Gwen's bum hates her

Why is it always the day *after* you see the midwife that things take a turn for the worse? Gwen's thrush on her bottom (it never appeared in her mouth, thank goodness, and we are still treating it 3 times a day to prevent it doing so) has gotten worse, with angry red sores that are obviously causing her great discomfort. Our day started at 2:something am when she would not tolerate being alone in her cradle anymore and would only settle (slightly) if she were in the big bed with us. We nursed on and off all morning until 7am when we unswaddled her for a morning diaper change and found a very angry bum staring at us.

All day we have been watching her closely and cleaning her up after a poo or pee so we don't have to put her back in a diaper. She is obviously miserable; seems to sense when a poo is coming and will try not to let it happen because she knows it's going to irritate her poor skin. But of course it happens anyway and then she cries and screams and is nearly inconsolable. I finally got her to nap at about 1:30 this afternoon for an hour or so.

I finally understand what parents mean when they say they wish they could just take the pain away. If I could take this pain away from her I would. It is obviously horrible and of course she doesn't understand why it is happening which just makes it worse. I got so frustrated that I called Lillian to ask if there was anything else we could do to improve the rash, as it's been 10 days of treatment with the antifungal cream and it's not gone yet. She said keeping it clean and dry as much as possible (which we were already doing) was all that could be done. I hate watching my baby suffer through this! How long is this damn rash going to hang on? I Googled just that and found greatly varying answers, everything from a few days to a few months. GAH we cannot survive months!!

Okay, deep breath...

Just found these two sites which offer a whole variety of more things we can do to help rid ourselves of the thrush. So we'll give them a try and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.