8 Best Baby Lotion for Newborns with Sensitive or Dry Skin
Do you just adore the beautifully soft and silky skin of a newborn baby?
I know I do. If you would like to hold onto that super soft new baby skin, you are going to need to find the best baby lotion for your little one!
Sadly, if you aren’t diligent in your baby’s skin care, the harsh world will quickly set in. Baby’s super sensitive skin can easily become dry, cracked, and irritated if you aren’t making an effort to maintain that silky soft skin they came into the world with.
Fortunately, there are a good number of great baby lotions out there available to help combat the harshness of the world and keep your baby’s skin, soft, supple, and moisturized!
| Baby Lotion | Pump Included | Fragrance-Free | Best for… | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noodle and Boo Super Soft | Yes | No | Sensitive skin | $$ |
| Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort | Yes | No | All skin types | $$ |
| CeraVe Baby Moisturizing Lotion | Yes | Yes | Dry skin | $$$ |
| Puracy Organic Baby Lotion | Yes | No (natural scents only) | All skin types | $$$ |
| Cetaphil Baby Daily Lotion | No | No | Dry skin | $$ |
| Burt’s Bees Baby Nourishing Lotion | No | Yes | Sensitive skin | $$$ |
| Eucerin Baby Eczema Relief | No | Yes | Dry skin, Eczema | $$ |
| Johnson’s Bedtime Lotion | Yes | No | All skin types, Bedtime | $$ |
Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best Baby Lotion
When it comes to baby lotions, it seems like most products would be about the same. However, baby lotions actually vary a ton! In fact, there are quite a few different factors to consider when choosing a good baby lotion.
To help you get an idea of what you should be looking for and what decisions you will need to make, we’ll first go over some of the most important factors to consider when choosing the best baby lotion for your family!
Scented VS Fragrance-Free
One thing that you will want to decide on right off the bat is if you want a scented baby lotion or a fragrance-free baby lotion. There are definitely some merits to both, so it will be a personal decision. One isn’t necessarily better than the other.
Fragrance-free can be a safer option because it isn’t exactly uncommon for babies – and even many adults – to be sensitive to fragrances. In some cases, fragrances can even cause severe irritation and rashes. However, many babies are able to easily tolerate fragrances and they can have some cool benefits.
First off, there is the obvious benefit of fragrances – they smell good! At least a lot of people enjoy them anyway. There can be other benefits as well, though. Some fragrances – especially ones commonly added to baby lotions – can help to calm and soothe the senses for easier relaxation and rest.
So, as long as your baby doesn’t have any negative reactions to products with fragrance in it – the choice is completely up to you if this is something you prefer to have in your baby lotion or not.
Ingredients
Fragrance is a good example of an ingredient to look for and consider when choosing a baby lotion, but it is far from the only one you need to think about. You always want to look at and consider the ingredients in the products you use. This is especially true when you are talking about the products you use for your baby.
When I first started to actually read ingredients and do research, I threw out a ton of products in our home. I was shocked at some of the things in products I used for myself and children daily. Now we are very health conscious and choose only the very best options for our family.
Everyone should look out for and avoid ingredients well-known to be dangerous. Things to avoid in baby lotion include parabens, phthalates, and dyes. However, there are a lot of other things to consider too. Some parents prefer to stay as safe as possible and go with all-natural products or even organic options.
Natural and organic options cost more, though, and have less options available. So, they aren’t for everyone. The most important thing is to just read ingredients and do your own research on things you don’t recognize to decide if you are comfortable with it or not.
Pump Included
This is a simple, yet highly relevant consideration you need to make when choosing a baby lotion. Some baby lotion options come with a pump and some do not. A pump can add a lot of convenience to your baby lotion because you only need one hand to get the lotion out. Of course, pumps can also get clogged up, which can get messy and inconvenient. This might not matter one way or another to some people, but if it’s important to you – make sure you look for options that best suit your desires.
