18 Month Old with Painful (Burning?) Poops - Not Constipated

The only thing I can think of is perhaps a food allergy. My daughter developed a food allergy around 15 months old to dairy. She had been eating the same foods & nothing changed in her diet. Sometimes it takes a while to built up in their system. Her allergist told us to be allergic to a food she had to be exposed to it. That made sense. You might what to keep a log of what he ate that day & if he reacts to same way with his stool. It might give you a chance to see what the problem is. Plus, read the label on those little gerber foods. They contain a lot of milk products with tricky names (whey, caisen). My girlfriend has a soon allergic to egg & she found out that most vaccines are with an egg base. That I did not know. Food allergies can be very dangerous but controllable. I hope I was able to help or at least give you some where to start. Good luck.

I wonder if he's teething? Sometimes that causes rashes around the mouth due to excess drooling and even bothers them when they have a bowel movement. Extra acidity.
My suggestion would be to keep a really good diaper cream on his bottom at all times. See if that helps soothe the skin. Once they have a painful experience it seems that they think every time will be that way. Could he have eaten something a little spicy?

I would suggest a quick visit to the pediatrician just to rule out a dietary problem. Could be a reaction to something he has ingested and knowing 18month olds - could be something he got into at day care or on the floor. Does he seem to have severe cramping before he goes? The happy problem would be that he it is just a skin irritant to him and in which case he will be easy to toilet train. But for peace of mind, see the doc. There is a whole list of things it could be, they have to rule them out...Good luck!

My daughter went through this during teething. Wasn't constipated but I was told that during teething, they can have very acidic urine, etc. which may cause a burning diaper rash. We were told by the pediatrician to stop using commercial baby wipes during the rash, it can further irritate, instead use soft washcloth with warm water, dry area well by blotting & apply neosporin to any open or extreme external areas & then provide a good barrier with diaper cream or butt paste.

Two things- possible teething and find out why he's sitting in his own stool for thirty minutes at the day care center! If he has diaper rash any urine or stool on his already sensitive skin will burn, so his diapers should be changed as soon as soiled. Burt's Bees makes a nice thick diaper ointment that does the job without the extra chemicals and this can help with the rash, but most effective will be prompt diaper changes to heal the sensitive bum. Highlands teething tablets before nap time might help with the crankiness- growing little teeth hurts! Good luck!

It could be an allergy, teething, or something more serious. I'd check with your pediatrician.

We have had similar problems with both our girls, 2 & 5 yrs. Sometimes it was teething, and sometimes it was what they were eating. If they were eating a lot of fruit, especially that with high vitamin C, it left a horrible rash.

Put him on the potty!! There's a movement to get back to Natural Infant Hygiene, which is more or less "potty training" your baby. Babies have the ability to control their waste and know enough to not want to go on themselves. I've been having my son use the potty since he was five weeks old and he loves it. When we have a miss, he fusses until he has been changed. I always take him to the potty when he wakes up and after eating and he will go. Perhaps your son is tired of going in the diapers. There's a couple books out there- Diaper Free Baby by Ingrid Baur and another good one called The Diaper-less Baby or something. you can also check it out online. Very interesting stuff that just makes sense. It really is great!

I have a freind whose kids have had that happen. For them, it turned out to be due to a food allergy. Have you given him anything new lately? Any citrus?

My 18mo. old has had the same thing happen to her a few times. She does have a mild allergie to something...wheat, dairy, egg, or....we can't figure it out. We know for sure she gets a red rash from oranges/citrus fruits and tomato sauce..acidic. I give her baths after EVERY BM,(especially on the first day of rash), in about 3TB baking soda, dry bottom well w/ soft burp/diaper cloth, and heavily coat w/ desitin original cream as soon as the redness starts. I do that for 2-3 days and it clears up.
I use Cetaphil skin cleanser. good luck

My daughter (now 13) went through the buring raw diaper rash. I had use Johnson's diaper rash relief and it worked great! I also changed brands of diapers, I can't remember the brand, more pricey but softer and more breathable for her skin.
I let her air out for awhile also just to give her skin a break from being wrapped up.
Hope this helps

