Baby Approved Breastmilk Lotion Recipe
Have you tried everything? Coconut oil, jojoba, calendula, straight up breast milk? That was this mama right here. Oliver’s skin started to dry out about a month or two after being born and NOTHING any provider suggested was working. I knew it wasn’t exactly eczema. Eczema has a root cause and I’m going to speak the unpopular truth here - you can’t fix it with lotion. You can soothe it. But lotions promising to heal your child from eczema are a scam. The only thing to truly heal your child from eczema is going to be root causing the problem - food intolerance, environmental factors, etc. and then removing that specific thing from your child’s life. I worked through this with O while nursing - culprit: eggs. If you’re interested in more about eczema and the functional medicine approach, contact me to set up a discovery session.
In the meantime, I wanted to drop a superstar breastmilk lotion recipe for you here. I have played around with a few but the ratios were never just right and I personally prefer sesame oil (in the recipe below) because of the lightweight, skin nourishing, and medicinal (think anti-inflammatory and antioxidant/skin protecting) qualities of the oil. You’re welcome to sub out a different oil. Just make sure to do your own research and play around with the ratios.
Baby Approved Breastmilk Lotion
2.5 tbsp organic sesame oil
1/2 tbsp beeswax (usually 1/4 of a beeswax solid you can buy online or at a local market)
1.5-1.75 oz breastmilk (room temperature, you may want to play with the ratio).
Few drops of vitamin E oil.
Optional - a few drops of organic essential oil (I prefer lavender. If you do not know proper dilution for EOs, only use 1-3 drops for this recipe)
Directions:
Using the low setting in the microwave or in a double boiler on the stove top, heat the oil + beeswax together until the beeswax is barely melted.
Add vitamin E oil.
Slowly pour breastmilk in, whisking as you go. I usually spend 60-90 seconds on this and prefer to use a small whisk or fork. The mixture should thicken.
Add in EOs - mix well.
This will make about 2-3 ounces. We keep the lotion in the refrigerator and use it every evening as a part of Oli’s bedtime routine. This has been the ONLY thing that has kept his skin moisturized in our dry Colorado air. I recommend keeping the same batch no longer than 3 weeks (which is why I make such a small batch). You can expect some separation of the milk and the oils/beeswax concoction, but if there is too much, I recommend playing around with the ratio. Every mama’s milk is different!
Have you tried breastmilk lotion? How did it work for you?