Price
Finally, you will certainly want to consider the price of the baby lotions you are considering. The cost of different baby lotions varies pretty greatly. Everyone has to work with a different budget, so think about what will work well for your family. Think about more than just the cost of a single bottle of baby lotion. You want to think about the overall value because some bottles are much larger than others.
Best Baby Lotion
There are a lot of things to consider when you go to choose a lotion for your baby. You want to look at ingredients, choose if you want scented or unscented, consider price, and more. After in-depth research, reading hundreds of reviews, and personal testing – we bring you the top eight baby lotions on the market today!
1Noodle and Boo Super Soft – Best Baby Lotion for Sensitive Skin
Noodle and Boo Super Soft – Best Baby Lotion for Sensitive Skin
- Hypoallergenic
- Light formula
- Sensitive skin
- Phthalate-free
- Paraben-free
- BPA-free
- GMO-free
Check Pricing and Availability
This amazingly light and soft lotion comes from Noodle and Boo and is our pick for the best baby lotion for sensitive skin. It has tons of great benefits and is amazing for babies that have sensitive skin!
Sweet Almond Oil – Sweet almond oil is absolutely amazing for skin of all types. It contains tons of amazing ingredients that are beneficial to skin health. Sweet almond oil contains monosaturated fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, proteins, and even antioxidants. All of these great things really add to the wonderful benefits of the Noodle and Boo lotion.
Vitamins E and C – In addition to the vitamins contained in the sweet almond oil, this lotion contains additional vitamin E and vitamin C. Both of these vitamins are essential for good skin health. They go along way to nourish your baby’s skin and can even have bonus benefits like helping to strengthen your baby’s immune system!
This is actually one of my personal favorites when it comes to baby lotion. It is definitely great for sensitive skin, but really can be very beneficial for all skin types. It is light, comfy, nourishing, clean, and even has a lovely subtle aroma perfect for little babies. Check Pricing and Availability
One extremely popular choice of baby lotion right now is Aveeno’s Baby Calming Comfort baby lotion and for good reason too! In fact, this is our choice for the best overall baby lotion! It is super effective and has some really wonderful benefits that you and your baby will love! Natural Colloidal Oatmeal – One of the best parts of the best overall baby lotion is the natural colloidal oatmeal! This amazingly simple ingredient holds the key to the ultra-soothing power of this Aveeno Baby lotion. The oatmeal formula goes a long way to help relieve dry, itchy, and irritated skin. Lavender – Lavender is always a popular choice for babies because it’s amazing soothing and calming properties. I like to diffuse lavender in our home to help calm the kids, so I really appreciate that they have added such a useful ingredient. This can be an especially helpful option when bedtime is nearing, and you need to calm your baby to help them fall asleep and rest more deeply.
While lavender and vanilla are very lovely scents that can help calm down your baby and even help you relax, a lot of parents find that this has a scent that is just too strong for their taste. A lot of people (like me) love it, but it is definitely a common enough complaint to be worth mentioning. If you or your baby are very sensitive to smells, you might need to consider some other options. This is a wonderful baby lotion for a good variety of skin types. It is affordable, safe, and affective. It is a great choice when you want something to help calm your baby before bed and does a wonderful job at providing healthy daily moisture for your baby’s skin. Check Pricing and Availability
Here is our pick for the best baby moisturizer! This amazing moisturizing baby lotion from CeraVe is truly incredible and so good for your baby’s skin! It isn’t just incredibly moisturizing, but also nourishing thanks to included vitamins and other necessities for your baby’s skin. This is also fragrance-free baby lotion! This can be a great option when choosing a baby lotion because many babies are sensitive to additives like fragrance in baby products. Hyaluronic Acid – I love products for myself that contain hyaluronic acid, so it just makes sense that I would use them for my baby’s skin as well. This amazing ingredient is the biggest reason that this is our pick for the best baby moisturizer! Hyaluronic acid is naturally found in our bodies and completely safe! The really cool part, though, is that it can hold over 1000 times it’s weight in water! So, it is a truly incredible moisturizing ingredient in the best baby moisturizer. Essential Ceramides – Another important ingredient that is included in the best baby moisturizer are 3 different essential ceramides. These are important components that we require to help our skin create a natural skin barrier to lock in moisture and prevent dry skin. This lotion replenishes and boosts the ceramides of your baby’s skin to help them build and maintain that vital natural skin barrier.
