12 Ways to Use Coconut Oil in Your Family

Did you know that there are tons of great ways that coconut oil can be beneficial to your health? It may seem odd at first—seeing as how coconut oil contains a high amount of saturated fat—but if you’re sole focus is the saturated fat content, you’re probably only thinking about the use of coconut oil in the cooking realm.

The truth is, the health benefits of coconut oil extend far beyond the world of your kitchen. Better yet, the wonderful health benefits of coconut oil are so far-reaching, meaning that coconut oil can help the whole family. It doesn’t matter if it’s babies, parents, toddlers, preteens, or teens—everyone in your family can use coconut oil to help with an array of issues regardless of age.

Diaper Rash Stands no Chance

If your baby is suffering from an irritating and uncomfortable diaper rash, you can turn to coconut oil to help both soothe your little one’s pain and help prevent diaper rash further down the line. Coconut oil contains antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, and antimicrobial properties—all of which are excellent for healing your baby’s irritated skin. The irritated spot on your baby’s bottom is also a place that’s just waiting to be attacked by other bacteria, so all the antibacterial and antifungal properties of coconut oil will do wonders in eliminating and preventing any further suffering your little one might experience.

In addition to just gently applying coconut oil to your baby’s skin to get rid of that rash, you can also use coconut oil to make your very own diaper cream. The diaper cream recipe is as follows:

· ½ cup of organic, virgin coconut oil
· ¼ cup of Shea butter
· 1 teaspoon of corn starch
· 3-4 drops of tea tree oil or lavender essential oil

You’ll want to mix the coconut oil and Shea butter together in a pot, then heat the mixture on the stove until everything becomes liquid. You’ll then turn down the heat and add in the corn starch in order to give the mixture its thickness. Once everything’s been mixed, you can go ahead add the essential oil or tea tree oil (these are mostly used for the purpose of fragrance).

Pain Associated with Teething

Simply put, teething is an incredibly painful experience for your baby. If you’re looking to soothe the gum pain of your little one, you can gently apply coconut oil to your baby’s gums to help relieve the pain.

Oral Thrush (Candida)

Thrush is a fungal infection that often shows up inside a baby’s mouth, and it typically makes itself present due to areas on the body remaining moist (thrush could be caused by drool that remains near your baby’s mouth). Thrush often affects babies once they’ve reached the age of 2 months. If your baby has thrush, you’ll see what looks like milky spots on your little one’s tongue.

Coconut oil can be especially helpful for treating thrush if your baby is still breastfeeding. A spoonful of coconut oil can be ingested by the mother so that the benefits of coconut oil can be received by the baby through the breast milk.

It also helps if a little coconut oil is applied to the nipples before breastfeeding. All you have to do is rub a small amount of coconut oil around the nipples—allowing your baby to get direct contact with the coconut oil during breastfeeding.

Baby Massage

Everyone enjoys a relaxing massage, and the same goes for your baby. As you may have guessed, coconut oil makes for a great baby massage oil. To make the massage oil, you can use a mixture made up of equal parts coconut oil and olive oil, and add some essential oils like lavender.

Cradle Cap

If you notice that your newborn has scaly patches on her scalp because of cradle cap (which is essentially baby dandruff), you can use coconut oil to treat the condition. You’ll need to gently massage your baby’s scalp with coconut oil and leave it on the scalp for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes has passed, you can simply wipe the oil off the scalp with a damp cloth and comb your baby’s hair to remove any remaining flakes.

Combact HeadLice

If you have a child who is in elementary school, your bound to encounter a time when it’s been reported that lice are running rampant in the classroom. Thankfully, coconut oil can both help attack lice and be used as a preventative measure.

As far as prevention is concerned, coconut oil can make the surface of your child’s head slick; the slickness will make it difficult for lice to stay in your child’s hair. So, if you’ve heard about a lice outbreak at your kid’s school, and you’ve yet to find anything in your child’s hair, you can go ahead and use coconut oil as a precaution.

If your kid already has lice, you can use coconut oil as an at-home treatment. You’ll need to apply coconut oil to your kid’s whole head of hair, then cover your kid’s hair with a shower cap and leave it on overnight. The oil will suffocate the lice, and you can easily get the dead bugs out of your kid’s hair using a lice comb. Afterwards, just wash your kid’s hair and do the same process again in 7 days in order to kill lice that might be newly hatched.

