Baby Care : How to Prevent or Improve Newborn Baby's Cradle Cap

Cradle cap might seem a bit unsightly on your brand new, newborn adorable baby. If and when you see the cradle cap, you will be eager to find a remedy to get rid of the cradle cap as soon as possible. You are probably going to be thinking, "Oh baby, that is not a good look." You will want to improve the appearance of the cradle cap as soon as you can. It can be quite disconcerting to see cradle cap at first. It might even make you, the new Mommy (or Daddy or other caregiver such as Grandma) worry a little bit but it is nothing to worry about and cradle cap can be remedied relatively easily.

When your baby is just born, you will find that all his newborn skin begins to peel and shed to make way for fresh skin. Just allow this transition to run its course. Keep the baby's skin clean and moisturized. For the scalp specifically, you might find that a condition known as cradle cap occurs.

The baby seems to have quite a bit of dead skin and flaking in the scalp and forehead resembling dandruff. The best way to speed the healing of this condition is to take steps when you wash your baby's hair.

After rinsing out a gentle baby shampoo/conditioner, apply a few drops of baby oil constituted mainly of mineral oil to the baby's hair and hairline while it is still soaking wet. You can use a couple of drops of olive oil if you would prefer it to baby oil.

You can then take a comb and brush to groom the baby's hair while it is still wet. It is important to be careful about using a comb that is gentle and will not be damaging to the baby's fine hair or harsh to his tender scalp.

The best combs and brushes for babies are often found in comprehensive baby first aid kits that also contain thermometers, medicine droppers, nail clippers, nasal aspirators and other items.

The hairbrush in a baby first aid kit is usually ultra soft.

When you take these steps noted above each time you wash your baby's hair, you will notice great improvements with each combing. The flakes will be combed right out of your baby's hair and within 1-2 weeks, you should see no flakes at all when you wash, apply oil and comb/brush your baby's hair.

The good effects are significant. The cradle cap is much more improved when you comb through the wet hair as opposed to dry hair.

If you do not see the cradle cap appear at all during the first few weeks of your newborn baby's life, you can still comb through his or her wet hair with some baby oil as a preventive measure. When you do this, even if the cradle cap appears later on, it might not be as bad as if you had not done it.