It makes sense that it would cost more to produce a high-quality product with the high-end ingredients included in the best baby moisturizer. So, even though it isn’t too pricey per bottle, it is relatively more expensive than many options when you consider how much lotion you are actually getting per bottle. If your baby is really suffering from dry skin, sensitive skin, or even eczema, this is one of the best choices. It is an amazing moisturizer for your baby’s skin. The powerful, yet mild and safe ingredients do wonders to help heal, soothe, and protect your baby’s skin. Check Pricing and Availability
From Puracy comes our top pick for the best organic baby lotion! There are a lot of great benefits to organic products and for that reason, we are seeing more and more organic options available on the market. Organic products are better for us and better for the environment. The major downfall, however, is the price. Organic simply costs more to produce and that rise in cost, of course, transfers to the consumers. The best organic baby lotion is one of the pricier options. Natural Plant Oils – The best organic baby lotion contains two different natural plant oils. It has both sunflower oil as well as jojoba seed oil within it. These two natural plant oils are incredibly nourishing and beneficial for your baby’s skin. They are packed with moisturizing and nourishing properties that make a huge difference in how amazingly affective this wonderful baby lotion is. Essential Oil Blend – Since this is an organic product, you can rest assured that there are no artificial fragrances. Instead, they have used a lovely and simple essential oil blend that gives you a soft, natural aroma and has wonderful calming affects as well. Lavender essential oil and grapefruit essential oil come together in the best organic baby lotion for an addictively sweet smell that helps to soothe your baby.
This is a lovely, high-end baby lotion that is certainly the best organic baby lotion. While it is a little pricey compared to a lot of lotion options, it is relatively affordable compared to many other organic products. If you are trying to live a cleaner life with more organic products for your baby, this is the perfect baby lotion choice for you! Check Pricing and Availability
If your baby has exceptionally dry skin, this can be one really wonderful option for you! Our pick for the best baby lotion for dry skin is Cetaphil Baby’s Daily Lotion. This baby lotion is full of the good stuff and free of the bad stuff. There is lots to love about it and it is even affordable! Organic Calendula – There is so much to love about the calendula flower! It has amazing benefits for your skin including reducing inflammation and speeding healing. It makes so much sense to use this in a baby lotion! It also happens to have antimicrobial and antiviral properties, which means it can actually even have a positive impact on your baby’s immune system! Sweet Almond Oil – Just like our favorite lotion for sensitive skin, this dry skin option also contains sweet almond oil! This is a powerhouse of an oil that just has incredible properties that are so beneficial to your baby’s skin. Fatty acids, protein, vitamins, minerals, and more all go to help moisturize, nourish, and protect your sweet little one’s skin. This is a baby lotion option that has added fragrance. Just like with the best overall baby lotion from Aveeno, many parents seem to find this to be too strong. Babies that are very sensitive may become irritated by the fragrance.
All in all, this choice from Cetaphil is a wonderful choice of baby lotion. It is extremely moisturizing and nourishing for your baby’s skin. The unique use of the organic calendula really increases the value of this baby lotion and made it a no-brainer for our baby lotion guide! Check Pricing and Availability
If you prefer a more natural lifestyle and are looking to find great natural products for your baby, Burt’s Bees Baby is a wonderful company to go with. Their Baby Nourishing Lotion easily won our spot for the best natural baby lotion! Aloe – Aloe has so many incredible uses. It is amazingly mild and safe while also retaining a powerful ability to soothe and heal. Burt’s Bees Baby has included this remarkable plant in the best natural baby lotion. It is very affective at adding soothing and healing properties to the best natural baby lotion for your baby’s skin. Shea Butter – Another wonderful ingredient that can help bring healing to your baby’s skin in the best natural baby lotion is shea butter. This is another powerful ingredient derived from mother nature. Not only does it have wonderful anti-inflammatory and healing properties, but it is also incredibly moisturizing and nourishing for your baby’s skin.
