Parent Tip: Saying bye-bye to Cradle Cap
Cradle cap. Ugly yellow flakes of goop that started appearing on Baby Girl's scalp right around the 2-month mark (and right around the time that she started developing eczema). Not all babies get it, but Baby Girl had it, and big time.
And it's not just "baby dandruff". It's ickier. Cause the flakes aren't dry but they have kind of a stickiness or oiliness to them.
Didn't matter how much we bathed her and washed her hair (and your pediatrician and all the books will tell you it has NOTHING to do with hygiene and everything to do with hormones - so if your baby gets it, it's not cause you're a bad parent or because you're not keeping her clean enough ;-)) or what products we used at the advice of various doctors, we couldn't get rid of it.
We tried slathering her head with baby oil and letting it sit for 15 minutes and then combing out the flakes and washing it. It would work temporarily but it always came back.
We tried dandruff shampoos like Selsun blue and head and shoulders, but it would have no effect.
We tried baby shampoos and they had even less than no effect.
It doesn't hurt or bother her, and it doesn't cause any problems. And it will eventually at some point go away on its own. But in the meantime it's just kinda icky.
Anyway - we were at a loss for how to deal with it and were about ready to just let it run its course (although it had been 7 months) when we discovered the Mustela line of products (I've mentioned these before). Specifically, we started bathing her in "Mustela baby relaxing bath with cleansing milk" and just using a facecloth dipped in the bathwater to smooth over her hair, with no rinsing afterwards, and the cradle cap cleared up after a week of doing this every other day! Like magic!
If you've been battling cradle cap unsuccessfully and would rather not just wait and let it take care of itself (which is perfectly ok to do) you might give this a try and see if it works for you.
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