An Ocean of Lotion

Georgia has some serious cradle cap and baby eczema. Boooooo!
The good thing is that at this point, it seems to be bothering her parents (okay, her mom) far worse than it's bothering her. She does scratch at her eyes and head sometimes because it itches, and I recently caught her scratching at her thigh, too. But so far, it's not the horrible stuff you read about, where the poor child scratches so much that it can't sleep, and even makes itself bleed, thus causing infection and making the problem worse. Let's hope that Georgia's case is one that will improve with age, and with a change of seasons (which, unfortunately, won't happen around here until about June). For now, we're doing our best to slather her up in a variety of different lotions several times a day, including the occasional use of some prescription strength hydrocortisone cream. The doctor also has us using Cetaphil in the bath, and Neotrogena T-gel shampoo, after first coating her head in olive oil. So, she sometimes smells more like a Greek salad or a freshly repaved parking lot than that familiar Johnson & Johnson's new baby smell, but hey, that's okay. Actually, I keep changing the daily regimen with new attempts so often that it's difficult to tell what's working. Oh, and I temporarily gave up dairy in my diet, since there is often a link between eczema and a sensitivity to certain milk proteins, which she would be getting via the breastmilk. We discovered that it made no difference in Georgia's case. Which is bad in terms of us solving the eczema mystery (it can be caused by many things), but great for me since I love drinking TONS of skim milk and was really missing it. I know it probably sounds horribly vain and shallow for me to be concerned about something that at this point is primarily a cosmetic issue, but on the other hand, mothers are made to worry, right? In all seriousness, though, this has been a good reminder of the "beauty is on the inside" lesson, and a chance to remember to be extremely grateful that our child does not have any serious health problems.
The weird thing about eczema is that it comes and goes, seemingly without reason. Some days, Georgia looks like this:

And other days, she looks more like this:

(Please excuse the plumber butt...this was done solely for illustrative purposes to highlight the redness.)