Why Baby Face Nelson Has Nothing on My Toddler

It's 4:17 in the morning, and the glowing screen of my phone is illuminating half of my face while the other half is being rhythmically kicked by a two-year-old foot. I'm frantically trying to Google why one of my twin daughters has suddenly developed a chin that looks exactly like a poorly made pepperoni pizza, but sleep deprivation has turned my thumbs into sausages. I attempt to type "baby face red angry" into the search bar, but through some ungodly combination of autocorrect and sheer exhaustion, I end up searching for "baby face nelson." Suddenly, instead of the gentle pediatric skincare advice I was desperately seeking, I find myself tumbling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about Lester Joseph Gillis, a highly volatile 1930s Chicago bank robber.

The biggest myth about Baby Face Nelson is that he was the most terrifying, unpredictable creature to ever walk the earth just because J. Edgar Hoover decided to plaster his face on "Public Enemy Number One" posters across America. This is completely false. J. Edgar Hoover clearly never met my daughter Florence on a rainy Tuesday morning when the wrong coloured bowl was presented at the breakfast table. If the FBI had ever witnessed a two-year-old in the throes of a teething-induced meltdown, they would have politely asked Mr. Nelson to hold their coat while they dealt with the real threat to national security.

The mobster versus the modern toddler

The similarities between a Prohibition-era gangster and a toddler living in a flat in London are actually quite staggering when you haven't slept since 2021. According to the internet, Nelson was dubbed "Baby Face" by his fellow street thugs because of his youthful appearance and exceptionally small stature (he was apparently only five-foot-four). He absolutely hated the nickname and would violently lash out if anyone used it, preferring to be called "Jimmy." My twins are roughly the size of a fire hydrant, possess cheeks that older relatives constantly want to pinch, and absolutely despise being called babies. "I'm big girl!" Florence will scream, mere seconds before tripping over a completely stationary rug and demanding I carry her to the sofa.

Nelson supposedly began his criminal career at age twelve doing home invasions, whereas my daughters started destroying our home the moment they figured out how to crawl, systematically emptying every low kitchen cupboard of its Tupperware with the efficiency of a highly organized crime syndicate. After his boss John Dillinger died, Nelson went on a rampage that ended in a violent shootout with federal agents called the "Battle of Barrington" in November 1934. I read all of this at four in the morning while Florence aggressively headbutted my collarbone, realizing that my own Battle of the Living Room was far from over.

But enough about historical bank robbers. If you've found yourself searching for anything related to a baby's face, you probably aren't looking for a history lesson on the American mafia. You're likely staring at your own tiny, furious roommate, wondering how such a small surface area can produce so much drool, so many mysterious red bumps, and so much generalized chaos.

The great drool flood and the ruined chin

When I finally got around to asking our GP about the pepperoni pizza situation on Florence's chin, she gave me that deeply sympathetic look NHS doctors reserve for panicked first-time parents and muttered something about infant skin being vastly thinner than adult skin. I think she said it was twenty or thirty percent thinner, which might explain why a slightly rough towel leaves them looking like they've just gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. Or why a gentle autumn breeze makes their cheeks crack like old parchment.

The main culprit for our misery was teething, an evolutionary design flaw that forces a human infant to produce enough saliva to fill a paddling pool while simultaneously growing sharp little bones out of their gums. Because their skin is so thin and terrible at retaining moisture, having a face constantly soaked in acidic drool leads to what the medical community politely calls "drool rash" and what I call "the red ring of fire." You end up doing this ridiculous, never-ending dance of dabbing their chin with whatever semi-clean fabric is within arm's reach while hoping a thick layer of barrier balm might magically repel the endless river of spit.

I read a forum post (page 47 of a deeply unhelpful parenting thread) that suggested simply keeping the baby's face clean and dry using a soft cloth and warm water. This sounds delightfully simple until you try to apply a warm, damp cloth to a teething toddler who reacts as if you're trying to wash them with battery acid. I spent weeks desperately buying every teething gimmick on the market, hoping one of them would stop the twins from chewing on their own hands, my fingers, the edge of the coffee table, and the strap of the pram.

I eventually bought the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy on a whim while waiting in a queue at the pharmacy. It actually turned out to be brilliant, mainly because it's completely flat and shaped in a way that allows a highly uncoordinated infant to actually grip it without immediately dropping it on the floor. It's made of food-grade silicone (which I appreciate because it doesn't get instantly gross like those bizarre fabric teething rings) and it has little textured bumps that the girls seemed to aggressively grind their front gums against. The best part is that when it gets covered in lint and old biscuit crumbs from the bottom of the changing bag, I just throw it in the dishwasher with the coffee mugs. It's the only thing that managed to redirect the drool flood away from their chins and into something manageable, allowing the rash to finally heal.

