Cradle Cap - advice please

[Rhiannon]

My friend's five month old daughter has awful cradle cap. She was using olive oil to remove it but now it has come back again and the oil isn't working. Does anyone have any other remedies as it's very unsightly.

My son had a mild dose when he was a baby and what we did was to use grapeseed oil which isn't as rich as olive oil and seemed to work ok. We rubbed it on gently about an hour before he had a hair wash and then rinsed it off, taking the flaky skin with it.

I have been told that Elena Schalburg's products are REALLY good for craddle cap. If you ring her - she can answer your question, maybe send you a sample and some literature. I know her eczema creams are amazing (the best I know) and all her stuff is natural none of all the chemicals.
Elena Schalburg creams- only available by mail order 01892 783 753

My son suffered with this as a baby. We massaged his scalp with baby oil (Body shop, I think) and then, after 5 minutes, washed his hair. This seemed to do the trick. Good luck.

Brush the scalp with a very soft toothbrush when shampooing, this will get rid of it. Then carry on once a week or so, and it won't come back. It's the only thing that worked for my four, cradlecap shampoos just made it worse.

My eldest son had cradle cap and my health visitor at the time recommended that using a soft baby brush you should brush the scales in the "wrong" direction so that they are sticking up and not lying flat, then rub aqueous cream into the scalp gently. This can be bought over the counter at any chemist and is cheap. It is important not to brush the scales down flat otherwise they just accumulate even more. This worked really quickly for my son.

My son suffered with really bad cradle cap when he was smaller. I tried all the treatments eg olive oil, which didn't seem to work. In the end I bought some Dentinox cradle cap shampoo, which really seemed to help, although it did seem to take a while to shift.

Another vote for Dentinox, it worked very well for my son,. My daughter had lots of hair when born, and I did not treat her cradle cap at all, because it could not be seen - and it went away on its own. It is so easy to worry about the cosmetic side of cradle cap, especially if grandmothers comment on it!

I was reading the section on cradlecap and thought these few words might help.
Both my older children suffered from cradle cap when they were small. I used baby oil, rubbed it into their scalp, then combed out all the bits with a baby comb! This works, but the best way is to avoid getting it in the first place!! With my last two children, I used only plain water in their bath for the first few weeks of life, then introduced baby bath gradually. NO Shampoo is needed at all and they both have perfect skin with no cradlecap. If you want to know more go to the link in 'Mears' chat on October 31st 2002, at 11.57 pm, on the 'other subjects' talk titled:Did you know its best to bathe babies in water alone?

my 8 week old started to develop cradle cap - i treated it with olive oil as soon as it appeared and it disappeared completely after a few applications

the trick is to not let it get awful and thick and crusty!
use dentinox cradle cap shampoo... works wonders

don't be scared of rubbing it in. and do 2 applications like it says on the bottle
afterwards give the head a good rub with a towel and it should come out

oh and you can use it as an ordinary shampoo as well to keep it at bay once you've got rid of it