One of the many things I didn't realize when I was pregnant, was that bath time would be an evolution once baby was born. It's something I never really thought much about in the realm of baby products. As baby gets older, what we use during bath time changed.
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| Newborn Ethan |
Infant stage: In the beginning, babies don't need baths at all! That sweet baby smell of a newborn is indescribable and absolutely precious. Babies don't actually sweat at all because a lot of their sweat glands haven't fully developed yet. Also, they don't do very much besides eat, sleep, and poop in those beginning weeks, so there isn't that much to clean besides their butt. All we did in the beginning would be to wet one of those baby washcloths with water, and wipe his face and hands. That way, he'd be fresh for new kisses...
Infant stage, post-umbilical cord detachment: Once that last bit of the umbilical cord falls off, or is gently pried off in our case (it was hanging on by a thread), baby is cleared for actual submersion into water. We used the
Puj Flyte in our bathroom sink, which worked out really nicely because he was secure and comfortable. We would also put a washcloth on his private area so that we wouldn't get surprise fountains in our face during bath time. When they're that small, their bladder is also very small, so frequent surprise fountains were to be had at all times. We started using the
Episencial Playful Wash to suds him up because I had gotten samples of it in the hospital and liked its list of few ingredients and pleasant citrus smell. Also, we used some hooded infant bath towels that were thin and easy to wrap baby in. Bath time was only every few days or so because he stayed pretty fresh on his own.
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| Ethan in the Puj Flyte posin |
Chubby baby stage: When Ethan grew too large for our small bathroom sink, we had to move to the tub. Ideally, we would be using the kitchen sink instead as there's more depth there and we could remain in an upright position, but in our current house, it wasn't feasible. So, we started using the
Primo tub in our tub. When we used it for the first time, we didn't realize there was a fill to line that's pretty low, so we filled it to nearly the top! Ethan was floating around in there like a rubber ducky! It made washing him super easy though because we could access every crevice in his zero gravity state. Obviously, it wasn't safe to keep washing him like this because it made him a very slippery baby. We eventually found the fill to line, so he was able to recline in the tub and we could wash him with both hands. The downside to this setup was that we had to be hunched over our large, oval-shaped tub. This was killer on our knees and back of course. The
brica bath kneeler helped with the knees, but there wasn't much we could do about the lower back besides wash him super fast. He outgrew the hooded towels we used in infancy, so we started using an adult-sized
microfiber towel. It dries him off really quickly, which is key when you're racing to get a diaper on him stat. I preferred this over our regular towels because the thickness of our regular towels were bulky and cumbersome to wrap him in.
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| Brica bath kneeler - a godsend for my knees! |
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| Ethan floating in the tub at first - he's so happy! |
Also, when we were traveling, we found using the Summer bather quite useful in our parents' kitchen sink. It folds up to be very compact, so it was the perfect gift we never asked for.
Sometime before the next stage, we switched up his soap. The episencial one was good, but I wanted to try something gentler for my eczema-riddled hands (cause is from lack of sleep, not the soap). One of the youtube vloggers I'm subscribed to mentioned they use this
Shea shampoo/soap, so I picked it up from Target and fell in love with the scent!
Sitting zen baby stage: Between 6 to 7 months, he started getting really good at sitting upright, and would rather sit than be reclined. So, we brought him to the sitting side of the primo tub. At first, he had to balance himself by holding onto the tub in front or the sides of him, but overall, he was very focused on balance. This was nice in retrospect because keeping him in one spot will continue to be an uphill battle as he gets older. With him sitting, he was now further away from water, so we needed to start using something to scoop up the water for rinsing. We started using the
Green Toys stacking cups that came in a previous citrus lane box, but graduated to the
Green Toys submarine toy because you could get a lot of water in one scoop. Ethan enjoys playing with the submarine as well, which makes it a dual purpose baby product - yay!
Crawling ADD baby stage: Sitting wasn't cutting it anymore. He wanted to be mobile once he started crawling (scootin' between 7 to 8 months), and didn't want to stop. So, we graduated to the full-size adult tub recently (between 9 to 10 months). The problem with that is, he wants to be everywhere we aren't, in other words, the furthest corner of the tub from us. Slipping was a problem at first, so we got the
munchkins slip mat to remedy that. I researched for a while on which type of mat/sticker would be best for us, but ended up just picking up one from Target because I could see exactly what kind of material and dimensions I was working with. He was completely enamored with the spout and handle at first, he would even try to eat the spout, so it was difficult to pull him closer to us for soaping & rinsing. Now, he is more willing to play with his
tub toys, so we can get him occupied while sitting close to us.
Hopefully we can figure out an even better method of bathing him to ease our backs. My mom has recommended to get in the tub with him, but that just doesn't seem sanitary and would prolong the whole bathing process because I would have to dry myself off and change before feeding him for the night. Thus, the evolution continues...
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