Eczema, characterized by dry or wet itchy and inflamed patches of skin, is common among babies, toddlers and young children. Natural remedies for baby eczema include topical use of coconut oil, calendula slave, or apple cider vinegar. There are also vitamins, supplements and dietary changes that may be helpful for children who suffer with eczema.
Topical Natural Cures for Eczema in Children
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is a simple natural remedy to start with when trying to relieve a child’s eczema. This can be used as often as needed. Diluted Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar is another natural treatment that has helped may Earth Clinic Readers. Add 2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar to 1 cup of water, and apply with a cotton ball as needed, even every couple of hours. The mixture can be made stronger or weaker depending upon how the child responds to this treatment. A salve made with the herb Calendula in it may be of help, if you can find a quality salve, or better yet, make your own!
Mama’s Eczema Salve for Children
- Fill a pint jar with dry Calendula flowers.
- Cover flowers with oil. Equal parts of Castor Oil, Olive Oil, and Extra Virgin Coconut Oil would be ideal. Do not use hydrogenated oil.
- Cover jar.
- Place in a warm place and stir daily for 2 weeks.
- Strain out flowers with a piece of old, clean t-shirt.
- Warm oil in a double boiler.
- For every 4 ounces of oil, melt in 2 Tablespoon of beeswax pastilles. If you prefer it to be a harder salve, add a little more beeswax. If you prefer it softer, use a little less beeswax.
- Pour into a clean jar.
Store in a cool dry place. Use as often as desired for relief from eczema and other rashes.
Dietary Changes and Supplements for Childhood Eczema
A cod liver supplement helps some children with their eczema.
Food allergies often come along side eczema. Common allergens are milk, wheat, soy and corn. Reducing processed foods and sugar will encourage a child to take in more nutrient dense foods.
An apple a day and milk kefir are two excellent foods for children with eczema.
A teaspoon of Blackstrap Molasses each day is even better than a vitamin pill for children. It contains calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, potassium and some b-vitamins.
The herb nettle is a gentle, nutritious, blood purifying herb that may help children with eczema. Nettle can be taken in the form of a tea or a tincture.
Healing Baths for Eczema Relief
Many children enjoy taking a bath. Adding a cup of baking soda, epsom salt or apple cider vinegar to the bath will make it a healing bath. The aforementioned additions to a bath have helped some with eczema. It is an inexpensive and pleasant method for healing.
DIY Laundry Soap
Sometimes eczema is aggravated by chemicals in laundry soap and fabric softeners. Consider making your own laundry powder with simple and natural ingredients.
If you have a remedy for childhood eczema, please send us some feedback!
Continue reading below for reviews from our readers who have tried various natural cures to heal their child from eczema.
My infant sons eczema worsened over the course of a year. His integrative dermatologist suggested we buy black currant seed oil capsules and break them and rub them in to his back or stomach. We did this daily along with a few other things and his eczema cleared up 95%. It was severe before with raw red sores covering his face and 75% of his body. He now looks like a different child.
The other things we are giving him are: probiotics, fish oil, raw organic shea butter to moisturize, and weekly trips to swim in the ocean and absorb a lot of vitamin d.
I believe the black currant seed oil was the main factor in his recovery. Google it – there are studies that show this is effective for infant eczema. Hope this helps!
I found something that will solve the issue of eczema for children or adults. Do a search for Magnesium Oil. Baths are supposed to be the best solution for children because putting oil or lotion directly on the affected area will tend to burn or sting so start with the bath for children then you can gradually go to oil or lotion. Read all the information you can on our bodies needing magnesium and why the transdermal method is the best.
I just wanted to make a comment on the Crisco. My granddaughter who is 2 has had eczema since birth. She was having a severe flare last week and one of her doctors had said to try Crisco. He said is sound weird but it works for some. We my daughter called me today because she had just left the doctors office today because she now has severe hives on top of her eczema due to an allergic reaction to the Crisco. Be careful.
