i have it and it is not just spots they are large areas of skin that are a lighter shade then the rest of my skin. right now i have it on my arms, i hope it doesn't go further.
now, if these spots are oval shaped spots and your child has more then 1 or 2 then it might be something else, something more serious. i hate to say this and scare you, but you should be prepared when you go to the doctors. both my sons have these oval shaped spots on them. the yo has one that is on his back and is about the size of half of a dollar bill. but he only had 1. my 1yo has a small oval spot on his stomach next to his belly button. it is the size of a quarter that has been stretched out. then he has another café Ole spot up on his chest. now one spot is not a big deal but 2 or more becomes a issue. because of how many spots there are and the shape they think the baby might have tubular sclerosis (i think thats how you spell it). it is a disease that puts holes in your brain like little tubes. google it and find out about it, to many things to learn about it here. now so far it is just spots on my kid but we wait for something to happen. it probably wont but we wait. the only way to tell if he has this is a biopsy and we don't want to do that to him for something we cant change. tubular is not curable, he can have just spots and still have it or it can be worse way worse. its one of those things that they cant treat the disease they can just treat the symptoms. it might be vitaligo, or a birthmark, or something else.
It helps to me not feel so alone in this. My son never had any white spots before December. Then he got a new pair of slip on sneakers and I noticed that after about 2 weeks with the sneakers he started to get some spots on the top of his feet. At first I just joked about it with him and said "oh look your sneakers are rubbing your brown off (he/we are light brown complection). It really did look like there were areas of his feet that were getting rubbed by certain parts of the sneakers and it was "damaging" the skin in those spots (like sneakers causing a blister). Then I noticed 2 on his knee and 2 near his right eye. Then 3 more small dots came near his right eye. That is when I got worried. He had been to the ped. for an ear infection (2x) and the ped. never mentioned the spots on his face/eye. Then when my DH brought him to get re-checked for the ear infection we saw one of the other ped. in the practice. My dh showed him the spots on his feet and the ped said it looked like he had gotten a rash and the skin got damaged. It could take 6months to a year for the color to fully come back in those spots. DH asked him if he thought it was vitiligo and he said NO. BUT, after we saw him is when the 3 other small dots came on his face/eye. That is when I called the derm. to get an appointment. That is also when I started looking things up on the internet.
Some of his spots are just a shade lighter then his normal skin, some seem pink and some seem white'ish. None look completly white. But I also do not know if vitiligo spots are completly white or if they are just light spots. Around many of his "spots" there are tiny, like pin prick, light dots around the spot. DH does not think it is vitiligo. He thinks it may be some type of "something" that he got from the swim lessons that he was taking from September-Feb. at the YMCA. I really feel like it it vitiligo. I know there are MANY, MANY, MANY worse conditions to have but it still makes me sad.
Thanks for listening! I will be happy once Friday is here and I can get an answer either way.
