Newborn acne saga w/ periodic pics. Another pic 2/5, 10 days dairy free

[Harmony96]

I don't remember DD having these issues w/ her skin. Moments after DS was born, his skin turned red and splotchy. The majority of that splotchiness cleared up around day 4. But then on day 17, he developed a TON of pimples on his face. Is this normal and will it go away (and when)? I'll post a picture later today of it. But he seriously has a ton of it. He looks like he's going through adolescence already, lol.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...ewbornzits.jpg

Now here's from today, 11/2. I think it looks some better.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...ringupsome.jpg

And one from 11/10. I can't tell if it's clearing up or not, lol.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../acnenov10.jpg

Here's the one from 11/20. The actual bumps seem to be mostly gone, but now his face is still so red and splotchy, and sort of dry-ish on his cheeks.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...jaminnov20.jpg

And one from 12/3. I think it's finally mostly gone now, and he's settling in to what his normal skin tone will be.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...6/acnedec3.jpg

ETA 12/14: Well, he's 2 months old now and still doesn't have clear skin. I have tried coconut oil the past couple of days but that's either having a neutral effect or making it worse. I cannot do an elimination diet due to budgetary constraints. I guess this is just what his skin is going to "do" and I need to accept it. *sigh*

Here's his 12/17 pic. I think it's getting worse again. It looks worse than it did a couple of days ago.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...17benjamin.jpg

Ugh, worse again just one day later on 12/18. It's all up in his forehead now.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...18benjamin.jpg

Here's a pic from 12/19:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...19benjamin.jpg

New pic from 12/21. Only thing I changed between yesterday and today was to go buy a bottle of Eucerin yesterday afternoon, and I've been putting that on him.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...21benjamin.jpg

New pics from 1/3. It just won't go away. I started keeping a food log to see if there was any pattern to the come-and-go irritation, but there was never enough "go" in that "come-and-go" to make it worthwhile for me to continue the log, so I stopped. I haven't changed my diet at all throughout this whole process, and I really want to know what made it clear up that one time, on the 21st. I missed one night of lotion on Christmas Eve b/c of being stuck in traffic for 23 hours, and since then, it's never been as clear as it was on the 21st through the 23rd of December. The weird thing is that it's only red on that one side of his face.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...n3benjamin.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...3benjamin2.jpg

I haven't been doing lotion like I should, but I did apply BM the past few days, and it hasn't helped at all. At this point I'm just counting the days until his next well-baby visit so I can ask about it again and hopefully be given a more substantial answer than "it's just dry sensitive skin, keep it moisturized." Because that's not working.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../acne11610.jpg

ETA 1/21 (copied/pasted from my blog): No new pictures today. He looks about the same. Just some thoughts, instead. I'm probably a little crazy, but anyway here they are. lol

So... my peers have babies who have beautiful skin. I don't know a single other IRL baby (<6 months old) who even has a little bit of redness. So my baby is red. Maybe it'll go away. Maybe it's eczema. Maybe it's yeast. Maybe it's cradle cap on his face. Maybe it's a food sensitivity. Maybe the cause will never be known and he'll stay red indefinitely.

And? I'm ok with that. This is MY baby that God saw fit to bless me with. Benjamin is a smiley, happy baby. He doesn't have colic. He is (usually) easy to sooth. He's growing. I wouldn't think that his disposition would be so happy if the rash were bothersome to him.

He's already three months old. Three months! I don't know where the time went. Yes I do. It disappeared while I kept dwelling on his appearance instead of who he is. I don't want to let any more unnecessary time escape, time that instead I could spend watching him grow.

Sure, I'll mention it at his next dr visit. And maybe he'll outgrow it. Maybe he won't. I'm not going to keep my life on "pause" any more. He and I are getting pictures made on Friday, a gift from Mom. Back when she and I were talking about it, I had the brief thought that his skin would be better come picture time. But I can't hit the "pause" button for life. He will only be three months old once, and then it's gone.

I don't want to miss the important things.

ETA 2/5: So while I was enjoying my baby, I kept having the thought of "what if it IS diet-related" and I decided to cut out dairy to start. I'm 10 days dairy free now and didn't see any change at all until a couple of days ago... when I had also eliminated chocolate (I'd found some dairy-free chocolate that I made into some dairy-free cookies and I ate more than my fair share of those cookies every day, lol) and added back in lotion several times a day. And here he is now:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...rly4months.jpg

So I don't know if it's the dairy finally working its way out, or the chocolate that I "had" to have, or the lotion, or if he's finally growing out of it. But anyway I thought I'd post another picture, lol.

[Ldavis24]

DD was born with her nose covered entirely in tiny whiteheads that took nearly a month to vanish. She also had a ton of acne that varied but never went away for almost 2 months. Her skin still gets splotchy sometimes, she is super fair skinned like me so it is even more visible i feel.
I asked her ped and he said because I am bfing it has to do with my hormone levels apparently. He said it was perfectly normal and just don't pick at it or try to wash it with soap or anything.
Babies pores I guess are very easily clogged so it is really common.

