Cradlecap in a 3 Year Old

[TraceyD]

Apologies if this is a duplicate question, but the Search facility is currently unavailable, so I couldn't check.
My 3 year old son has cradlecap (again). He had it quite bad when he was a baby, and it took a long time to get rid of it (he had mild excema when he was a baby, so we've always been in the habit of bathing him only 2-3 times per week - so the bottle seemed to last forever!).
He seemed clear, so we finished with Dentinox approx 3-4 months ago, and he's now using normal shampoo. His hair suddenly became lovely and soft, but obviously it's allowed the cradlecap to return. Does anyone have any advice? Are we stuck with this forever?
He hates us brushing his hair, so I suppose his scalp doesn't get much stimulation (is that an issue?).

Dd is 5.5 and still has cradle cap, she too has mild excema. I brush her hair all the time so that's nothing to do with it. I'm now trying rubbing a little olive oil into her scalp after washing her hair.

No answers I'm afraid, but I'll be watching to see if you get any!

you could try just massaging his scalp with warm olive oil to loosen it... but imo dentinox works a lot better!

I would imagine that brushing his hair might help as it may help get rid of excess skin cells etc etc...

what shampoo have you been using on him? and how often do you wash it? admittedly ds doesn't have a huge amount of hair, but I only do his once a week

I'd be fascinated in any advice too. My ds has always had cradle cap. I 've only ever washed his hair once a week with Johnsons baby shampoo, never tried any treatments and thought he would 'grow out of it' .He's now 3y 2m and it's going nowhere. What should i try?

I only wash dd's once a week too - perhaps we're not washing their hair often enough!
I use baby shampoo only.

Hi Tracey. My 3.5 year old ds has always had cradle cap in various degrees of severity. It was at it's worst before Christmas when it actually got infected. The GP prescribed something antifungal which cleared up the infection but never got rid of the original cradle cap.

He's been prescribed Capasal which is working really well and his head is looking almost completey clear for the first time ever. It's pretty powerful stuff and stinks of mothballs. It's also a nightmare if it gets in his eyes, but it's doing the job.

Basically only time will clear it up, but in th meantime you want to prevent infection by keeping the scalp as clear as possible.

Olive oil massaged on at night and then washed out and combed through in the morning might be a milder way to do it, but would be a bit of a faff really.

Don't try to get rid of the bits by peeling or combing when his head is dry. We tried that with ds once and a great big clump of hair came out too - he had a thin patch for ages .

I would see your GP and say that Dentinox isn't cutting it in the longterm and see what s/he says.

X-posts about the olive oil

Oh dear TraceyD - think I'm going to get the prize here. My ds2 is 6.5 and STILL has cradle crap. Sorry cap. Really he does. I have olive oiled it, used grown-up conditioner (always good to have a go at the cradle cap whilst going for the nits too) but keeps on coming back. Must admit have noticed a slight improvement since he's been taking fish oils - but whether this is coincidence or just a happy by-product I don't know.

I read in one of the parenting masgaxines that olive oil should be rubbed in in the morning then washed out at night to stop the pores blocking. I used dentinox on my son which cleared up straight away.