Cream of the crop: Aveeno Baby

YoungestGirl’s absolute favourite thing in the world is pulling the cat’s fur out, and trying to eat it. Her second favourite thing in the world is waiting until you’ve taken her dirty nappy off, and then reaching her hands in for a good old scratch. If I remember in time, I can sometimes distract her with a book or something else to hold, but she has recently mastered the one-hand book hold, leaving the other one completely free for joyous nappy digging. This is gross enough when it’s just a wet nappy, but it is properly unpleasant when it’s more than just a wet one.

Part of this reason, I think, is YoungestGirl has a touch of eczema. She feels a bit sandpapery all over, and clearly something is uncomfortable for her in the nappy region. I had tried Diprobase with no joy, so when I was given the opportunity to try Aveeno’s range of products (for free! Someone gave me something! This is very exciting!), I thought it would be a good opportunity. Aveeno products are completely natural and made with oatmeal. I am unsure exactly why this is a good thing, but everyone I mention it to nods sagely. I seem to remember my mum making me take a bath in porridge when I had chickenpox, but she is mental, so that may be completely irrelevant.

(Other medical truths held by Mrs Nunn: inhaling menthol crystals will cure most ailments; going outdoors with wet hair will give you a cold; the flu jab causes colds/flu/pestilence. Still, this is one step better than my late grandmother, who insisted that sitting on wet grass would give me a kidney infection.)

I tried three products from the Aveeno range – their baby Soothing Relief Emollient Wash, their barrier cream and the Emollient Cream. I even sneakily tried the Emoillient Wash on YoungestGirl’s impressive crop of cradle cap (try saying that fast) – although sadly with no effect!

Of the three products, my favourite was the barrier cream. YoungestGirl is teething at the moment. I don’t know why teething goes hand-in-hand with terrible nappies, and then nappy rash, but it does. Being my child, and therefore usually doing things the wrong way, she has managed to get a molar through before most of her other teeth. So she has had a touch of nappy rash this week, and the barrier cream has really soothed her. From a bright red bottom at 4 p.m., it was almost completely healed by bedtime – very impressive and a little cream goes a very long way.

I wanted to put a photo here of my child’s bottom but then I remembered safeguarding rules and the fact that ideally I’d like my children still to be speaking to me in fifteen years’ time.

I found the emoillient wash a little difficult to squeeze out of the bottle – especially one-handed as I was trying to stop EldestGirl from playing “apple bobbing” with her younger sister by pushing her face in the water. The emollient wash doesn’t easily lather, so I needed to lather it in my hands before applying to YoungestGirl. After washing with this, then applying the Aveeno cream afterwards, YoungestGirl felt super smooth. She also enjoyed being tickled as I put the cream on… I think she might be faking eczema just to get attention. Over the next few days her eczema definitely improved. Being busy and missing a couple of days, the eczema did come back, so I would advise it’s definitely something that helps with symptoms for us rather than fixing the root cause or providing a long-term cure.

TL;DNR – I liked them. Give them a go.

Just realised I don’t know where you can actually buy these products. This might be why no-one asks me to write reviews for them. Tesco. You can probably buy it at Tesco. If not, give it a Google. Definitely worth a try.