It's costly but try vitamin e for eczema. My 2 year old son has eczema and it's the only thing that works consistently and quickly. Apply over night all over your body or troubled areas only (to save costs) and you should be pleased with the over night results. Repeat every night or anytime you are lounging around. Vitamin E is a underestimated solution!
What worked for my daughter's eczema – yogurt and fish oil capsules. (or Krill oil caps, which are much smaller than traditional fish oil caps.)
I had her take one fish oil capsule and eat a container of yogurt at least once a day – twice, if possible.
After having tried many, many natural treatments for her eczema, this one worked!
Iodine works!! I was so desperate to help my son! I have tried every cream and steroid under the son since he was born. Last night I coated him with iodine, vitamin e oil and honey and wrapped with sports tape. This morning, no itching for the first time in years! Thank you……. Thank you….. This is truly miraculous!!! Tishua
Kelli that is awesome. I just started giving my 2 yr old probiotics. It has been 3 days and I have seen a difference in her skin already!! Do you do one packet daily? Do you plan on doing this long term? I am so excited that the probiotics may be helping her!!!
Apple Cider Vinegar for eczema.
My 3 year old was diagnosed with atopic eczema, 4 months ago. She has been getting breakouts constantly. I read about people using ACV for eczema relief so I tried it. I wish to share that after dabbing the ACV diluted for a week on the rash behind her ear I saw positive results, so I continued. The rash was completely gone by the end of 3 weeks. There were other breakouts on her arms but those areas were severley dry and damaged so the ACV stings too much as the skin is broken and she is so young. Since then, any new breakouts have been deterred by ACV application so that the areas don't get damaged to the point of skin breakage. (2 tsp to 8 ounces water, applied with cotton approx. 6-8 times daily.)
Hi, I am sharing our own story. Our son had eczema since his birth. We had so many terrible nights, him scratching all night and us watching helplessely. We tried everything from steroid to natural home made remedies to ayurveda remedies to homeopathy, But all in vain. But things changed when our washer broke down and we bought the top of the line LG washer that has "Sanitizing wash cycle". After using the new washer our son's eczema got better within days. And this is how we believe it worked.
We were applying a lot of vaseline and aquaphor to his skin regularly as doctors reccomend. Even though we were using organic cotton clothes the vaseline was getting absorbed in the fiber of the cotton and had made a film inside the fabric. That would not only negate the purpose of using cotton but make it worse. It was breeding ground for bacteria. His clothes would feel sticky from inside even though they were looking clean. We tried boiling clothes in order to get rid of the vaseline but made no difference. But the new washer uses the sanitizing cycle and gets rid of it. It takes more than twice the time to run the cycle but the results are amazing.
For us it was nothing short of a miracle. I feel the pain of all the parents and the kids that are going through this terrible experience. But , please check if a simple change like this can make a difference in your case. I hope for the best for everyone.
Just wanted to add to the long list of testimonies of the wonders of ACV. My 8 year old daughter has suffered greatly from allergies and severe eczema on her face, arms, legs. I have tried everything in the book, steroid creams that work a little while (which is not good for the face), Aveeno, Eucerin, Allegra, Zyrtec, Benedryl, you name it, I've tried it. After reading so many postings about how ACV helped with eczema, I decided to try a 50/50 solution on my daughter last night due to a bad eczema outbreak coming on… I also talked her into taking 2 teaspoons. with juice internally…. Let me say, I was utterly shocked to see the itching stop almost immediately (it burned for a bit at first), the biggest surprise was the allergies seemed to cease throughout the night, she slept without the itching, snorting, or scratching of the throat, didn't even wake up and had a peaceful sleep… I was truly shocked… Her skin even appeared to be clearing up just from one night of the acv, not to mention no stuffy nose in the mornings like she usually has, anyway its too early to tell if this truly worked, but it seemed to do the trick and I will update later but for now, I just may be a believer of this easy treatment. I will update her progress in a week.