[Blueone]

It varies from baby to baby. Try putting breast milk on his face, that will clear it up!

[hotharmony]

He's SUPER cute btw!

And totally normal.

[lifeguard]

Totally normal ime. I was so sad when ds got the newborn acne but it does go away on it's own & he skin was back to perfect again.

What a cutie!

[Harmony96]

Thanks everyone.

He's managed to get even more since this morning, when that picture was taken, lol. He really looks terrible.

[ms. pacman]

He is really adorable, and I'd definitely say it's normal

[lisalu100]

DD was the same from 4 weeks - there are a couple of weeks where there are no close-up photo lol! I guess she was like that for about a month. Some days it was really bad, the next there was hardly anything. Now, at 3 months, she has perfect skin though, and has done for about 4 weeks

[melissarana]

What a handsome fellow! His skin looks completely normal, at least in my experience. My babe had similar acne from about 4 to 8 weeks, it sort of moved in patches all over her face and neck. Now at 12 weeks it’s totally gone and she’s has the most beautiful glowing skin. For me, when she was broken out, I felt the constant need to explain or justify her “condition” to everyone. It made me feel really guilty that I wasn’t letting people enjoy her perfectness, so I eventually started to keep my mouth shut and only elaborated when people asked.

[Sk8ermaiden]

Mine had that and I hated it! It doesn't necessarily have to do with hormones in breastmilk, everything I have read says residual hormones from birth. Many FF babies in my playroom had the same issue.

Hers cleared up around 2 months. Wait it out, it will get better!

[emmaegbert]

aw, gorgeous baby

the pimples look just like my 2 kids. Both had it for a couple of weeks then it totally cleared up to beautiful, buttery soft skin. My poor DS lost his hair in a male pattern baldness way at the same time, her really looked a bit ugly there- even I noticed!!

ped and MWs all said its normal, not to worry.

[kawa kamuri]

my daughter is the same way right now, started around week 2. i just started putting breastmilk on her face.

your little boy is beautiful, btw

[Pandme]

Thank GOD there is someone else going through this! My daughter's skin is AWFUL....a lot like your son's, but worse because she has cradle cap going on too. I often wonder how many hormones I have, seriously.

She's 5 weeks old. This started around 3 weeks and by 4 weeks was raging. I'm hoping that weeks 7-8 come soon....hopefully it will ease up.

[boobs4milk]

we're putting breastmilk on amelia's face and it looks better. he's really cute harmony!!!

[Biscuits & Gravy]

He is beautiful!! DS2 got it really bad, much worse than DS1. Putting breastmilk on his skin really helped.

[MelW]

In most cases, it's normal, but in our case it was not.

My daughter's baby acne got worse and worse, and eventually looked like this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8-6hIT_D2d...h/IMG_1753.JPG
(That being the "good" photo that I took, where you can't see as much of the patchy eczema underlying the spots).

I needed to eliminate several allergens from my diet for her skin to clear up, which it did within weeks of going off the major allergens. Dairy, corn, wheat and peanut allergies were later confirmed by testing. The eczema, cradle cap and acne all cleared up simultaneously.

A couple of weeks into the elimination diet, she looked like this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8-6hIT_D2d...h/IMG_2115.JPG

I mention this just in case it helps anyone; I know Dr. Sears also mentions that sometimes a very persistent/bad case of newborn acne can be related to allergies.

[Harmony96]

Originally Posted by MelW

In most cases, it's normal, but in our case it was not.

My daughter's baby acne got worse and worse, and eventually looked like this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8-6hIT_D2d...h/IMG_1753.JPG
(That being the "good" photo that I took, where you can't see as much of the patchy eczema underlying the spots).

I needed to eliminate several allergens from my diet for her skin to clear up, which it did within weeks of going off the major allergens. Dairy, corn, wheat and peanut allergies were later confirmed by testing. The eczema, cradle cap and acne all cleared up simultaneously.

A couple of weeks into the elimination diet, she looked like this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8-6hIT_D2d...h/IMG_2115.JPG

I mention this just in case it helps anyone; I know Dr. Sears also mentions that sometimes a very persistent/bad case of newborn acne can be related to allergies.

I see a few spots on her shoulder in the first picture... did she have spots all over her body?

[MelW]

They were worse on her face, but she had quite a bit on her upper chest and a few on the rest of her body, too. The worst of all was one ear (it's the ear that I "hid" in that photo)- it was raw and open and looked like she'd been in a fight

[Pandme]

FWIW, Harmony, I can tell my daughter's skin is starting to clear up and she's 5 weeks. Her cheeks are starting to get soft again and less red and angry looking.

I am already not eating things like dairy, chocolate, eggs, peanuts, etc.

But I don't think it's food allergies in our case. And I'm not eliminating wheat because I would have nothing to eat. I am eating a horribly narrow diet as it is and it's only fueling feelings of depression and resentment.

[Pandme]

Also, Dr. Sears talks about food allergies if the acne starts earlier than the usual window it appears (ie. around 3 weeks) and gets worse REALLY fast rather than gradually as well.

So a really bad case alone does not mean food allergies.