Being that this is the best natural baby lotion, it can be expected that it costs a little more. This is very close to the top of the list when it comes to cost. Of course, it is very high-quality and full of natural ingredients, so you are definitely getting what you pay for. The only other downfall is that it does come in pretty small tubes, so you will have to buy more often, and you don’t have the convenience of a pump like with many of the other options. This is actually the lotion that I choose to currently use with my little ones and even for myself. It is incredibly clean and natural, but also still super effective at moisturizing our skin. It has a lot of great benefits and is definitely worth looking into if you don’t mind not having the pump on the bottle that most of the other options have. Check Pricing and Availability
Eczema is an unfortunate condition that affects a massive amount of people including many infants. More than 10% of children are diagnosed with eczema, so finding the best eczema cream for babies was extremely important to us. Our choice for the best eczema cream for babies is Eucerin Baby Eczema relief. We have several other options on our guide that can definitely work well for babies with eczema, but this one is the best of the best. It is specially formulated with eczema in mind. Natural Oatmeal – Here is another really great baby lotion that includes natural oatmeal among its ingredients. There are a lot of benefits to this ingredient. The best thing that the oatmeal does for the best eczema cream for babies is that it provides instant soothing comfort to dry, itchy, irritated skin. It also helps to nourish and promote healing. Licochalcone – This formula is enriched with licochalcone. This ingredient goes a long way in helping to make this baby lotion the best eczema cream for babies. It really helps to heal skin irritated from eczema and improves the appearance of red and irritated skin on your baby.
The only real downfall of the best eczema cream for babies is that it is a somewhat thicker formula. The thicker lotion goes on a little heavier, which can have a couple of downfalls. First of all, many find heavier lotions to not be quite as comfortable. Secondly, it is a lot easier to use this formula up faster because it doesn’t spread quite as easily as a lot of options of baby lotion. If your baby is one of the many that suffer from eczema, this can be a life-changing product for them. It is super easy to use, very affective as a lotion and as an eczema cream, and completely safe for your little one. Even if your baby doesn’t have eczema, but suffers from other skin irritations, this can be a great choice for you! Check Pricing and Availability
Johnson’s is, no doubt, one of the most popular baby lotion brands of all time. So, it is so surprise that they scored a spot on our baby lotion guide! This is our pick for the best sleepy lotion for babies and it is Johnson’s Bedtime Lotion! It is a really wonderful thing to add into your baby’s nighttime routine to help improve your baby’s sleep! Coconut Oil – Coconut oil is known to be a cure-all of sorts due to its massive variety of beneficial uses. I love coconut oil and use it all the time. In fact, in a pinch, I’ve used just straight coconut oil as a quick moisturizer before. I just love that Johnson’s has included it in their products and really believe it has made a huge difference! It is super moisturizing and really helps to lock the moisture into the skin for a longer period of time. An added bonus is that coconut oil is naturally anti-microbial, so it can help your little one fight off germs! Natural Calm Aromas – The reason that this lotion is the best sleepy lotion for babies is thanks to the Natural Calm Aromas that Johnson’s has added to their lotion. This is a wonderful blend of different calming scents including lavender, which does wonders to calm and relax your baby before bed.
