How do you look after your children's skin? Share with HappySkin for a chance to win a £300 voucher

[LucyBMumsnet]

This sponsored discussion is now closed. Thank you to everyone who commented below.

If your child has sensitive, dry or eczema-prone skin you’ve likely tried your fair share of moisturisers, creams and even homemade remedies with little success. This is why HappySkin® has created a range of base layer clothing – designed to soothe and protect their delicate skin. Whether you apply gentle topical treatments or ensure you choose comfortable clothes for your child to wear throughout the day, HappySkin® would like to hear your top parenting hacks for keeping your child’s skin happy and healthy.

Here’s what HappySkin has to say: “At HappySkin® we know how important it is to see your child comfortable in their own skin and HappySkin® base layer clothing is designed to help them do just that. For maximum comfort, the garments include off-set, flat seams to ensure minimal irritation. This uniquely designed clothing heals irritated areas for little ones with dry, sensitive or even mild-to-moderate eczema-prone skin.”

What skin condition does your DC have? What treatments have you tried in the past to manage this condition? What’s the strangest home remedy you have tried, and did it work? Is there a certain fabric or style of clothing that your child feels most comfortable in? What would be your top tip to parents of children with the same condition who are struggling to find a solution?

All who share their stories and opinions on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Insight T&Cs apply

My child suffers severe eczema and I have tried every cream, ointment etc going. Nothing works. Have never ever considered specialist clothing. Definitely will order and trial these, fingers crossed

What skin condition does your DC have?

Atopic eczema

What treatments have you tried in the past to manage this condition?

Normally E45 cream and occasionally corticosteroids

What’s the strangest home remedy you have tried, and did it work?

Cold pressed coconut oil - I have been told it has natural antibacterial properties, and this seems to reduce flareups behind knees - where it is worst.

Is there a certain fabric or style of clothing that your child feels most comfortable in?

cotton shorts and t-shirt

What would be your top tip to parents of children with the same condition who are struggling to find a solution?

Be honest and tell your child what they have, and the creams, cool baths scratch mits and creams are being used for a reason. If it's painful, reassure, and see your pharmacist for advice. (it's often the quickest way of getting treatment)

we have a LO with eczema and we have tried all presciption creams and ointments and find that ointments work better.

Aveeno baby Dermexa is usually mild on my baby's eczema skin and helps to calm down the worst dry patches

Child has eczema. Mostly managed with aveeno and add hydrocortisone cream when needed.

What skin condition does your DC have?
Both have atopic eczema, although the oldest DC has mostly grown out of it.

What treatments have you tried in the past to manage this condition?
Bathing in Oilatum with emulsifying ointment applied regularly, and steroidcreams for real flare ups.

What’s the strangest home remedy you have tried, and did it work?
I haven't really tried any to be honest.

Is there a certain fabric or style of clothing that your child feels most comfortable in?
Cotton clothing.

What would be your top tip to parents of children with the same condition who are struggling to find a solution?
See different Drs, I has to see a different one to usual with youngest DC as I thought they needed a stronger steroid cream but the usual Dr wouldn't prescibe it. A different one did and it helped enormously.

Eczema here, I find that natural fabrics are more comfortable for both DC. Getting overheated makes them itchier.

What skin condition does your DC have?
Atopic eczema
What treatments have you tried in the past to manage this condition?
E45, Aveeno, La Roche-Posay, steroid creams, Vaseline, coconut oil off the top of my head!
What’s the strangest home remedy you have tried, and did it work?
A balm made from goats milk kefir, and unfortunately not!
Is there a certain fabric or style of clothing that your child feels most comfortable in?
He loves synthetic base layer clothing which is terrible as it makes him sweat, id love him to wear more cotton clothing!
What would be your top tip to parents of children with the same condition who are struggling to find a solution?
Keep trying different creams until you get on top of it and ask the GP for a referral to a dermatologist ASAP!

Try tubifast soaked oilaum or similar before bed leave on over night.

My DC have atopic eczema, we've tried many different creams.

For dry skin its important to keep hydrated, DDs skin flared up and it took a while to figure out she'd stopped drinking at school as didn't like her water bottle! Changed that and skin recovered!

My DS uses cetraben twice daily, avoids baths and will shower instead with a soap substitute. DS has tried various steroid creams and antihistamines to help flare ups. It can be very distressing to see him have a flare up. its an ongoing trial and error with creams.

my children are mixed race and have very dry skin we use alot of moisturising cream daily. i love to keep my kids skin soft and creamed. they even love having a good massage and creaming after a bath

My son really suffers with eczema flare ups. We use tube bandages when it's at it's worst on his backs of knees and sometime his arms too. I have found only bathing him once or twice a week helps and bleach baths along with our prescription.