If you're also currently living with a tiny mobster who's destroying your home because their teeth hurt, you might want to look at our other sanity-saving teething items before you completely lose your mind.

Sun protection and other things I get wrong

Once you solve the drool issue, you immediately run into the nightmare that's taking a baby face outside. I vaguely recall a health visitor casually mentioning that babies under six months shouldn't even wear sunscreen, which threw me into an absolute panic the first time the sun came out in London (a rare event, but still terrifying when you're pushing a double pram). Apparently, their skin is so permeable that slathering them in chemical lotions is a bad idea, so you're just supposed to keep them out of the sun completely.

This led to me awkwardly draping various items of clothing over the pram canopy to create a mobile cave, inevitably resulting in furious screaming from the darkness within. We have the Bamboo Baby Blanket with the colorful leaves design, which we mostly use for this exact purpose or for laying on the grass in the park. It’s a perfectly fine blanket, and apparently bamboo is great because it has some sort of natural moisture-wicking property that stops babies from getting clammy, though my grasp of textile science is mostly limited to checking if a fabric can survive a hot wash after a massive nappy blowout. It's incredibly soft, but I'll say the lovely watercolour leaf pattern makes it quite difficult to spot a rogue, squashed raisin until you've already sat on it.

As they got older and we could really use sunscreen, applying it became an Olympic sport. If you've ever tried to rub a thick mineral sunscreen into the face of a toddler who actively doesn't want it there, you know it's like trying to ice a cake while the cake is on fire and actively fighting back. You just smear a white streak across their nose, try to rub it in while they thrash around, and inevitably end up poking them in the eye, resulting in tears that wash the sunscreen away anyway. It's a futile exercise.

The great dummy debate and the backup squirrel

Another massive contributor to the ruined baby face is the dummy (or pacifier, depending on where you're reading this). We relied heavily on dummies for the first eighteen months because the alternative was standing in the kitchen at 2 AM crying into the microwave. But dummies trap drool against the skin, creating a perfect little greenhouse for bacteria and redness. I found myself constantly trying to swap out their dummies for teething toys to give their skin a chance to breathe.

For the car seat, we keep the Squirrel Teether in rotation as a distraction. It’s okay. The mint green acorn design is cute, and it's also silicone so it survives my aggressive cleaning routines, but my daughter Alice threw it out of the pram once while we were crossing the street and it bounced directly into a murky London puddle. Even after boiling it, I can't look at it without thinking about the Central Line, so now it lives exclusively indoors. Still, having multiple backups is the only way to survive the teething phase without resorting to crime yourself.

honestly, keeping your child's face somewhat clean and free of angry red bumps is a war of attrition. You will dab, you'll smear expensive organic balms, you'll buy twelve different chew toys, and sometimes they'll still wake up looking like they've contracted a medieval plague. Just remember that unlike a 1930s gangster, your toddler will eventually grow out of this phase, their skin will thicken up, and the drool will stop. Until then, just keep a soft cloth handy and try not to Google things at 4 AM.

If you're exhausted and just want to throw money at the problem until your baby stops crying, go browse our organic baby care range to stock up your nursery.

Questions I frequently ask myself at 3 AM

Why is my baby's face constantly breaking out in red bumps?
If they're teething, it's almost certainly drool rash. A baby's skin is comically thin and terrible at dealing with moisture. When they constantly leak acidic saliva all over their chin and neck, the skin breaks down. My GP basically told me it's normal, though it looks horrific. You just have to keep dabbing it dry without rubbing, which is basically impossible.

Can I put normal lotion on a baby's face?
I tried this once in a moment of desperation and it made everything significantly worse. Apparently, adult lotions are full of fragrances and chemicals that absolute wreck infant skin. I stick to whatever thick, unpronounceable barrier balms the pharmacy recommends for babies, or just let it air out.

Are silicone teethers seriously better than the wooden ones?
For pure, unadulterated gum-crushing relief, I think silicone wins. The wooden ones look gorgeous on a nursery shelf and make you feel like an incredibly grounded, earthy parent, but when your kid is screaming in the car, a soft silicone teether that they can really bite down on seems to calm them faster. Plus, you can lob the silicone ones in the dishwasher.

How do I wash my baby's face if they hate water?
I've no idea, let me know if you figure it out. The official advice is to use a soft cloth and warm water, but my twins act like I'm waterboarding them. I usually just try to catch them off guard with a damp cloth while they're distracted by a cartoon, or I just use my t-shirt sleeve when we're out in public. We're all just doing our best here.