My daughter is almost 16 months old and has been dealing with the same problem since she was about 10 months old. She doesn't scream while pooping but her bottom gets blistered and she screams in pain while changing her. What my pediatrician said was simple and it is absolutely true in my daughters case. At this point it's 100% diet related. Citrus, or high acid fruit or veg such as tomatoes ect. When she was 10 months obviously she was not eating citrus but the tomatoes where the problem along with too much mango. As she got older, tomatoes where no longer the problem and neither is mango but oranges,strawberes, pineapple are a guarantee for a miserable rash. My daughter does not have allergies to these items, her body just isn't ready to proses, but just like the tomatoes and mangoes with time that should change. My solution:, obviously my little girl does not eat those items and since I use cloth diapers I can not use diper rash cream throu out the day (but I've tried in the past). At night I do use one disposable diaper with this diaper and knowing that she'll be in it the longest I always apply tons of Aquafor on her bottom and neosporen on the open area, if there is a blister. It works beautifully!! The problem reappears every once in a while like when my Mother came to town and was convinced my daughter needed more vitamin C in her diet so she fed her a mandarin, since it was a small fruit she ate the hole thing willingly. After seeing how fast my daughter swallowed this fruit my mother was convinced she was craving vitamin C. I told her what whould happen but she did not believe me. Why should she have after all she raised three kids and never heard of such a thing. Did I mention we where all raised in Poland where in the 70's citrus was a very rare find! Well sure enough the rash was back with blisters! She finally was willing to listen and we started the Aquafor treatment with Bacitracin. Every night I put my daughter down with Aquafor just to help repel the moisture or poop from her skin, it realy works well for us. My hart goes out to you with this problem cause the pain I see in my daughters eyes when this surfaces is traumatic. Best of luck to you.

L.

Hi K.,
My son also used to get terrible diaper rashes, sometimes bleeding, and would SCREAM when we changed him. Unfortunately we never figured out why, they kept happening until he was potty trained. What did help is using only water and very soft cloths to wipe him, the soaps in wipes only excaserbate the issue, and using LOTS of Weleda Diaper Care Cream. I tried EVERY cream out there and this was the most effective and its all natural. You can buy it at any WholeFoods.
Good Luck!!!!

Our food allergic son had this problem as a baby/toddler. He was often very fussy, typically had loose stools, often had diarrhea, and frequently got what I thought of as a acid burn after bowel movements. The diaper rash would go from non existant to severe, from one bowel movement that was changed immediately. (I was a SAHM.) When it was really bad, there would be welts of broken skin that bled.

I would try avoiding acidic foods (citrus fruit, pineapple, tomato) and spices (even black pepper) for a while and see if it stops. One of the mini canned mixed fruits (I think it was Del Monte) contains mostly pear and peach but a few pieces of pineapple that is hard to detect unless you read the label.

For treating the rash, our doctor recommended a diaper rash cream called Triple Paste. It is expensive but worth it. I used to have to order it on-line, but recently saw that it is now available on the shelf at Target.

Hi,
Not to be the paranoid one but, have you fully investigated the daycare center? My sister's, sister-in-law's, son was having similar reactions to bowel movements. Luckily, the boy was just old enough to express the problem with simple words. After further investigation she found out other boys in the center were having similar problems. They finally realized the boys were being abused. The center is now closed but it was very traumatic to the little one.
Hopefully, it is just an allergy or something but, it is better to be safe than sorry.

I have a 17 months old daughter and she is doing the same thing right now. She is cutting her to fang teeth and it is causing the poop to burn the skin more. Check his mouth for new teeth.

Diapers should be changed immediately upon becoming wet or poopy. You can get an overgrowth of bacteria and a skin infection very rapidly. With his skin irritation, his skin will feel like it's burning every time he pees or poops. Make sure he's changed immediately at daycare and at home every time he pees or poops, make sure he's cleaned up thoroughly and start using some protective ointment (like Desitin or Bag Balm, whatever you like).

