dry winter skin

R

reei

Registered User
help,, my bb's skin is very dry during winter. so dry , that she has to wake up in the middle of the night to scratch her tummy. i 've tried, sebamed, kiehl, lanolin cream but.. not effective. i bath her on alternate days , hot water with olive oil, but still her skin is dry.

please advise what to do . thanks.
 
Hi, Reei,

If your baby girl's skin is simply 'dry' due to the dry winter weather without any rashes or spots, like my baby boy, I would recommend using the Mustela's COLD CREAM. This is the brand I have been using on my baby boy since he was 2 months old, when his facial skin was as rough as a sandpaper. After applying the COLD CREAM on his face for a couple of days, his skin became soft. Now I rely heavily on this cream to keep his facial skin from being dried-up. COLD CREAM is a bit thick but very good for softening my baby's dry skin. For day-to-day maintenance, I use Mustela's Bebe Facial Cream, which is less thick than COLD CREAM.

But, if there are any rashes or spots are seen on your baby girl's face, I would suggest you take her to see a dermatologist or a GP. I wouldn't recommend any cream without medical advice on her, which might worsen her condition.

Hope it helps.
 
You might also want to try pharmaceutical grade, generic Aqueous Cream. I get them in 500g tubs at Mannings or Watson's. We slather it on the children after their bath which they take before going to bed. We also reapply throughout the day whenever their skin is dry. My husband had pretty severe childhood eczema and both children had mild infant eczema, so our family doctor recommended this since their birth as a precaution.

If you're using a heater in the children's room, try to use one with a humidifier or use it along with humidifier. You might also switch from baby soap to a non-soap cleanser, such as Cetaphil for her bath. Hot water is also more drying, so try a comfortably warm instead of hot bath. I use a heater in the bathroom so that it doesn't feel so cold even when the bathwater is only warm. Good luck!
 
@Miriam228, A paediatrician prescribed Cetaphil for me over thirty years ago, so I think the answer is still yes! Good luck!
 
Cetaphil doesn't seem to have an adult/child version. It doesn't have any fragrance, so there really is no reason to differentiate (other products' child versions usually just means they use less fragrance). Hope this helps. I also just replied to your other post.
 
My son's got slight ezcema and his skin is very dry. I've tried all the creams mentioned previously but the best method I've found is slab sugar which you can get for $6 a pack from the supermarket. Melt some slab sugar in a little bit of water and when cooled, pour a couple of tablespoon in the bath, depending on the amount of water you have. The water should be a pale yellow colour and only slightly sweet. Sometimes I add a couple of drop of QV oil if the weather is particularly dry. No need to rinse. The skin comes out soft and very smooth. Better than any cream I've tried and very cheap too!! Such a wonderful old remedy!! I usually melt the whole pack and put the melted sugar in a glass jar. A pack of sugar should last about a week .
 
Sounds interesting Query! However, my daughter's face is dryer than her body. Can I use this method for her face?
 
@Miriam228, Cetaphil is available at any pharmacy. Watson's and Mannings definitely carry it. I had one paediatrician that warned me that Johnson's and Johnson's fragrance is pretty strong and a lot of children do react to it. Why don't you finish it up yourself and get your daughter the Cetaphil?

I would think the sugar remedy would be fine on the face - completely organic and probably tasty, too. The bittergourd remedy that we use is fine for the face, but won't taste as good. :)

By the way, I couldn't find the trail on eczema that I wrote you earlier, but I meant to say that you should be going to the paediatrician only after you've tried identifying the allergen - e.g., soap, food, formula, clothing, temperature, humidity, etc. Most pediatricians will ask that you do this anyway before they're willing to prescribe a topical steroid for so young a child. This should save you a trip!
 
Hi Miriam,

Just wanted to add to yonge's very sensible advice :) I have bottles of baby toiletries which are unopened or only slightly used because my baby was diagnosed with eczema at a few weeks of age. As we were already seeing a paediatrician for his growth checks and vaccinations, he proceeded to treat the eczema. Not sure how old your baby is but my baby's skin was really dry almost from birth and then he was diagnosed with eczema. We never bathe him with soap as it is not only drying to the skin, sometimes they contain all sorts of things which irritate sensitive skin. So if your baby's skin is already very dry, I wouldn't wait to finish the bottle of J&J before trying something else. Sometimes the soap itself might be the very cause?

