Three year old cradle cap - any recommendations for gently shampoo/conditioner?

[Hollygogradient]

My son has very curly blonde hair, it is fine but there is a lot of it. He has had a lot of cradle cap from about three months old and it is still going strong. Recently it has started to become quite thick and when he picked at it pulled out huge clumps of hair out with it. This panicked him and he has since stopped picking at it, except on rare occasions when it is very itchy.

I am not concerned with the appearance of it, I know that lots of children have it and grow out of it, myself included, but am worried that maybe I am using shampoo that is too strong/making it worse. I know that there are other threads about this but they all seem to be a bit older so wanted to make sure that I had a more recent list of suggestions.

Does anyone have any recommendations for gentle shampoo/conditioners?

TIA

DD had cradle cap into the age of 3, we’d just been using Johnson’s Baby Shampoo up until then so definitely gentle.

I did seek advice from the pharmacist (it started to bother her and I didn’t want kids picking up on it at preschool) and on pharmasist’s OK, I used Nizoral twice - once on a Sunday and again the following Wednesday. Completely disappeared and she’s now 5.5 with no recurrence. I know it’s not a ‘gentle’ shampoo but we’d been using mega gentle shampoo and it wasn’t shifting, so thought it was worth a go with a medical one.

Do you remove with coconut oil and a comb?

The best thing that worked for us was putting a cotton wool pad soaked with baby oil on their head for 5/10 mins before bath time and then gently scrubbing head with a baby brush/comb and regular shampoo. It seemed to do the trick.

for it not coming back- my dc had bad eczema which we latter discovered stemmed from a cows milk protein allergy. Some stuff (google) suggests that eczema and cradle cap are linked - I’ll never know if it was confidence or time etc but as I omitted cows milk from my diet - his skin and cradle cap got a lot better.

** coincidence rather !

The only thing I found that worked - though didnt try anything like Nizoral - was using baby oil and a nit comb over a few weeks. Once it went it never came back

The only shampoo that has ever cleared my DS’ scalp is Neutrogena Sensitive Scalp. It can be hard to get though but it foesnt gave the strong smell that some Neutrogena shampoos can have. Savers sometimes have it or Boots and toh could try Amazon?

One of our kids had this. He hated it so in the end I slathered his head in conditioner and used a nitty gritty comb (really, really gently) to remove it. Worked really well. I did pop him into doctor’s for some eczema elsewhere and mentioned if. I thought they’d purse their lips but they said it wasx inspired and had done fhe trick. Never came back.

Nizoral shampoo. The cradle cap is fungal. You need something antifungal.

Just use Nizoral.

It's a medicated anti-fungal treatment which you can buy over the counter. It says it's for adults but it was recommended to me by my SIL who is a GP.

We used it on our 6 month old every 2 days for a couple of weeks and it cleared up his cradle cap. You just use a very small amount and don't leave it on for very long (a minute or so at most) and then wash off thoroughly.

Stop using it once the cradle cap has cleared, and don't wash his hair too frequently. Every 2-3 days is fine.

Now that it's cleared we use Child's Farm OatDerma shampoo - it's for itchy scalp/ sensitive skin and it helps relieve the itch a little bit. We also cover his head in epaderm cream as he has eczema on his scalp, too.

But honestly - Nizoral first - it's the only thing that will actually work.

Head and shoulders dandruff shampoo is amazing gentle enough to be used nearly every washing

I have a Scalp Scrubber (a Tangle Teezer one) and I used that very gently on my daughter’s scalp when the conditioner was on. Very light rubbing and so much of her baby cradle cap came off, 2 years after it first appeared!