Important Tips for Looking After Your Baby’s Hair
1. Only shampoo every few days.
When your little one is new, their hair doesn’t become very dirty. You will only need to wash it once or twice a week. I personally only use shampoo for my baby once a week, and give a quick wash with just water at other bath times. Towel drying their hair gets most of the moisture out, and the rest should dry naturally reasonably quickly. This is when I give them a quick hair brush making sure their hair is neat, tidy, soft, and silky.
2. Avoid using tight hair bands.
This puts stress on the hair follicle and can easily pull hair out. If you baby doesn’t have much hair you won’t have this problem, but some babies are born with hair ready to style! While it is tempting especially for girls to pop their hair up in cute topsies or pigtails, you need to be careful to only use soft hair bands as the rubber ones although effective are quite harsh on their hair causing it to break and come out.
3. Be extremely careful about which baby products you use.
While it is important to be careful what products you use on your own skin and hair, it is even more critical to be careful what products you use on your baby. Many of the ‘big brands’ use sulphates and fillers which are actually harmful to our hair and bodies. Find out about the products that we have been using for our family for more than 7 years here. One great reason we keep using them is that we can be confident that what we are purchasing is safe for the whole family and don’t have to research ingredients all the time. So if you choose a shampoo it’s as safe for your newborn as it is for yourself. You only need the one shampoo for the whole family! The only products I recommend for baby hair is a safe shampoo, and almond oil for treating cradle cap.
4. Never, never, ever pick at cradle cap.
It can be so tempting just to pick at a bit of mild cradle cap with your fingernails, but doing so can be harmful for their scalp and it can become infected. So resist! Cradle cap is relatively simple to remove – sign up here for the BerryBest Bub Club to get my best tips on treating cradle cap sent straight to your inbox.
5. If all else fails, take a pic/make a video!
At the end of the day as they get older, you won’t be able to keep their hair tamed all the time. Especially if you let them live life to the fullest. They’ll be coming in with sand, dirt, and grass in their hair. It will be windblown and messy, but they’ll have the biggest, happiest, smiles in the world. This is when you need to grab the camera, and take a pic. It’s important to remember these simple everyday joyous times! Here’s a quick clip that we found and thought was pretty cute, so just had to share it with you.