UTI And Reflux Causing Night Waking? Cloth Diaper Question.

Updated on February 16, 2011
S.P. asks from Chicago, IL
4 answers

My 10 month old has been waking up at night anywhere between 4 and 10 times a night. This started when she was about 5 1/2 months old. Prior to that she was only waking up once or twice. Every so often she will sleep all night long, so I think that she can self-sooth. My intuition really tells me that something is making her uncomfortable because even when she is sleeping in my arms she wakes up flailing, whimpering, and sometimes shrieking and is not comforted when she realizes that I am holding her. We have been following a very consistent bedtime routine and have a set nap schedule. She is a pretty good napper- twice a day in her crib for about an hour and a half. She is very happy when she is awake. So her pediatrician ran some tests. He believes that she has GERD so she has been on Prevacid and Zantac which both helped a little, but even with her bed elevated to 30 degrees, small/frequent meals, and the medicine, she is still waking up A LOT. Some of her GERD symptoms seem better (not wanting to be on her back, stridor, bad breath, back arching after meals). So two of the tests were normal (swallow study, ultrasound of bladder and kidneys), but the urinalysis showed 100,000 colonies of entrococcus so the doc put her on Amoxicillian for a UTI. I have suspected that this has been related to urination because often when she wakes her bottom is hot like she is peeing. So, I am wondering a couple of things that perhaps you mamas can offer some wisdom on. Do you think this problem would cause waking and could it be chronic enough to cause problems for this many months? Also, does anyone have any ideas about washing cloth diapers and dry vs. wet pails? Now that I think of it the waking started when we started cloth diapering full time. I am wondering if we have a bacteria problem in our wet pail. We use a few drops of tea tree oil in the water and wash in hot with baking soda detergent. Thanks for any and all thoughts!!

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D.W.

answers from Gainesville on

There is no reason for a wet pail. It's a hazard for toddlers and it could very well be a breeding ground for cooties. I have been cloth diapering for over 2 years and have exclusively used a dry pail system-large wet bag inside of a small garbage pail with a lid. Never had a problem with that system.

Make sure you use a cloth diaper at night that will wick moisture away from her. Use hemp liners in the pocket along with a microfiber liner to be absorbent enough for all night.

1 mom found this helpful

M.P.

answers from Provo on

I wouldn't use a wet pail. It is a bacterial infestation and a safety hazard, most people don't use wet pails anymore. I just use a pail liner from Planet Wise and wash it each laundry day. Do you use the oil in the pail water or wash water? If it's in the pail, you'll need more than just a few drops. If it's in the wash add a couple more. Do you fully rinse out all oil? I would do one or two extra rinse cycles to make sure it's all out.
I would also suggest (now I only suggest this because I asked several of the diaper companies that I use when my son got a yeast infection) to use a couple cap full of bleach to make sure that NOTHING is left in the diapers.
With antibiotics, my sons poop and urine became very acidic. I would suggest changing OFTEN. Checking every half an hour to make sure that she isn't sitting in anything. I would try even going diaperless as much as possible. When my son had the awful yeast problem, I would often times just snappi on a prefold-no cover- so that he had protection, but his skin could breath.
What laundry detergent are you using? I would HIGHLY suggest using a cloth friendly detergent like Rockin' Green or Lulu's in the Fluff. Your using the Arm in Hammer, right? I used that and it did nothing good for my son's bum or diapers. It sounds like there is build up on the diapers. You'll need to do a good stipping. I would soak the diapers for several hours (or overnight) in HOT water and then wash them without any detergent. Then start washing with Rockin Green. RNG also has a Funk Rock product to get rid of nasties. I would try that too.
I would go to this website:
http://allnaturalbabycenter.com/cid-5-1/Natural_Laundry.html
If you buy two bags of RNG you then get free shipping. If you only buy one bag and pay shipping it's almost as much as paying for the 2 bags.
So in short, stop using the wet pail, I think there is a LOT of bacterial build up, you need to strip the diapers, and switch detergent. If you have any more questions, i'm happy to help!!

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J.S.

answers from Chicago on

We cloth diaper during the day and disposable diaper at night. The cloth need to be changed every two to three hours around the clock and I want more sleep than that schedule allows. You could try using sposies at night a few times and see if that helps.

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A.C.

answers from Columbus on

A wet pail is a bad idea-dangerous, and imo messy & more unsanitary than a dry pail. However, it's not a bad idea to sanitize your pail and/or bleach your pail liner (if it's cloth & bleach won't harm it; some pail liners can't handle bleach).

We actually ended up switching to a disposable for nighttime, because I didn't want to have to try to do trial & error to find the right cloth diaper to wick the moisture away. It was just less of a hassle to use disposables 1x per day for us. And it solved the issue we were having with UTIs.

All that being said, if changing to a wicking diaper (whether disposable or cloth), doesn't help pretty quickly, I'd talk to the doc about the issue. Maybe more or different testing is needed. Poor thing...

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