I am not sure why he is burning...make sure the daycare isn't giving him something new like fruit or fruit juice. Also, Destin is the best and should be applied with every diaper change. He should be changed as soon as he soils his diaper, pee or poop. I still use Destin for broken down skin on myself and older children. It is great!

My son had a similiar reaction when we first started solid foods and I found it was apples! (Of course this was one of the first things they reccomded to feed babies). But I am wondering if food allergies can't change over time. I didn't feed apples to him for almost 6-8 months. I have since reintroduced applesauce and I have not noticed a recurrence, but I have been keeping a close watch. When he was having this problem I used a lot of desitin until his bottom wasn't red anymore and it pretty much cleared up as soon as I stopped feding him apples. (i used the original formula not the creamy which did not good at all on him). Good Luck!

This is definitely something that you should discuss with your physician. You want to be sure that there is not any trauma to the area and how often daycare changes your son's diapers.

This sounds EXACTLY like what my daughter went through. Her bottom would be fine, no rash, and then she'd poop and get an instant, angry rash! She'd start to cry really hard, walk with her legs far apart and pull at her diaper if I didn't change her fast enough (we're talking immediately after her diaper was dirty, often before I even knew she was poopy), and when I got the diaper off and cleaned off the poop, her backside was bright red. Once her bottom was clean, the rash cleared in about two hours--sooner if I let her go without a diaper and let air get to it. At first we thought it was the detergent my mom was using to wash her cloth diapers when she babysat, but that wasn't it. Then I started keeping a log of when it happened what she'd eaten that day. Turned out that on the days she had the rash-causing poops, she'd eaten a lot of acidy foods: oranges and tomatoes or tomato sauce, usually. So, we started limited that stuff. We didn't eliminate it altogether, but we made sure that if she'd had pasta with tomato sauce for lunch, she didn't get any oranges for snack later. And if she'd eaten an orange with her daddy for breakfast, no tomato sauce or tomato slices for the rest of the day. That sort of thing. It worked. We haven't had a problem since. As for waking up crying from naps, my daughter does this once in a while, too. I started putting toys or books in her crib when she was asleep, and when she wakes up, she has something to distract her. You might also want to try the teething tablets, too. They're great.

Have you asked the babysitter if she has given anything that he has not eaten before or that you don't know about? How many children ar being cared for by the person? Have you taken the child to be exmained by the Doctor? If nothing has been used to make the child cry then you need to have the child really looked at.
As a mother of six and a grandmother of twenty and a great grandmother of 17, I have a old wise Irish treatment take some cooking flour and put it into a pie pan put it on the stove and brown it lightly, let it cool and rub a little on the oustside of his butt, flour is healing and may help him.

Hi K.,

No personal experience with this unless your son has diaper rash. But there are a couple other possibilities. One I have heard of is a strep infection around the anus. It is similar to a strep throat infection but just happens down below. The second is that your son's stool may be more acidic due to dietary things. I would check with your MD for recs. Good luck!

You may want to try a potty topper for your toilet seat and putting him on it when he wakes up from his nap... he may just surprise you and use it! We went through many screaming poops in the diaper and on the changing table with the diaper open before giving the potty a try for our baby. Our older son was just over 3 then so we were spending a lot of time in the bathroom starting his toilet training anyway. My little guy prefers to poop on the potty and gets extremely upset if he does it in a diaper. During the day he alternates between wanting to pee in the potty and peeing in a diaper but if he wakes up from sleeping with that telltale scream we go to the potty and he almost always pees... and then settles back to sleep after I've got him all covered up again. It's a bit of a drag to split naptime in half for a potty run but if he's happier not peeing or pooping on himself who can argue with that :) On a sidenote... if he's teething he may be producing extra saliva and instead of drooling it out of his mouth he's swallowing and digesting it... that would definitely cause skin irritation.