Eczema

You can get eczema at any age, but eczema can be particularly problematic for your children; the reason being that it’s really tough to get your kids not to constantly scratch. Sometimes the discomfort and itchiness is so just so unbearable, and often times children just can’t help trying to take matters into their own hands.
The coconut oil’s antiviral, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties—in addition to the moisture of the coconut oil—will help work wonders on your child’s skin and help get rid of that irritating and unsightly eczema.

Ear infections

Unfortunately, your kid will most likely suffer from an ear infection at one point or another. A majority of ear infections occur in babies between the ages of 6 months to 3 years, and by the time a kid reaches the ages of 7, she’ll most likely have had at least one ear infection. Luckily, a mixture of coconut oil and a few other ingredients is a great way to battle ear infections. Coconut oil is effective on its own for helping with ear infections, but you can also add some garlic for further antibacterial benefits.

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to make this homemade remedy:
· Coconut oil
· 2 garlic cloves
· A saucepan
· A measuring cup
· A cooking thermometer
· A cheesecloth
· A bowl
· An eyedropper

You’ll want to heat up 1/8 cup of coconut oil and the garlic cloves in your saucepan. Then, let the oil simmer, and once you’ve removed the oil from the heat, you’ll need to check the temperature. The oil should be at a temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius.

Next, you’ll need to use your cheesecloth and strain the oil into a bowl. Pour the oil into an eyedropper, but be sure there’s no pieces of garlic in the dropper.

As far as application is concerned, put your child on her side with her ear facing up, and place two drops of oil in your child’s ear. Let the oil sit for five minutes. If both ears are infected, just repeat the process in your child’s other ear. Do this process twice a day for 7 days, and if the infection doesn’t seem like it’s any better, call your doctor.

DIY Lip Balm

This one is good for anyone in the household. You can make DIY lip balm for your toddler or baby, and it’s something that you and your teenager can make on your own. You’ll need the following ingredients:

· Coconut oil
· A drop of avocado or olive oil
· A tiny slice of lipstick

Mix and melt the ingredients in a microwave safe container for 10-30 seconds then do a little more mixing and you’re all set.

Acne prone Teens can Benefit from Coconut Oil

Acne can be problematic for anyone who’s at or past the puberty stage, but teenagers are generally the ones most affected by acne. If your teenager sees those first few pimples popping up, or she already has a bad case of acne, you can use coconut oil to help get rid of it.

Coconut oil will help prevent any infection caused by excessive picking (because of the already mentioned antimicrobial property), and coconut oil can also help to restore layers of skin that have been removed due to excessive picking or scrubbing. You can also use coconut oil as an anti-inflammatory.

Coconut oil also has plenty of Vitamin E which helps keep sebaceous glands healthy. Sebaceous glands are skin glands that secrete an oily matter known as sebum. Healthy sebaceous glands make for healthy skin, so using coconut oil on your skin will help prevent that unwanted acne which can really take a toll on your teen’s self-esteem.

Makeup Remover

Removing makeup can be a pretty tough—and quite frankly annoying—process. Instead of using makeup removers which can cause dry and irritated skin, why not go ahead and use some coconut oil instead.

Coconut oil has been shown to break down makeup that you can’t quite get off your face. Simply let a bit of coconut oil melt in your hands and then apply it to your face. You’ll want to rub thoroughly, but make sure you don’t get any in your eyes. You can wipe the coconut oil off with a cotton pad.

Shaving Cream

Coconut oil shaving cream is great for mom, dad, and teenagers. Coconut oil can help with sensitive skin, and is also great at expediting the healing process in the instance that you cut yourself while shaving. Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make your own coconut oil shaving cream:

· ¼ cup of coconut oil
· ¼ cup of aloe vera
· 4-6 drops of essential oils like lavender, tea tree, or peppermint. If you want to combine various essential oils, that’s perfectly fine.

Just melt the coconut oil and mix it with the aloe vera and essential oils, then you’re all set to lather up.

As you can see, coconut oil can be of help to any member of your family. Whether it’s infections or beauty care—regardless of it’s mom, dad, teenagers, newborns, or toddlers—you can use coconut oil to tackle so many issues, or simply just to improve your quality of life.