How to make bath time a hit in your household

For nine months water has been your baby’s

home. So, bathing will not be a strange or unusual

experience to him, rather it will be soothing and

comforting as he is placed back into the water,

giving him memories and sensations that are

familiar and pleasing to him.

When placing your baby in the bath, remember

how your baby loved to move around in the water

In utero – so ensure you place your baby in a

comforting deep bath (not 2cm of water where

your baby can’t enjoy the experience and will cry

for more water). The water in utero was warm and

enveloping – not cool and unpleasant. He had

wonderful swimming movements – so don’t put

your baby in too small a bath to restrict those

movements now. Give your baby the pleasure of a

wonderful bath experience.

Bathing is a time that should be an interactive time

of love, care and enjoyment. As bathing a newborn

baby seems to elicit anxiety in new mothers, we

would like to reassure you that this can be a time

of calm and wonderful communication with your

baby.

The bathing environment

The bathroom is the best place to bath your baby –

this room is designed to have water in it and baby

can have the freedom to enjoy the water and

splashing won’t pose a problem to you. Also, you

don’t want to have to carry a bath full of water to

the nursery. Your back has a potential for a problem

once you have just had a baby and if you now go

lifting heavy water – you may exacerbate a back

problem.  Test the temperature of the water by

placing the inside of the wrist into the water – this

is the most sensitive area to temperature.

Time of day to bath

The question – to bath baby in the morning or in

the evening? This dilemma arises, as generally after

a bath, your baby has an extra long and sound

sleep – so moms would like baby to sleep well at

night. However, particularly in the early days –

rather bath baby in the morning and leave the

afternoon and evening for all the other jobs that

you have to cope with, rather than stress yourself

even further by adding another task to an already

heavy schedule.

To bath before or after a feed

When a new baby awakes his first need is hunger,

so if you delay his feed and bath him first – in all

likelihood he won’t enjoy his bath, if you feed him

first – he will be so full that he will either vomit up

his feed with all the movement or he will have

fallen asleep and again won’t enjoy his bath. Try

feeding him half a feed – that will satisfy his

hunger but prevent the other problems from

occurring and give you both the enjoyment you

deserve.

A loving and meaningful way to end bath time is

to gently massage your baby. Baby massage is all

about creating a loving bond between a mother

and her baby. Don’t hurry this interaction – just

enjoy this time together.