• I remember before my kids were born I spent many hours dreaming of their appearance. Would their eyes be blue, brown, or green? Would we have a red head? None of my visions ever included cradle cap. To be honest, I didn’t even really know what that was. In my mind, all babies were born plump, pink, and adorable. If you have kids you are probably laughing. What I pictured in my mind was a three month old baby. Newborns, while still amazing and beautiful, don’t look anything like what you expect. They are squished, more red than pink, and more often than not surprisingly not chubby. Plus, they are prone to things like baby acne, and cradle cap.

    Cradle cap happens, and our son would grow out of it. She was right, of course, but that stuff is gross!

    My middle son had a terrible case of cradle cap. We tried every remedy presented to us. Starting with the ever popular baby oil. Baby oil worked well. We would soak his little head in the baby oil, let it sit a few minutes and then gently scrub to remove the gunk. Sadly though, it came back within a few hours. Seriously.

    Trying to turn things up a notch, we tried some Selson Blue. This was our pediatrician’s recommendation, although I feel obliged to say that she didn’t think it was a big deal. Cradle cap happens, and our son would grow out of it. She was right, of course, but that stuff is gross! Anyway, the dandruff shampoo (applied extremely sparingly) did in fact help. The stuff did keep coming back though, and that shampoo stank! It certainly didn’t make my baby smell like a baby.

    After a few weeks my poor guy’s head was getting red and irritated. Back to our pediatrician’s office we went. This time, she suggested hydrocortisone to heal the irritation.

    Boy did that work like a charm! We first used the baby oil to clear out the cap, then massaged in a tiny bit of hydrocortisone cream. And just like that, within the week his cradle cap was going away! Hurray! Of course, it could have been that whole time thing, or we just found the combination that worked on our son.