Newborns with Dry Skin (Not Eczema)

A. The Appearance of a Newborn Baby’s Dry Skin

Your baby has dry skin on face, back, feet or arm ? It can be a very first sign of eczema in babies. Don’t panic, it can be simply a baby dry skin symptom. However if you don’t take care of it enough, it can become more serious and, in the worst case, it can develop into a mild form of eczema.

This little article is to help you to differentiate Eczema in babies and Dry skin in babies and how to take care properly of your newborn with dry skin.

B. Causes of Dry Skin in babies

Your newborn skin system is not yet fully developed, it’s still very thin and sensitive. That’s why environmental elements can easily impact on it:

·         Some babies can have more dry skin than the other however all of them are at high risk during winter time. 2 reasons: the cold outdoors and the artificial heat indoors.

·         In summer a baby can have dry skin as well if you put him/her in sun too long time

·         Environment change, weather change: temperature, humidity, chlorinated water in swimming pool, natural salt of the ocean…

 You know now how is sensitive your baby skin.

C. Is Dry Skin a Symptom of Eczema?

Yes it can be if you let it develop for long time.

Most people don't’ know the difference between Eczema and Dry skin in babies. In fact, they are very different:

·         Normal dry skin: is just dry and flaky, it’s normally very easy to treat.

·         Eczema: it’s hurtful, causing skin crack and bleed.

Check out our full article reporting on the technicaldifference between Eczema and Dry skin in babies with images and very detailed information + caring tips.

D. Some very simple but effective tips for baby healthy skin:

·         Don’t bath your baby more than you absolutely need to.

·         Hydrocortizone is another ingredient to look out for.

·         Dry your baby as soon as they’re out of the bath.

·         Keep a tub of petroleum jelly handy at all times.

·         Wrap your baby up nice and warm when it’s cold

·         Try to find baby products that contain oatmeal.

Tips for Breast-feeding a Baby

About breastfeeding

Have you never tried breastfeeding your baby before ? You should try it out, at least once, it’s a very special experience. Some says that breast-feeding a baby is an essential way of life in the beginning, it seems that make the relationship between you and your baby stronger. However, sometime it can be daunting, but don’t worry, there are a lot of products that can make you comfortable. We can list out here some very userful products such as: The Medela Harmony manual breast pump or Lansinoh Breastmilk storagebags.

As time goes on, you and your baby will become very familiar and comfortable with breastfeeding stuff, at some point your baby will not accept other milk resources. Experts say that we can keep breastfeeding a baby until he/she gets 6 months old. After that you, you should add more food resources into her/his menu. Here comes another question:

Why Should I Stop Breastfeeding a Baby?

It’s mostly because mother will not free enough to breastfeed her baby all the time. Then an other reason, and very important one is after the time of 6 first months, baby needs other food resources to be more independent and accustomed to the environment. At the beginning, your baby maybe will lose weight but in the long run, everything will be fine!

When to Stop Breast-feeding a Baby

Normally expert say mother should stop breast-feeding after 6 months old, however I’ve seen some mothers still keep breastfeeding their baby until 2 years old or until when the baby refuse to take it. It depends really on you/on your schedule.

In all the case, you need encourage your baby to take additional foods after 6 months old.

How to Stop Breast-feeding a Baby

• Don’t just stop all of a sudden
• Follow the rules: The general rule is that you breastfeed exclusively for six months.
• When your child reaches one year’s old: on their first birthday, assess their general progress.
• Putting things into action: when you decide your baby is ready, take things slowly
• See full tips on how to stopbreastfeeding a baby on our baby blog

What if Your Baby Doesn’t Want to Stop Breast-feeding?

• Try to find the drinking routine of the baby and modify it slowly, drive it little by little onto solid foods .
• Once you establish a routine, try to get more control on the situation: make it the way your baby can still be breastfed however lesser on frequency and on quantity.

Read out our full article onbreastfeeding a baby on our baby blog.

Baby Throw Up Mucus: understanding and treatment

Introduction

As new parents, you’ve been surely very worried facing baby vomiting/baby throw up mucus problem. Don’t worry that much, it happens to every baby in the world since their digestive system is still immature. In this little article we’ll go deeper in this topic to see what is baby throw up mucus phenomenon causes and how to treat it at home and when you should take it serious. Read our full article on the “babythrow up mucus” topic here.

1. Causes of Baby Throw Up Mucus

Image caption: Understand the baby vomiting phenomenon helps you to not having usefulness worries.

