Miss H had a little bit of cradle cap as a baby, but it wasn’t terrible and gradually went away on its own. However, the past few months we’ve noticed that her scalp looked dry and scaly, similar to how it looked with cradle cap. We decided to try and tackle the problem by changing up our normal routine for hair care and finding something to help moisturize and heal her skin.

Every night we give Miss H a bath, and every other night we would wash her hair. But we realized that she probably didn’t need such frequent hair washing if her hair was relatively clean from the day’s activity (i.e. if there wasn’t any food in her hair or sunblock or other substances). We were washing her hair more out of habit than anything. So, our first step was to cut washing down to once or twice a week at the most.

Our second move was to start using jojoba oil. The first night Mr. H applied it I wasn’t home, and Miss H ended up looking super greasy! In order to try and apply it to her scalp Mr. H also got quite a bit of it in her hair. We ended up having to wash it out a couple of days later because it was just too greasy (I’m sure her daycare teachers were wondering what was up with her hair!). From that point on, we just started applying it while she was in the bathtub (i.e. sitting still) with a cotton ball. Since the worst of the dryness was found where Miss H’s natural part was, we’d brush her hair and then rub the oiled up cotton ball along the part, trying to get as much of it on Miss H’s scalp and as little of it on her hair. We applied it every night for about a week or so and saw considerable improvement in her scalp. After that point, we apply it 1-2 times a week.

It’s amazing that just a couple of small changes have made a huge difference in the appearance of Miss H’s scalp. And I can only guess that a dry scalp was also a bit itchy for Miss H, so hopefully she is much more comfortable now. In reading more about jojoba oil, it has great soothing principles and seems like a great product to have on hand to sooth skin. And since a little goes a long way, our bottle should last us for a very long time!

Have you found any useful remedies for dealing with your LO’s dry scalp?