Baby's ashes stolen in Melbourne

A distraught family is pleading with thieves to return the ashes of their baby daughter stolen from their Melbourne home.

Burglars raided the Brighton East home, taking electrical goods, cash, a credit card and an urn holding the ashes of the family's four-month-old daughter.

Detective Senior Constable Marina Wientjens said the family was appealing to the better nature of the thieves, or anyone with information on the robbery, to return their daughter's remains.

"We're hoping that they'll just turn it in or at least let us know where it is," Det Sen Const Wientjens said.

"I think it was taken on a whim, I'm hoping they didn't take it out of malice, because you just don't do that sort of thing do you.

"There was a lot of things taken from the house. I assume they've just taken it with a bunch of other things and not realised what they've had in their possession."

Three people purchased items on the stolen credit card in nearby Prahran just hours after the house was ransacked on February 6.

CCTV footage captured two males aged in their 30s and a woman believed to be of Pacific Island or Maori appearance, aged between 35 and 40 and wearing large sunglasses, making the purchases.

Det Sen Const Wientjens said the family wanted to preserve their privacy.

- AAP