Aqueous cream is a good moisturiser (you can use it all over the body and face) if you suspect sensitivity to other products. You can even make up more concentrated versions of aq. cream using the ointment base if your baby's skin is really dry (which was what we were advised to do). You can use the same ointment base as a soap substitute.

On identifying the allergen, one way to do so is to eliminate them one at a time - not all at once otherwise you won't know which one's responsible. But in my opinion, if your baby subsequently breaks out in a rash that doesn't go away in a few days, I would go see the doctor about it - if it's eczema, the best treatment is to treat it as early as possible and not let it deteriorate!

Having said all that, your baby may only be having a case of dry skin - hope that's the case! All the best.
 
Hi Bumbeeno,

Thanks for your very detailed advise!

Actually, my daughter is now 4.5 months old and started to have skin "problems" since about 2 wks ago, when HK was very cold. We used the heater for 2 nights in the nursery, and her face became obviously very very dry & rough (body is ok). So we applied Chicco's Soft Moisturizing Cream on her. Didn't seem to work too much. Then the relative humidity continued to drop & drop & drop, causing much drier cheeks.

Then about 3-4 days ago, started to see some red spots on her earlobes and neck area (not dry/rough) and wondered whether it's the continuous dry skin or allergic reaction to smthg that she wore. (Coincidentally, she started to wear a light thin fleece cardigan/jacket which had a higher collar.) Immediately stopped wearing the fleece jacket and the red spots have gradually diminished. As for her face, we used Vaseline on her very severe dry & rough cheeks and it seems to be helping, or it seems so, unless it's the humidity which is going back up again...!! As for her body, her skin is slightly red/pink in the folds: neckline, arms and back of legs. (Am using Mustela's Vitamin Barrier Cream, since it contains zinc and can dry the folds. Is this correct? Why are the folds red? Caused by the sweat?)

As there seems to be so many factors and uncertainties, that's why I posted a link "Eczema, Allergy, Rash or Extreme Dry Weather??" in which just Yonge has replied to. I really don't know whether my little one has a eczema or not!!

As for the J & J milk bath, she has been using it since day one, and it seemed ok - maybe becoz she was born in mid-July and it was so hot then! But I am not using her bath water to clean her face. I'm using drinking water and cotton pads to clean her face daily, followed by a moisturizer/Vaseline. She has sweaty hands & feet, so does that mean her skin is normal?

So many continuous questions as I'm a first time mother!!!!

Sorry & thanks for all your advise!!! Much appreciated!!!

Thanks!
 
Oops, it looks like I have gotten the posters a little mixed up! Hopefully the posts will still be relevant.

Miriam, my son is also about 4.5 months old :) He also had the redness in the folds of the skin (better now, but still has the occasional flare-up) and it's really common because babies are quite chubby so the folds are not usually exposed to the air and hence never quite dry. I think it's quite common: it's called intertrigo and there are varying degrees of redness. My son had it worst in the fold of his neck but it was also in the armpits and the fold between the thighs and groin. His paediatrician prescribed a cream to get a headstart on getting it better, because at that point it was really weepy and red, but once it's dry all you need to do is to make sure it's dry e.g. after a bath/feed. Things started to really improve when he started to hold his head up consistently and spend lots of time on his tummy - the neck area stayed dry. I tried using zinc oxide cream as well as baby cornstarch to dry the folds but I found they just made the area a bit yucky and the cream/cornstarch accumulated in the fold and was difficult to clean. So I just patted dry after each bath/nappy change/feed. Babies are supposed to grow out of this once they get older... and less chubby :)

As to figuring out what it is... if the rashes don't go away after many days or get a lot worse and even after you've stopped using the fleece and tried all the remedies, for your own peace of mind you could decide to see the doctor about it. I have done that a couple of times because I was tired of guessing!

Sweaty hands and feet are very normal for young babies :) Their circulation system is still quite immature so they overcompensate!

Don't worry about the numerous questions - I'm a first-time mum too and am learning through all the 'trials' that my son and I experience. I still have loads of questions too and this is a great place to sound out our uncertainties - many other mums have felt the same way, had the same worries as we do!
 
i wash my son's hair and face in the sugar water he bathes in and they become very soft too. It's totally naturally so I don't think it will cause any harm to anywhere you apply it on the body.
 
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