My first bit of advice is that if you feel your child might have cradle cap would be to Google it. You will feel so much better about your child's few flakes when you see what some "parents" allow their child's head to accumulate to. My husband thought that Inga's was really bad and would tell other people how terrible it was until I showed him that which is the horror of Google Images.
Cradle cap can be a confusing issue to deal with and I was given many different conflicting responses from people on how to fix it. First I was told that it is dry skin attaching itself to her oily scalp so you should wash her hair daily. But then, my doctor said that it is basically dandruff from dry skin and I should only wash her hair twice a week at most. Well what is it?! Is it oily skin or dry skin??? I still don't really know to this day. But I do know that the steps I took to get rid of it worked like a charm and it hasn't come back.
One of the things that I did try that just wasn't cutting it was the crazy French Mustela Stelaker Cream. By French I mean that there are like 2 words on the bottle in English. This totally satisfied my yuppy bigger is better parenting style. I mean it's French....it has to be good right? For all I know it could have been my severe cheapness by not putting enough on her scalp since it is flipping expensive or just my patience with not sticking with it. It said to put it on her overnight and then give her a bath in the morning. Instead I put it on during the day and then gave her a bath at her normal time at night. Maybe french people give baths to babies in the morning, but I don't know many moms here that do. The stuff smells like chemicals and it made her hair pretty gross looking. Anyways, it may work for you but it just wasn't really up my alley.
The steps that I took to get rid of it spanned over about a week and I stress that Inga's was really mild so it might take a few more "treatments" for your child. This Safety 1st Grooming Kit has the two different brushes that I used on her.
- First I would take one of her little combs from the grooming kit and when she was sleeping I would lightly drag the comb along her scalp. I would separate her hair and drag it along the flakes to loosen them. This worked better than I even anticipated since it removed almost all of the flakes. I did this randomly over a few days and she would never wake up from me doing this. That is how lightly you push that little comb back and forth.
- The next step that I did was to be done in the bath tub. You can use any kind of oil you want, but I just used some baby oil that was sitting in the bathroom already. You could use coconut or olive oil if you are feeling flashy. I took a very small amount of oil and put it on her scalp all over and I let it sit while I washed the rest of her body and face. Now if you are as blessed as me to have your child love the bath then this will be pretty darn easy. But if you have a child that wants to vomit and scream if they even see water, you might have a bit of an ordeal on your hands.
- After I let the oil sit for a bit, I took the bristle brush from the grooming kit I mentioned and just moved it around her head in circular motions. No need to push at all...don't need to create anymore soft spots. Once I did that I washed her hair. This part got to be a bit obnoxious. Make sure you get all the oil out of their hair unlike me! I washed her hair like I normally would and when it started to dry I noticed it was still oily so I had to wash it again on the dining room table. This could be because the soap-free shampoo that I use is not strong enough or doesn't have enough of that oil fighting power that something that is all delicious and chemically might. So after I washed her hair again and let it dry, all the flakes were gone and those little buggers have not been back since!
What did you do to get rid of your childs cradle cap?
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