The other day Jane and I noticed a couple of small red bumps on Monkey’s face.  “What is that?” I asked Jane.  “Oh no, I think he may be getting baby acne”, she said.  Baby acne?  I had never heard such a think and thought Jane was joking with me.  Well, come to find out there is such a thing as baby acne and I decided to read up a little on it to find out what in the heck is it and if there is treatment for baby acne.

I mean I see all those TV commercials for ProActive on TV for acne.  You’d think they’d make ProActive for babies, right?  Ha ha.  Don’t worry, we will not be putting anything on Baby Monkey’s face based on the little bit of research I’ve done into baby acne.

So to save any of you who are researching baby acne now or someday you find yourself trying to figure out what those little red bumps are on your baby’s face, here’s what I’ve been able to find Googling around…

Baby Acne: What is it?

Come to find out, baby acne is quite common.  Who would have thought?  Not that I’ve been around or seen a lot of babies in my day, but I’ve never seen a baby with acne before and like I said, I never knew a baby could get acne.

The acne will more than likely appear around when your baby is three to four weeks old and last anywhere from a few weeks to off and on for six months.  Monkey is three weeks, so they were spot-on there.  As far as the cause, from what I can tell, no one is truly sure of the exact cause of baby acne.  Some say it’s the hormones, some say it’s increased oil production in the face, some say it’s from the skin reacting to being out in the open, and some say it’s from being kissed too much all over the face by their grandparent wearing too much lipstick.  (Kidding on that last one of course.)

So it sounds like baby acne is very similar if not the same acne some of us experienced during or around the high school age.  Of course, they always appeared at the worst times: before a big date, the day of your yearbook photos, prom, etc.  And poor Monkey has bad timing too.  I was getting ready to take some nice photos of him for his birth announcement – which we’re really late on, but any parent will understand how crazy the first few weeks are!

Note to self: Take baby announcement photos before baby acne begins.  We’ll remember that for Baby Jane… in a few years.

And so much for Monkey’s modeling career unless someone is ready to do some magic with PhotoShop!  I’m partly kidding there.  Actually, we were recently asked if we’d consider our Monkey being the model for a baby product!   I wonder if I should teach him how to do a Platinum pose?

Baby Acne Treatment

As far as the treatment for baby acne, it sounds like it’s just common sense.  First you want to make sure you keep your baby’s face clean and wipe away any excess oil daily.  You of course don’t want to put anything on his or her face as you’ll risk irritating their skin or making it worse.  I read that one solution is a vinegar and water mixture, but I can tell you that we will not be putting that on Monkey for sure!

Ahhh seriously? who would want their baby smelling like vinegar?

Bottom line, the best way to treat baby acne is to leave it alone – except for keeping your baby’s face clean.  And yes, that includes using your hand to shield your little boy from pee in the middle of changing him!  You’ll have to ask Jane about that one – it’s happened to her several times now.  So far (knock on wood) I’ve had something in my hand like a diaper or a wipe to block Monkey from peeing on himself.

Baby Acne Pictures

Now I’m sure you can guess what baby acne looks like, right?  It looks like normal acne – just baby-sized.  But just in case you still want to see pictures of baby acne, you can look some using the Google image search here.

Baby Acne: Tarzan’s Thoughts…

Baby acne is a pain in the butt when it comes to wanting to take close-up photos of your baby.  Other than that, it’s really nothing to be concerned about or spend too much time researching Google like crazy trying to see what in the heck is going on with your baby.  Baby acne is very common – and I still don’t know how I have never heard of it or have seen it before.

I guess I was just never tuned into that world before now.  It reminds me of when Jane was pregnant.  We saw TONS of shows on TV and heard ads on the radio about pregnancy and giving birth.  I don’t know if it was just timing or what, but it seemed like every TV show we watched, the subject of pregnancy came up ALL OF THE TIME.  Reality shows started.  Commercials on TV.  It was weird.

And now with a baby, what do I see?  Yup, commercials for baby products.  Heck, even today I had the radio on some 88. something channel that was playing classical music.  A commercial came on for breastfeeding.  I can’t escape it!

Sometimes I feel like our HisBoysCanSwim blog here and Jane’s Twitter account (especially Twittering the birth of our son) is sometimes like the Truman show.  And sometimes it feels like *they* are advertising on the radio, TV, billboards, you name it just for us and it weirdly corresponds with our life.  Strange huh?  Any of you feel this way?  Maybe everyone does and I just noticed it now that I’ve become more “aware” of everything since becoming a Daddy.

How or why in the heck I got way off track talking about this instead of my baby acne post is beyond me.  Welcome to Daddy Blogging while you’re 1/2 asleep.  Welcome to trying to keep up with a blog when you’re a brand new first-time parent!  As you can see, Jane hasn’t blogged in a couple of days.  It takes her a good day or more of going back to her blog post 10 times to get a post written now-a-days.  Heck, this post has taken me a long time because I’ve had to change Monkey, feed him, change him, set him down, he was fussy, so I held him for awhile, he fell asleep, I got back on here, he made noise, I got up, looked in his crib, saw he was awake, checked his diaper, it needed to be changed AGAIN, so I just changed it and sat back down here.  Uhhhh.

Today was a very, very long and rough day.  Jane cried tonight out of a little frustration over everything.  Monkey kept crying.  For hours he was not a happy camper.  She was stressed.  Then when she went to bed, she tried to move our dog and he growled at her!  WTH!?  He NEVER does that!  I went into the bedroom and saw that Jane was about to lose it.  ”Monkey was upset at me or whatever for hours on end today and now our dog is upset at me – and I don’t know what I did wrong!” Jane cried, I held her.  Poor girl.  She’s had a rough day.

So I have a flustered wife, flustered dog, and flustered son.  And what does that make me?

VERY #*@(%*& flustered!  LOL  But someone has to have their cool when everyone else is all flustered, so I’m playing it cool.  Actually, I’m OK.  And at this very moment I think everyone is sleeping.  I’m going to jump off here, shut off my computer, and just lay here on the couch and relax… until Monkey lets me know he’s hungry or his diaper needs to be changed… which could be any minute now so I should really try and get off of here so I can get some very much needed rest.  And I’m going to have to read this blog post in the AM to see what I wrote here.  At this very moment, I couldn’t tell you what in the heck I’ve written over the past few minutes.  Strange.  I’m so tired that I hope I didn’t type my credit card number or social security card number here.  Urrgghhhh…

The tiredness a new parent feels is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.  It’s a complete body and mind tired.  All day long you feel like you could easily go to bed and sleep for a good 10 hours.  All Jane and I want to do is have her mom come here and instead of Jane and I going out to dinner or something, we joke and say that we should just go to bed and sleep.  We say that 1/2 jokingly.  Well, actually maybe we’re being serious.  10 hours of sleep sounds soooo nice right now.  I just wish tha

You might also want to read:

1. New Baby Monkey Photos! OK guys, I was able to get Jane to give me the OK to share some baby pictures with you!
2. Our Baby Feeding Schedule: A day in the life of Tarzan, Jane, and Monkey. Welcome to no sleepville.
3. A Monkey for our Monkey: Daddy’s Design Snoogie Seat Reviewed
4. Fatherhood Slaps Me Across The Face Like An Escaped Wild Monkey Searching For Bananas
5. Baby Throwing Up: Monkey Throwing Up Formula Last Night. We Were Scared.

Tagged as: baby