Baby Eczema Remedies

Our Baby Eczema Cure

Before I give you any tips, pointers or any information, I want to say that I am not a medical professional and have no medical background. For any concerns please speak to a medical professional.

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I want to start off by saying baby eczema is very common, especially if one of the parents has eczema. It can also be VERY difficult to find the right cure for eczema for anyone, not just a baby. I want to go into a bit of detail about what baby eczema is and how to cure it. But first I want to give you a background on how and why I am writing about baby eczema.

My son suffered from severe baby eczema around 9 months of age. We already knew he had a bit of baby eczema. He would get the odd small patch on his face. We didn’t think too much of it because we knew it was common and our son would be more prone to it because my husband has eczema. So, every day, even a couple of times a day, we would put some lotion on his face. The regular thing to do. However, around Christmas time my son got a little round patch on his right arm by his shoulder, about the size of a dime. Again, no big deal, we thought. We put some cream on it and moved on.

In January it started to spread and get bigger. This was also around the time I started going to the gym and taking my son to the gym daycare. It spread fast. We got him in quick to our pediatrician and he was diagnosed with Impetigo and put on antibiotics for a week. For anyone wondering, Impetigo is super contagious and can be common in daycare. I was VERY upset thinking that the one time I let someone other than family watch my son, he gets Impetigo.

Well, I booked a follow-up appointment for when his antibiotics were finished. Good thing too, since we saw no improvement with these antibiotics. When we went back to the doctors they had no clue what it was. We ruled out Impetigo. They didn’t think it was baby eczema. They didn’t think it was allergies. They had no clue what it was! And it was STILL spreading.

It’s now February. We had seen 2 different doctors. His rash was still spreading. He had been on antibiotics and two different topical creams. His skin was bleeding. We had had enough. So, we dropped everything and took him to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. (only a 45 min drive from where we live)

Sick Kids Hospital diagnosed him with Pityriasis rosea. It’s almost like chicken pox in the sense you can only get it once in your life. It starts off with a mother patch (they thought that was the one on his arm) and then spreads over the torso, arms and legs. There’s no cure, it just runs its course. That can take up to 9 weeks. However, it’s most common from ages 10 years+. It’s very rare for a baby to get it. On our drive home, we didn’t feel like the diagnosis was right. So, we went back to see our pediatrician and get a referral to a dermatologist.

Our pediatrician also didn’t agree with the diagnosis from Sick Kids. She booked the referral and got us a consult with another doctor. This doctor was very thorough and spent well over an hour with Noah. This doctor sent off a referral to see a dermatologist at Sick Kids along with a bunch of photos of Noah’s skin. The doctor felt like Noah was suffering from baby eczema or psoriasis but wasn’t 100% sure because it can be very difficult to diagnose in babies and wasn’t presenting itself in a common way. He didn’t have any rash on his knees or on his elbows which is the most common places for psoriasis.

After talking to this Doctor and reading up on the symptoms of baby eczema I decided to try a few different remedies. Previously we were told to stop bathing him (this was when his skin was at it’s worst) After seeing this doctor, he told us to soak him every night. No soap and no scrubbing. Just soak him in the tub. So, with that direction and a couple different home remedies we started to see some improvement.

By March when we got in to see the dermatologist he was officially diagnosed with severe baby eczema. It was a moment of relief because we could now use the proper treatment. We were given the proper topical ointment to use that helped clear up the bad spots.

After 5 different doctors, 3 different clinics and 3 months later we figured out what it was and found a cure that works for us!

What does baby eczema look like?

Eczema is dry itchy skin that can flake and bleed. The skin barrier doesn’t work properly and is more susceptible to irritants. The most common places are behind the knees, elbows, hands and face. The skin can become inflamed and red and sometimes can ooze and become crusty.

What causes baby eczema?

There’s no one cause of baby eczema. However, baby eczema is very common and most babies outgrow it by their early teens. Your baby could be more prone to baby eczema if one of the parents has eczema or suffered from eczema as a child (in our case Noah got it from his father).

Some irritants that might cause baby eczema are:

·  Detergents

·  Fabric softeners

·  Bubble bath

·  Shampoo

·  Body wash

·  Lotions and creams

·  Perfumes

Baby eczema home remedies.

What we did to clear up Noah’s baby eczema was soaking him in an oatmeal bath every night. Yes, an oatmeal bath. There are two ways to do this. Take a pair of pantyhose and fill it with oatmeal and rub it over your baby in the bath OR what we do, put some oatmeal in a blender until it becomes a powder and just pour it in the bath. The water will become milky but I promise you it will work MIRACLES for your baby’s eczema. We do this every single night and Noah’s eczema hasn’t come back and its now June.

After Noah’s bath, we like to cover him head to toe in Aveeno baby eczema care night cream and use Aveeno baby eczema cream during the day. You can buy Aveeno oatmeal packets for the bath but it’s very expensive. We just buy a giant bag of oatmeal from Costco for $7 and blend it every night before his bath. We still use the prescribed cream from the doctor when Noah gets a flare up, but other than the odd flare up… this remedy has worked wonders for us.

I hope that this post can give you and your baby some relief. I don’t want anyone to go through what we did trying to figure out what was going on with Noah’s skin. I hope you can take something away from this post and that it can help someone else who’s baby is suffering from baby eczema. Please feel free to reach out and comment what home remedies helped your baby with their baby eczema.