Dad Advice: How To Treat A Baby’s Eczema

Sure, the jokes are funny and the memes are on point but this right here is what makes the Life of Dad community the best community of dads in the world. One new dad needs advice and hundreds answer the call. Here’s how the real dads of the Life of Dad Facebook community advise to treat a baby’s eczema.

Ellie Dolliff: Breastfeeding? Have mom stop eating dairy (ALL DAIRY)

Formula fed? Get a dairy free and soy free formula.

Many babies have dairy allergies that are linked to eczema.

Ron Archer: I have eczema on my hands, wrists and sometimes the back of my knees and I use organic coconut oil. Works wonders for me. I’ve had eczema my entire life and have used a variety or prescription creams and natural remedies. Coconut oil by far has worked the best to moisturize my skin, reduce inflammation and irritation and help it heal naturally. In fact, there are a multitude of  Coconut oil suppliers online where you can avail coconuts products.

Tom Petrie: Steroid ointment is the way to go. Need a doctor to prescribe it Put it on and wrap the area in Glad wrap overnight it helps absorb it. 2-3 nights of that and it will make a massive difference.Still needs to be maintained daily with a moisturizing cream. Aveeno is the best moisturizer that I’ve found.

Jekca Gittinger Holland: Eucerin mixed with bacitracin (equal parts) twice a day, but for sure at night. I worked in pharmacy for years, this is all the prescriptions are. My son has the same issue, and all the doctors and pharmacists told us you’re so much better off mixing it as you need it instead of large amounts a head o time. (It starts to separate.) Seriously, its this simple, and you can buy the generics of both at cvs for less than $10 for a years supply!!!! My sons disappeared almost over night.

Matt Riley: Aveeno also makes a good lotion. We found that ours was actually caused by wheat gluten. So we cut that out of his diet. He had half a leg of eczema at the worst. The problem with it being a food allergy is it takes a long time to clear. And allergy testing won’t detect it. They also will give you a steroid cream prescription and have you alternate with triple antibiotic if it’s open and weeping. So far so good. But it was a long road.

Jordan Perrault: Could be your laundry detergent.
Get dye and scent free as a start. If that doesn’t work it may be need to start buying ones with less harsh chemicals.
My kids have sensitive skin and we had to start buying different detergent till found one that would not bother them

Also had to switch up the soaps, shampoos, and body wash as well to get rid of as much harsh chemicals as possible.

Nick Dresch: Cerave lotion works wonders. Also, use unscented soaps. We use dove unscented on our son who has bad eczema and he’s two. We also wash his clothes in either unscented detergent or dreft. Wash anything your baby will come in come in contact with in it. Socks worked better as gloves for us at night time, especially if their hands are really dry. Lather them up and put the socks on. They are harder to pull off than gloves. Prescribed steroid ointment for the bad areas. We went to our sons doctor and he prescribed the ointment, and we also saw an allergist for him who gave us more in depth treatment options!

Tim Dickinson: Our son had severe eczema. At his worst it looked like boiling water was tipped on him. I was scared to take him to hospital lest they accuse me of abuse.

It turned out he had too much yeast build up in his gut. It is normal to have some. The exams was the body trying to get rid of it.

My son was taken of all foods that contained any numbers on the ingredients, all dairy, anything red and anything sweet. He was living on plain rice crackers and rice for the most part. There are fruits he could have and gluten free bread.

The ointments prescribed by doctors were no good because the oils in them aggravated the eczema.

On the plus side, he can now eat whatever he wants with no reactions at all.

This is very overwhelming but with the right help he can conquer it.
Find a good health food shop and speak to them. Make sure they have trained staff for allergies, not just sales staff.

The journey is long, but we’ll worth it.

Flickr photo by Jen and Jim Shunk, used under Creative Commons license.