Our Favorite Diaper Creams, Nail and Hair Tools, and Other Baby Care Essentials

Keeping your infant’s skin dry is key to preventing diaper rash. Zinc oxide and petroleum jelly are great at sealing out moisture. It’s important that a diaper cream is concentrated enough to last a long time on the skin, and Triple Paste’s Medicated Ointment is a thick, smooth paste with 12.8% zinc oxide. It’s easy to apply and gives great protection: Slather it on and you can see water bead up on its surface. It also lasts all night—it’s one of the only creams we’ve tried that’s still visible on the skin in the morning. We also like Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, which is made with 16% zinc oxide and similarly reliable and moisture resistant.

Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment is another great choice. It’s almost as water-resistant as Triple Paste ointment and Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, but it’s easier to spread because it’s made with 41% petroleum jelly. It also contains lanolin and bisabolol, which are potential allergens. But those ingredients make this ointment thicker and longer-lasting than pure petroleum jelly (aka Vaseline), and that’s a plus when your aim is protecting skin for long periods of time. Unlike zinc, which leaves a white cast, Aquaphor ointment is almost invisible, and it works well on any skin that needs soothing—not just bums.

—Wirecutter staff

Despite the fine, soft texture of my daughter’s hair, the first baby brush I bought for her barely smoothed the surface and did nothing to detangle the layers underneath. Instead, I found myself reaching for my adult-size Wet Brush to comb through her post-bath hair. Finally, I got smart and bought my then-1-year-old her own Wet Brush Mini Detangler, which was much easier to maneuver around her little head. Its tines are firm but flexible; they make quick work of tangles but somehow never tug or pull at delicate hair. The handle is also just the right size for small hands. Long before my daughter mastered brushing, she enjoyed waving this brush in the general vicinity of her head. This one comes in lots of fun colors, too, which helped us find it when the brush was accidentally buried in the toy bin.

—Jennifer Hunter

How hard could trimming a baby’s nails be? Hard enough, apparently, that 3.5 years after my daughter was born, I was still the only one who could stomach the task. Baby nail clippers can seem scarily unwieldy next to those tiny, delicate digits—my husband is certainly not alone in having drawn blood with them—while files seem to take forever. I replaced those ungainly tools early on with Piyo Piyo Baby Nail Scissors, which make it easy to see what you’re doing and to trim off just the right amount. I love these scissors so much, I bought two more pairs so I can always have one handy.

—Winnie Yang

When my son was a baby, he was wiggly enough that nail scissors, which require a bit more precision than clippers, wouldn’t cut it. We found respite in The SnipperClipper Set from Fridababy. These clippers have a spy-hole design, which allows you to see exactly what’s between the blades before you snip, and the curved edges are soft enough that they won’t cut your baby’s skin if you slip. They’re also extra large, with a plastic panel that makes them fairly easy to maneuver. Yes, we sometimes still needed to sneak a trim in while he was napping. But these nail clippers, along with the included S-shape nail file, saved his little face from myriad nail scratches.

—Jenni Gritters

I swore I’d never buy a wipes dispenser, but now I’m telling you it is a diapering essential, particularly if you use disposable wipes. The OXO Perfect Pull Wipes Dispenser allows you to grab one (only one!) wipe at a time, using one (only one!) hand. Anyone who has experienced the frustration of pulling one—or five—too many wipes from a flimsy package while trying to diaper a squirmy baby understands the appeal of this plastic box. Its airtight lid pops open with a push, and a weighted plate keeps premoistened wipes from emerging all at once. The container is easy to refill, and it doesn’t have tricky-to-clean corners—a simple wash and dry every so often keeps dirt at bay. It’s no exaggeration to say that this dispenser was a game changer in my earliest butt-wiping days of five or more poops in 24 hours.

—Tracy Vence

When my son was small, every new endeavor felt like a risky proposition. (Is he really ready for Cheerios? Will he be okay without a swaddle?) So imagine my anxiety when my husband and I transitioned from gently washing his hair with a damp washcloth to actually shampooing and rinsing. No matter how hard we tried to avoid doing so, we’d inevitably get water and soap in his eyes. He’d screech and cry, and then we’d get upset too. Luckily, bath time got a whole lot calmer when my sister-in-law gifted him this goofy Skip Hop Moby Waterfall Bath Rinser. As a play thing, it entertained him, helping him settle comfortably in the tub. As a rinser, it hugged his hairline so we could wash away the suds without stinging his eyes. As parents, we enjoyed that gift even more than our son did.

—Joanne Chen

My kid has super-sensitive skin and is prone to rashes. After months of trial and error, I realized that several of the natural washes I was using contained fragrant plant oils (like lavender) that smell nice but are potentially irritating. Now we use Aquaphor Baby Wash & Shampoo. This wash has nothing fancy, but it is fragrance free, and it has a not-too-thick, not-too-thin viscosity, so it spreads and foams well. And it cleans the scalp thoroughly yet doesn’t overdry. The Aquaphor wash is also a bargain—about 10 bucks for a 16.9-ounce bottle at the time of publication. That works out to pennies per use, and I have a happier kid. Win-win.

—Jennifer Hunter

Often called by its innocuous nickname, cradle cap, infant dandruff is real and really common (up to 70% of babies get it). It’s also notoriously hard to get rid of, and if you do, it quickly comes back. When my child came down with a case of the flakes, I was thrilled to find the Scalp Scrubbie. It’s a gentle sponge and scrubber duo that can be used wet or dry. I loved that during bath time I could use the sponge side to bathe my baby and the scrubber side for shampooing and deflaking. The scrubber side has the perfect texture to get rid of baby dandruff, and frequent use seems to stave off future cases. Each of the sponges (they come in a three-pack) lasted about a month before needing to be replaced, a small price to pay to have a flake-free baby!

—Nancy Redd

The Snotsucker from Fridababy, which lets you use your mouth to suck boogers right out of your baby’s nostrils, was the most disgusting and also the most useful baby tool we owned. It’s essentially a straw that has a filter inside so the mucus you extract from your infant or toddler doesn’t pass through to your mouth. Our daughter hated having her nose drained, which made my husband and I, as new parents, feel guilty when we needed to use this. But unlike awkward suction bulbs, this sucker works fast. Using it is way better than the alternative: a miserable, congested baby. As she did with most remedies for sick kids, our infant protested and then forgot all about it once she got some relief.

—Jackie Reeve

I could count on one hand the pieces of baby gear that have survived our three kids, and the BabyBjörn Baby Bib deserves special mention even within that elite category. This bib is easier to put on and take off than other ones we used. And it’s better than the rest at catching everything from spilled soup to spit-up: We found that the bib’s rigid reservoir and stiff plastic construction could carry a sizable load to the sink without spilling. If your kid is wearing the BabyBjörn Baby Bib in the right place at the right time, it will make you feel, for a fleeting moment, that you have this parenting thing under control.

—Harry Sawyers

This article was edited by Amy Miller Kravetz and Kalee Thompson.