There was some controversy surrounding the safety of Johnson’s products for a while. Keep in mind that they have improved and removed some questionable ingredients from their products. However, the best sleepy lotion for babies does still have a considerably long list of ingredients – many of which are not recognizable by the average person. This can definitely be a concern as while it is free of parabens, dyes, phthalates, and sulfates, it does contain a fair amount of unnatural ingredients that everyone might not be comfortable with. Johnson’s doesn’t have the most natural ingredients, but they do avoid many commonly known and used dangerous additives. Their price is absolutely unbeatable when you consider that they do still have a high-quality and very affective product. The best sleepy lotion for babies is an excellent choice and amazing addition to your baby’s bedtime routine! Just choosing a great baby lotion is definitely not the only thing you need to do if you really want to help your baby keep that amazing soft and healthy skin. Lots of trial and error as well as friend’s experiences and, of course, tons of research have helped me put together this short guide on establishing a great baby skin care routine for your little sweetie. I hope these tips help your babies as much as they have helped mine! Adults often need daily showers or baths to remain healthy clean. So, we have this idea that daily baths are the norm for all ages. That could not be farther from the truth, though! It is actually recommended to only bathe your baby about 3 times a week, but even that may not be necessary in many cases. Babies really don’t get very dirty other than in the diaper area and from eating. As long as you are cleaning well at diaper changes and anytime milk drips or spit up occurs, there isn’t much to worry about. Occasionally, give your baby a full bath, but remember that they don’t do a ton of sweating or playing in the dirt at a very young age. The problem with over-bathing your baby is that you are stripping the natural oils from their skin. Daily baths will do this over and over without giving the skin the chance to replenish these natural oils that keep baby’s skin healthy. It can also negatively impact your baby’s immune system if you keep them “too clean” because you aren’t giving them a chance to appropriately interact with the bacteria and pathogens in their environment which is actually a very important part of building a healthy immune system. Your baby’s skin is much more sensitive than yours or that of other adults. Babies have very thin skin compared to adults and therefore they are much more easily irritated by harsh chemicals. This is exactly why there are special products that are marketed directly to babies. Make sure that you are using baby products like a baby laundry detergent and, of course, a great baby lotion like one of those on baby lotion guide. This will help you to avoid chemicals that are meant for adults only. Look into ingredients and compare products to find the best and safest options for your baby’s skin. Another important aspect of baby skin care is good moisturizing. You will want to regularly apply a great baby lotion to your baby’s skin to keep it well-moisturized, healthy, and comfortable. It is usually recommended to use baby lotion daily on your baby, but some babies may need it more often. If your baby has very dry skin, try working it into your routine to apply lotion twice daily or even a little at every diaper change if their skin is extremely dry. It is strongly recommended that you do have baby lotion on hand for your baby. Ideally, you should be regularly using it to help your baby maintain their healthy and soft skin. The vast majority of adult lotions would not be appropriate to use on your baby due to many containing harsh chemicals that could cause irritation or even damage to your baby’s sensitive skin. Yes, ideally you should be using baby lotion on your baby’s skin daily. Some babies may even require baby lotion more often if they struggle with dry skin. Most of the time, you will want to hold off on the baby lotion for a newborn. Wait a few weeks before you start regularly moisturizing your baby’s skin. During those first few weeks, it is normal for a thin layer to peel off your baby’s skin as they adjust to the outside world. Allow this without worrying. Baby lotion can certainly help eczema. Every baby lotion and every case of eczema is different though. You may need to do some trial and error to find the right baby lotion for your baby’s eczema. You may want to consider a baby lotion targeted at eczema like Eucerin Baby Eczema Relief that we have listed in our best baby lotion list above. You can read more about Safest Shampoo for your Baby’s Skin and Hair. There are lots of important things that we do for our babies’ health and well-being. Feeding, diaper changes, helping them fall asleep, soothing their cries, and so much more. Baby skin care is just another important job that we take on for our precious little ones. Finding the best baby lotion for your family is an important step in establishing a great baby skin care routine to ensure the long-term health of our babies’ skin.
Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort – Best Overall Baby Lotion
CeraVe Baby Moisturizing Lotion – Best Baby Moisturizer
Puracy Organic Baby Lotion – Best Organic Baby Lotion
Cetaphil Baby Daily Lotion – Best Baby Lotion for Dry Skin
Burt’s Bees Baby Nourishing Lotion – Best Natural Baby Lotion
Eucerin Baby Eczema Relief – Best Eczema Cream for Babies
Johnson’s Bedtime Lotion – Best Sleepy Lotion for Babies
Establishing a Good Baby Skin Care Routine
Baby Lotion FAQ
Final Words