My son had eczema from around one year old. It was never extreme, but also was constant - in one area or another. As he progressed through school, there were times when he was teased by classmates about his red skin and he would come home crying. After years of creams, doctors appointments etc, the solution had been something easily found on the supermarket shelf! O'Keefe's Skin Repair (yellow pump pack) has completely got rid of his eczema! It seems to be mainly glycerine and has certainly worked. Hopefully this info will help some of you. Good luck

My daughter had eczema so bad we were referred to a skin specialist and had to wrap her legs and arms with paste bandages (which had to be stored in the fridge) every day. We also had different creams, lotions and ointments to use. That was several years ago. She no longer sees the specialist. We have the eczema under control but occasionally she gets a flare up, and we still have some bandages to use when we need them. I still haven’t worked out what the triggers are but we got lots of advice from the skin specialist. The main thing is to keep the skin well moisturised.

My son has eczema - he's having a flare up at the moment which on his hands and wrists may be explained by extra hand washing but it's on his face and feet too. I used to have eczema as a child and mine was always triggered by stress (was awful at exam times as a teenager). I hope his isn't because he's only 6! Clothing doesn't make too much difference for him as it tends to affect areas not covered by clothing.

Like other parents, we've tried lots of things. Stuff the pharmacist or GP has suggested such as Oilatum and all the pharmaceutical creams seem to make it far worse - I think he reacts to the paraffin and/or alcohol in them. Aveeno seems Ok as a moisturiser. We've been trying coconut oil which seems OK too. At the moment on the raw sore bits we've been using good old-fashioned Sudocrem which I always think will make it worse as it is perfumed and has lanolin in it, but it seems to help with the raw open cuts.

The best thing by far is getting sunlight on his skin - that helps no end. And swimming in the sea for some reason. Shame holidays are out for now!

I use very little on my sons skin, my second and fourth sons have eczema fairly badly and I’ve found the more creams etc I try the worse it is. So eldest uses diprobase - one of the only things that seemed to work for him, he did need some hydrocortisone on very bad areas but stopped that now and minimal showers/baths if we could.

Youngest uses aveeno, works fantastically and even been using a little as hand cream as his little hands are a mess from all the washing at school. I’ve managed not to use hydrocortisone cream on him but couldn’t use sudocrem on him as it stings him e45 just made him greasy and we use child’s farm washing products but not the moisturiser as that made things worse so it’s finding what works for your child’s skin and sticking with it, I slather on before bed let it soak in and pjs on, stick with cotton and both boys skin is looking really good, just working on my youngest hands

Extra rinse clothes to remove more washing detergent, use fabrics that don't irritate the skin including the bedding and towels I'd recommend a large cotton muslin for drying. Make sure baths are as cool as possible and rinse child with jugs of clean water at end of bath to remove any residue of soap or bath water. This with a good cream should help.

My daughter has eczema.
It mainly on the back of her knees, on her armpits, groin and back.
We only do a bath twice to three times a week with top and tails the rest of the time. We use a medicated wash which is like a cream from the dr when washing abda moisturiser after which is also from the dr.
We cream twice a day in the week and three times a day at weekends, this is due to school.
When washing clothes we use non bio and fairy conditioner. We put her clothes and bedding separately to the rest of the family and put on for two extra rinses at the end of the wash.
Dress in natural cotton if possible.
We found E45 from the dr helps but also baby oil after the bath when the skin is wet really helps a flare up.
In the bath we have a pair of tights tied just under the two full of oats (fresh oats for each bath), it makes the bath look milky and use no soap if we can. Really helps with a flare up.
Keep on top of all medical appts and take pictures with a diary.

My eight year old has eczema. As a baby we found that he was happier in cotton clothes, and that still holds now. Particularly important seems to be cotton pyjamas and bedding--lots of quilt covers are 100% polyester.
Don't have lots of baths with lots of products. The old trick of putting oats in a muslin when running a bath seems to help.
If your child isn't keen on their creams try when they're asleep.
Also try a healthy diet and limit the stuff marketed to children.

My child has eczema and the only thing that makes a difference is child farm products.

DD2 has eczema. We manage it by using childs farm hand soap, shampoo and moisturiser. We only use fairy non bio.
She get it's really badly on her hands so before she goes outside we cream her hands and put gloves on her.
Make sure she rinses all the soap off really well when she washes her hands and only dries them on one of those soft microfibre gym towels. Also trying to get her to pay them dry rather than scrubbing them.
Make sure she sleeps in long sleeves and trousers so she can't scratch as much.
It breaks my heart when she says "I just want my skin to be smooth and not itchy" 😢
We tried coconut oil but it didn't seem to sink into her skin.