K.,
I can relate to your situation with your son. My son is 2 years old and crys everytime he goes to the bathroom, but since he's older I think it's due to the fact that he was constipated for a few weeks on and off, but now that he's normal again he still gets upset when it's that urge to go.. His bum is red too but not like diaper rash but just irritated.
My son use to get bad diaper rash and I used Orginal Desetin on him with Johnson and Johnson medicated powder. I slapped that on... Or you can put vaseline on him so it helps ease the poop out.., another thing that might be happening is when he pees it irratates the rash as well so changing him immediately after he has peed and pooped is very important.

The waking and crying I think might be night terror's or just dreams he's having my son had those and scared the heck out of me... Hopefully it's just something he will outgrow.
I would also check with his doctor to make sure nothing else is wrong. I know being a 1st time mom I always felt better knowing its nothing else wrong with him.

Good luck

has he had a vaccination lately? sometimes they will cause burning stool as they are shedding virus or vaccine components. it may also explain why he is crying and waking up. i am not a proponent of vaccinations due to many adverse reactions that may occur. wish you well.

B.

Possible milk allergy, sounds like it hurts on the way down. Are you still nursing or pumping ? Could be what you are eating. Check what greens he is being fed at nursery school. Might be gassy. Good luck. There are some great gas relief products out their for little ones. Mylicon worked within minutes. My doctor said it was useless, but it worked on all four of my kids. My youngest are six, but I do remember the tummy aches very well. Makes you feel helpless. For the irritated butt, they only thing that ever worked on my twin's diaper rash was Aquaphor. Still keep it around for my kids chapped lips. It is safe enough to use anywhere. Good luck and always check with your doctor first, just in case.

I am not sure why his skin would turn red but it does seem like a good time to potty-train! "We can just put that poop over here",(try to make it to the pot)!!!Nik

My son gets a red, bumpy rash if he's left in a poopy diaper for more than 5 minutes. I took him to the Dr. & they said it's a "yeast" infection. He also gets it in the little nook and crannies around hi genitals if the babysitter doesn't clean him well enough. We were told to feed him yogurts with live cultures and add Aveeno oatmeal bath treatment or Epsom salts to his bathwater. We were also told to use an over-the-counter anti-fungal for athlete's foot on the red areas and LOTS of petroleum jelly - I add a little A & D & aveeno zinc oxide to the concoction & it seems to clear it up faster.
Check w/ your pedi first...
The anti-fungal is clotrimazol NOT the other stuff - that burns & stings!
If he usually poops the same time every day - try sitting him on the potty w/ a toy and ee if he can do it there until the rash dries up.
Alo, check his diapers - we used to use Luv's and they added a scent which irritated my son so we had to change brands...
Good Luck!
It's so hard when they can't tell you what's wrong!

A few thoughts...if his rash is bright red it is likely a yeast infection (both of my girls have had this...) you can clear it up with any of the topical creams you would use for yourslef. I'm blanking on the name of the brands, but you can just get the over the counter stuff and apply it with each diaper change for about a week. Also, even if his rash is just a rash, and not a yeast infection, any moisture touching it could hurt/burn. Make sure his diaper is changed frequently, and consider limiting his diet to some more bland foods like rice, whole wheat bread, etc. he may not be having a food alergey but his body may juast more sensitive to what he is excriting. good luck!

Could he have a fungul infection on his bottom? Also, not sure if it's at all related, but we are following my 5 year old daughter for Celiac disease (an intolerance to gluten. It's not a food allergy, but is sometimes confused with one. It's very hard to diagnosis. My daughter had encopresis (soiling) for a long time, which corresponses to constipation, even though we didn't realize it was constipation. Other symptoms include: stomach aches, failure to thrive, diarreah, behavior problems, irritability, anemia, etc. However, takes a while for symptoms to develop and young babes don't always have signs. People can live their whole lives with Celiac and not realize they have it. Complicated, but I'd definately mention it to the doctor when you have him evaluated because doctors don't always think of it.

In a word "teething" ;0) I would put something really thick on his bum during this time and get his poopy diapers changed as quickly as he goes, or even put him over the toilet if he will let you (mine won't). Teething tablets before naps may help with the waking miserable...

You might want to investigate pin worm. My son picked it up from day care. It's pretty easy to treat. The medication is over the counter. You can get more info on the web.
Good luck.