothing, if not made it worse. You have to put it on a rag and rinse the baby’s mouth out, but I think the sugar they put in it to make it taste good feeds the yeast more than the Nystatin actually helps kill it. I would put it on my nipples and my nipples would sting and burn, but in those weeks they did not get better.
- Baby Probiotics in your baby’s bottles (if he takes bottles) or even just dabbing your finger in the powder and letting him suck on your finger. Remember not to cross contaminate things, and to always sanitize your bottles and such or else the yeast will continue living on the bottles and nipples. (It is not a good idea to store milk from when you had thrush, because your milk will have yeast in it and it survives in the freezer, which might then re-infect your baby). Do not get adult capsules and break them open to give them to your baby, because baby’s need different bacteria than adults do. I personally did not give my baby probiotics, but here is a great resource I found on a Baby Center thread:
- “First thing, PROBIOTICS- klaire ther-biotic infant formula is best I’ve found. www.pureformulas.com/therbiotic-inf… Let baby suck off finger twice a day before feeding. Babies need mostly bifidus bacteria unlike adults and kids. This is the reason I recommend Klaire Lab Infant (a pediatrician actually is how I found it). It contains 10 different strains of friendly bacteria at 10 billion per ¼ tsp. It ships pretty fast. However, if you want something today, I would find a local health food store that sells supplements. They should have a quality infant probiotic, although it will probably contain less strains and be less concentrated. You can compare the bacteria from the Klaire, which are:
Lactobacillus rhamnosus
Lactobacillus casei
Lactobacillus paracasei
Lactobacillus gasseri
Lactobacillus salivarius
Bifidobacterium bifidum
Bifidobacterium infantis
Bifidobacterium lactis
Bifidobacterium longum
Bifidobacterium breve
I would double the amount suggested because that is a maintenance dose and you are actually trying to treat a problem. Say give amount suggested twice or three times a day. You cannot overdose on probiotics. Whatever baby body doesn’t use will be pooped out. If you are giving too much, baby poop will become more diarrhea like. And do NOT go to CVS etc. for probiotics, those might as well be thrown in the garbage because they are worthless.
This should be enough treatment for baby if very mild case.
However, you can also swab mouth with DILUTED grapefruit seed extract in distilled water (not grape, it’s grapefruit) Nutribiotic Grapefruit Seed Extract is the brand I prefer; it contains Citricidal active ingredient. The pills are only useful if you take them. You need the concentrated liquid to dilute with distilled water for baby. MUST DILUTE. Here’s good article for diluting. drjaygordon.com/breastfeeding/thrus…“
- “First thing, PROBIOTICS- klaire ther-biotic infant formula is best I’ve found. www.pureformulas.com/therbiotic-inf… Let baby suck off finger twice a day before feeding. Babies need mostly bifidus bacteria unlike adults and kids. This is the reason I recommend Klaire Lab Infant (a pediatrician actually is how I found it). It contains 10 different strains of friendly bacteria at 10 billion per ¼ tsp. It ships pretty fast. However, if you want something today, I would find a local health food store that sells supplements. They should have a quality infant probiotic, although it will probably contain less strains and be less concentrated. You can compare the bacteria from the Klaire, which are:
- Cure yourself. If you keep trying to cure your baby, but you do nothing for yourself, you are just going to keep giving him thrush. It’s a vicious cycle. Here is my mommy post.
Good luck with this Mama! You’ve got this! Don’t give up hope, the end of your misery is near, and you are not alone! Father in Heaven loves you and is looking out for you. Do not give up hope, there are other mamas out there that can help, all you have to do is ask 🙂
Do you have anything else you would like to add? What has worked for you? Are you struggling with thrush or yeast infections right now? Give me a comment below!
***This post may contain affiliate links, but it in no way affects my reviews or recommendations, which are my full and honest opinions. It is at no extra cost to you, it is just a thank you from Amazon for sending people to them. I am not a medical professional, and these are just my opinions, based on experience***