We also cut out cows milk for a month but that didn't seem to make much difference.

I have experienced eczema with three children.

One of them was cured by an amazing homeopath age 4.

Another also benefitted from homeopathic treatment, but what really stopped it was reducing baths to the absolute minimum and just washing with a flannel most of the time.

The third has had it badly and is under the supervision of a paediatrician. As others have said, swimming in the sea and hot weather are really good. Pollen and house dust mite are problems. We have tried a multitude of different creams. The whackiest remedy was probably a decoction of blackberry leaves in the bath water which seemed to help a lot.
Although there are people who would say using a homeopath is completely crazy; the fact is that our homeopath has effected some really positive changes for our family.

With regards to clothing; it has to be cheap because it gets terminally saturated with ointments eventually. Using biological washing agents or in fact anything with so much as an optical brightener is completely out. Cotton is preferable, but more expensive.
I would love to try this range of clothing for my child. I’ll need to check what size they go up to.

Child has eczema. We've never tried clothing other than to keep light cotton in summer time.

Drying behind the knees and the elbows immediately after a bath is important. La roche posay and Dead Sea soap work well to keep it at bay, together with surface washing powder.

Sun creams are a nightmare, ultrasound works best but a few days in a row of applications do cause flare ups

What skin condition does your DC have? I have always suffered with eczema in the typical areas of elbows, knees, hairline, eyebrows and eyelids, and torso. I personally have tried every kind of cream, lotion, and potion from the GP, most of which carry epic side effects or actually cause it to worsen to the point of bleeding.

Bit of history... for every ailment mother nature provides a cure...

One day chatting to a family member about it my ezcema and how painful, embarrassing epecially on my face it was and that NOTHING was helping! I felt doomed to be itching like a dog with fleas sitting in a snow shower of snowing flaky skin. Its just tough having had this curse, and getting to 15 where you want to start wearing more make up but cant because you just highlight it (some 23 years ago eeeek), anyway i digress... they mentioned my grans old tricks and tips of using a natural, non chemical ways of treating ailments.

What they told me was that she used to take oat baths, well i just thought this was ridiculous imaging oats floating in the water, with you stewing in a bath or porridge!, then you get up and you look like you've got even more scales than you started with! But i trusted the idea of it, and my Gran always did manage to treat everything, plus being so desperate to get ontop of the thing i hated I didnt have, it held me back from so many things that people take for granted. What did i have to loose other than a blocked plug hole and more scales than a mermaid.

So i thought what if they could be contained in something... a-ha light bulb moment... the sock tights i ended up getting by mistake once, you know when tights were the in thing in the 90's. I did some research and the benefit from oats seems promising... moisturizing [check], anti inflammatory [check], antioxidant [check] itch relieving [check],...

Pan in hand ... put in some oats and covered them just about with water... boiled until soft and water was absorbed. Popped the tights inside a cup to hold them open. scooped all of the oats into the tights and tied to secure them inside. I popped it into a running bath and swooshed around to release all of the goodness and sat inside while it moisturized and took away my itch. After not that long of doing this as often as i had a bath and not a shower, it started to heal, and within about 3 months it was under control. But i still did treat myself to a oat bath every week to fortnight. if i mised the bath, i was in for a awful return... Its all about breaking that cycle and keeping it at bay.I could manage after a year or so with no having the oat bath but instead making an oat cream with coconut oil, honey and olive oil. But i got a job in a childrens nursery and shared my tip with many families and it worked for them also, i felt like medicine woman, just not one that could have time to make the oat creams so i just made sure to apply coconut oil and aloe vera instead to keep me my skin moisturised.

Some years later, i had the patter of tiny feet, with just silky soft skin... i was so happy, i assumed that as my dear baby boy would not have been passed the curse of itch... Sadly within a year that baby soft skin was replaced with redness, scales, blood, and if not stopped infections... So that was it, penny swirling in those donation boxes... lack of sleep does that, ah ha the memory came back. raided the cereal cupboard and my sons backs of the knees in particular went from bleeding soreness that looked like he has been massacred in one of those horror movies you see on tv... to just bumpy within weeks, to completely gone in under a year. He is now 10 and i feel less guilty about passing this on to him and now teach him about looking after his skin so that he can share the knowledge with other.

So there it is a weird family tip for exczema, that actually worked! PLus this works to take out the itch for chicken pox, viral rashes etc etc...

If you try this do let me know if it works for you! Thanks Grandma...