My baby had extremely bad eczema. He was born with nice smooth skin. By the 2nd month we notice red bumps on his face. When we ask the doctor, he simply tell us that it will go away in a few months. Well, it didn't. It spread to his forehead, arm, leg, chest... just about every part his body except his back.
We were pretty clueless of what was going on at the time. Every time we go to the doctor, they seem to be unconcern of the situation. All they tell us is that the redness will eventually go away and prescribed some steroid cream. At the beginning, we were reluctant to put it on steroid. The word "steroid" really scared us, we don't know what kindna long term effect will have on the baby. He was 2 months old and he need steroid? You must be kidding me. However, we had to use steroid creme over the red patches almost daily until he was 14 months. We also started to do some serious research online trying to find a better solution.
Putting on lotion is obvious. We tried just about every time of lotion and creme available. Here is a list creme and lotion we tried.
Johnson and Johnson wash and Lotion -- Don't use it if your baby has eczema. It seems to dry the skin and make it worse.
Aveeno Eczema Oatmeal Bath Wash -- We used this when giving baby a bath, but we don't notice any difference. Oats suppose to have some anti-inflammatory properties. In addition to reducing inflammation, oats are thought to have an antihistamine effect. So it should reduce redness. However, we didn't notice any visible difference after continue for at least 3 month.
Aveeno Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream -- No difference at all.
Triple Creme -- We tried Triple Creme for about a month. It's very thick, but didn't help much.
Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment -- No difference at all.
Cetaphil -- No difference at all
Burt's Bees Baby Bee Creme -- No difference at all. I think it got worse.
Eucerin Creme - No difference at all
California Baby - No difference at all
Gentle Naturals Eczema wash and Creme -- After much research, we start using this Gental Naturals product for bath and creme. It seems to help a bit. The baby seem to scratch less and the redness improved a little. We were so excited, but this product is not available every where. We were able to find a very limited supply at Walmart and Walgreen. We used it for a few months.
CeraVe Creme - We were still very concern as his eczema is still very serious. In researching the web, I found another creme to try. The baby is about 8 month before I found this creme. This really made a dramatic difference to his condition. We put this on immediately after bath and 2 times during the day. This is absolutely the best product we found! This is not very thick and unlike other creme we tried, it disappear few minutes after contacting the skin. It's not greasy. I think the skin absorbs it .
Vanicream - My continue research turn up another creme to try. He was about 1 year when we tried this creme. We used Vanicream a few times thinking this might be better than CeraVe. We notice the cream is a bit greasy. After trying this a few times in replace of CeraVe, we notice his skin got a bit more bumpy and red. We initially stopped and went back to CeraVe. One day, I saw the creme sitting on the counter after I gave my baby a bath, so I grab it and used on him. During the day we stick with CeraVe. This combination seems to work really well. I would say mostly of the eczema is gone by 14 months. There are occupationally flair ups but a bit of cortisone plus the daily use of Vanicream and CeraVe keeps the Eczema in control.
