Bathing Your Baby

When I brought my first baby home – I had no idea how to bathe a newborn. I learnt very quickly (from daily experience) the how-tos of bath time.  Here a few tips on bathing your baby.

Keep Calm and Bathe On

I confess: bathing kids is not my favourite part of the day – actually it’s my most-un-favourite part of the day. I’m tired. They are tired. We are all just trying to get through the hours, minutes and seconds until bedtime. On the greater scheme of things…bath time is a good way to unwind, get clean, and move onwards and upwards to bed time. So it’s important to keep calm and just bathe on.  Take a deep breath…push those tired parent feelings aside…and go.

Baby Products

I am a strong supporter of using baby products for babies. Why? Because I tend to think if it’s designed for a baby’s sensitive skin why wouldn’t I want to use it? For example, the new Fisher-Price Baby Wash products now on sale. They not only have a baby wash line they also have a newborn baby sensitive body care line (showing they’ve got your back in the bath from newborn onwards).

So while I am bored er…I mean bathing my toddler I pass the time reading bath products (yes, yes I do).  It’s not that I’m not watching my child in the water (hello! of course I am – you should always supervise young children in the bath – being in arms reach of a toddler and keeping a hand on a newborn at all times).  But, at this point – I can multi-task pretty effectively and I am able to glance at product labels while acting as life guard.

The quirky animal-shaped soap dispensers and cleverly crafted labels of the Fisher-Price bath line always make me smile. It’s a bit of fun at bath time.

Bath Time Fun

You do need to make an extra effort to make bathing your baby fun (for all of you). Songs, stories, water toys. I wash yogurt containers and re-use them as bath toys (gives another life to something which was headed for the recycling bin). My son loves to scoop and pour from these containers. He could do it for hours.

Après-Bath

Après-bath I love to cuddle my son up in a hooded towel and snuggle him into my shoulder (THIS is the best part of bathing your baby). Pat him dry and lay him on his change table – we smile and sing together. It’s a lovely moment of the day.

Our ritual is to gently rub a bit of lotion (like Fisher-Price Sensitive Skin Body Lotion pictured above) to give him a gentle baby massage. I find it calms him down and helps moisturize his baby-soft skin. I also put a dab of lotion on his hands (he always asks) which he rubs between his fingers (hello sensory experience!).

Diaper. Pjs. Story…and the day is done.

Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own