Oliver has ecezma

Taken a week ago, when his cheeks started to look really red.

I finally got Oliver in to see a doctor about his skin today. At his 2-month check up, the rash on his cheeks wasn't too bad, and Dr. B chalked it up to oily skin. But over the past month, it's gotten worse. And this past week, it's been terrible. It's all over his body, and different in each spot, too. His legs and forearms are scaly, bumpy and dry. His right cheek and forehead is red and bumpy, and his left cheek is crusty and oozy. Not only is his skin bad but he hasn't been sleeping well at night. Gone are the nights of 6-8 hours of sleep... He now wakes up every 3 hours wanting food, and sometimes every hour needing help falling back asleep (his pacifier fell out or just needs to be rocked). Most of the time he wakes himself up by working his way out of his swaddle blanket, and scratches the hell out of his face until it's wet with ooze and red like a sunburn. This morning at 1am I was trying to feed him but he kept crying in between sucks, I'm assuming because his face was on fire. So enough was enough– time to see the doctor. Dr. B was on vacation so we me with Dr. Vestergaard, a sweet woman that my mom knows and likes a lot. The first thing she said after seeing Oliver was, "Oh wow, what a gnarly case of eczema you have there buddy!" So there you have it, the kid has bad skin just like his parents. It's totally normal and will eventually go away, but she said not to be surprised if he always has some kind of skin issue (even just as simple as having extra dry– or oily– skin, which is common obviously). And babies with eczema are also more prone to have allergies, but for now we shouldn't worry about it. She told me not to worry about my diet, saying that it's not an allergy that is being passed through breastmilk. I was so happy to hear that since I constantly wonder if I'm eating something I shouldn't! She prescribed hydrocortisone cream for the dry and bumpy areas, muciprocin for the oozy spots (since the crusty ooze means it's a mild infection), and said to use a thick cream lotion like CeraVe and Cetaphil everywhere else. And if we don't see improvement after the weekend, she may want to start him on an oral antibiotic since the infected areas may need some help healing. So all this will take some time and effort each day to lather the kid up and apply medicines and fight him to keep his hands away from his face, but obviously we'll do what it takes to keep him comfortable. I really hope this works!