My New Solution for Baby Eczema

Eczema is horrible. Especially on babies. We never really had an issue with this with the other two girls so I was a little caught off guard when I had to start scouring the internet looking for eczema solutions for babies. The "rash" started when she was a few weeks old where I noticed that little bean had red patches on her back. Then it was on her arms and on her thighs. It was never bad enough that the doctor said anything... I even brought it up to him and he said it would go away. Just put some "lotion" on it or leave it alone. Or I think I even heard from someone to not bathe her that often because baby skin needs to not be washed a lot. Well... that didn't work very well. I don't think the itchy skin bothers her. She has never flinched in pain. Since she is only 1 year old, we won't know for a while, but I guess it bothers me. Over the past year I have tried pretty much everything on the market to get this to go away. I have gone on blogs and community boards, asked my friends and doctors. My doctor's current solution is to try hydrocortisone cream 1%. I tried that, then I really didn't want to put that on my daughter's skin so I looked elsewhere again. By the way, NEVER GOOGLE if you should put hydrocortisone on your baby. You won't like what you find. At her one year old checkup I told the doc again and he said to try it again and see if it cleared up. It didn't.

Want to see my arsenal of skin care products? Well here it is. After 7 years of being a mom, here is my stash of diaper creams (which some people told me to apply to her red skin on her back, legs and arms) and lotions for itchy, red, bumpy patches on my kids skin. I'm sure I have spent a few hundred dollars. And this doesn't even count the stuff I got so frustrated with I threw in the garbage.

When I first became a mom, I was showered (literally) with baskets of Johnson & Johnson products for the baby. The familiar yellow bottle of baby shampoo. The little lotions. Even the purple "bedtime bath" set from J&J. Notice there are not J&J bottles in this stash. I found it to be very drying and quickly replaced it. I actually switched when my oldest was a few months old to a product from Arbonne. Well, that stuff smelled great, but it wasn't really in my price range at the time and I couldn't get to my "Arbonne lady" quick enough and I decided it wasn't worth it. Someone bought me some Mustela products which I soon fell in love with. Mustela SMELLS WONDERFUL. You literally want to eat your child when you smell their hair after you use their products. They worked well for my first two kids but for some reason was irritating my third. I noticed they came out with an Eczema line for Mustela so of course I had to try it.

 Another $20 down the drain. Well, it worked for a while. I do recommend the Mustela line for Eczema. It doesn't smell as yummy as it's predecessor but it cleared it up for a bit. Her rough, scaly skin became smooth again. I thought I had hit the goldmine. We tried the wash and the cream. I had read online somewhere that they said that balms are better than lotions. I had a few balms in my bag of tricks..... Bag Balm and Aquafor to name a few. I even went "BIG MONEY" when I decided to throw down the mother load and buy the BABY BEAR SHOP CHEEKY BABY BUTTER which I think was $30+. Wow, I found something that smells better than Mustela. The ONE problem with the Cheeky Baby Butter is that it didn't spread. I was so afraid I was going to rip her skin off when I rubbed it on. It was impossible to apply to a one year old. Poor little one. Had to pretty much hog-tie her down to put it on. So.... I stopped using that.

Ever use Triple Paste??? The diaper cream made of gold. It must be for a small container costs about $18. I do however give Triple Paste to every new mom I know. I love it. It works wonders. I'm really a Butt Paste kind of girl but I have been known to reach for the Triple when the time is right and the butt is so raw that you need a miracle. Not to mention the prescription diaper cream shown above in the mother-load (Vusion) that we have that literally costs $250 without insurance. Talk about liquid gold.....But I digress........ Well... my point about Triple Paste is that now they make an Eczema cream. Apparently everyone is getting into the market. They figure they have the best selling diaper cream on the market they might as well try another area. Does it work? No. Didn't do a thing. And I did try each and every one of these products for two weeks or more.

Now... for my new find. A fellow mother told me about something called "Emily's Skin Soothers" line of products. I was talking to a friend who is on a Facebook board and she was saying that she had heard good things about this natural product. Well, I had actually heard of it and a friend of mine gave me a sample. It was a balm. Great!!!! And it smelled good. Great!!! We are two for two. AND... It was an all natural product that didn't have weird things in it that I couldn't pronounce.

I started using it a few weeks ago when I located the sample. It started to work and I liked the smell, texture and baby bean wasn't screaming when I put it on so I thought I would give it a try.
If you go to the website: http://www.emilyskinsoothers.com - you will read about the story of how the company started. It was created by an acupuncturist father whose daughter (Emily - you guessed it) had skin issues and it got raved reviews.

I placed an order for the BABY AND ADULT SKIN SOOTHER, SUPER DRY SKIN SOOTHER (for me and those harsh Wisconsin winters), DIAPER SOOTHER AND LIQUID SOAP. I was very excited about the liquid soap. We have been using the Mustela Stelatopia Lotion ($20 which is outrageous for this product - but of course I would spend it to make it go away) and Mustela Stelatopia Liquid Soap on baby bean and we were almost out. Score. I didn't want to put $15 down on a product that didn't work. Within the first two weeks of using the balm (Baby and Adult Skin Soother) the redness went away. I bathed her every other day in the soap and started to see a difference. The liquid soap was even used as a shampoo and her hair looked wavy and clean and smelled great. It's now been almost three weeks and I'm happy to report that her scaly skin is almost gone. Wow, what a difference!!!!

The bottom line is that if you are trying different products, this product might work for you. I'm going to place another order and I might even keep a liquid soap in my shower because it seems to do the cleaning job and not have any residue, etc.  I am hoping to get my Health Hut to carry it because I really don't want to pay shipping every time. But I guess it's better than having to buy tons of products and not use them... or worse, throw them out. Now to just sit back and wait for a sale so this mama can afford to buy some more.

I guess it's time to go through the arsenal of crappy products and throw out the stuff that doesn't work. After all, we aren't having any more babies ;)

Happy Baby Thoughts :)
R