As mentioned above, baby can have baby vomiting issue quite regularly in their baby-life, it’s normal that happens since their digestive system is not working perfectly yet. A little thing may trigger baby throw up mucus. In general, we can list out cases as below:

Overfeeding

Gassy tummy

Fast milk flow: Take your time and give your baby time to digest smoothly his milk.

Allergies

Other illness infection: Fever can trigger baby vomiting issue.

2. How to control baby throw up mucus?

As parent, you must be very calm facing this issue. The first thing when your baby is throwing up mucus is to avoid that can stuck his/her breathing, it’s primordial. Baby in laying-up position while vomiting is absolutely to be avoided.

• Reduce amount of milk baby takes in each time
• Control milk flow while feeding
• Burp baby after feeding: very important, that helps baby digest better and throw away air while eating. You can ease him/her by handling the baby in standing position, and clap slightly on his/her back. The below video will more speaking:

More tips on babybreastfeeding on our forbabycare blog.

3. When it would be serious ?

It happens many time per days. It’s normal that your baby could throw up a little bit of mucus after feeding time. However when it happens many times per day, it’s not a good sign. Your baby could get an allergy or more serious: a stomach damage.

It’s coming along with breathing issues on your baby.

Baby vomiting mucus with orange, green or bright yellow fluid or dark red one. That means your baby has a serious issue with his/her stomach. You should call your pediatrician as soon as possible.

How to Bathe your Newborn

Being new parent, it’s always stressful. Everyone tells you the newborn is super sensitive and you should be extra careful on looking after her. However, believe me, no matter how many of advices you can remember, no matter thousand of books/articles about baby care you’ve read, you will not know how to hold properly your baby at the first times. In this article we’re talking how to bathe a newborn, it’s even much more tricky!

However, don’t worry, everything will be on track with practices. You just should go slowly and don’t think too much. For how holding properly your baby, you just need to keep her neck/head and her back supported. The neck support is very important because newborn’s neck is still weak and can not hold the head yet.

On the other hand regarding “how to bathe a newborn”, the key point is the preparation. The preparation need to be perfect because once you start bathing your newborn, you will not be able to leave her alone, even for a second.

Initial Preparation

You need to decide what supplies needed for bathing your newborn and make it ready 100%. Item list you can base on:

•  A tub, baby lotion, baby soap, a mug for pouring water, two washcloths, and cotton balls for wiping residual water from your baby’s eyes and ears.
•  Bath toys for your baby
• A soft fluffy towel, baby oil or lotion, a diaper, diaper ointment, and clean clothes.
•  Recommended: rubbing alcohol to clean the umbilical cord area. Read more in our full article on how to bathe yournewborn.
• Optional: baby powder.

Getting the Bath Ready

• Get the baby bath tub ready. FYI standard or full-sized tubs are too deep and big for bathing a newborn. If you don’t have baby tub, use your kitchen sink instead. In this case, do clean up your kitchen sink first in hot water.
• Fill the tub with/sink with warm water. Check the water temperature by your backhand or by one of your arms. It’s more obvious than checking by hands since you’ve touched hot water by hands in above step.

Bathing a Newborn

• Check out all stepsto bathe a newborn on our baby blog.

Fever in Infants: How to Care for your Baby when they have a Fever

What is fever in infants ?

We all know a fever is an abnormally high body temperature. Technically the key number is 98.6 F(37C), however in reality, we consider a person has a fever when his body temperature is above 100.4 F (38C). This little article will make you understand clearly about the fever in infants so that you, as a parent, you will know what to do when your baby has fever.

How can I check out the baby body temperature?

You can check out your baby body temperature first with your hand. To have a specific temperature to see if you need bring your baby to the doctor, you can use a thermometer. Some thermometer is better than other , mostly in term of rapidity measuring.

Check out allamazon thermometer in deals in the full article on our baby blog.

Common causes of fever in Infants

We can list out here some very common causes of fever in babies/infants: teething, vaccination, night sweats and get cold. Other than that there are more serious cause of fever:

•  Rubella
•  Convulsion Fever, or Febrile seizures as it’s more commonly known
•  Malaria
•  Flu

High Fever in Babies Less Than Three Months.

•   0-28 days old and 38 C or higher: you need to bring him/her to hospital right away.
•  29-90 days old considered as high risk if they have any of the following:  a toxic clinical appearance, an abnormal cry, or a fever of 38.5 C or higher. In this case you should bring him/her to hospital as well.

On the other cases, check out now how taking Care ofYour Baby with a Fever at Home in our baby blog.