Building Your Registry - Bathing

Bathing is an area that can give new parents a lot of anxiety, especially in the newborn stage. Your baby seems so delicate and your bathroom tile so harsh. This anxiety also causes a lot of new parents also overcomplicate bathing, which can actually be very simple. How often you bathe depends on a lot of factors (like the weather where you are, whether your baby is a spitter or prone to blowouts) and also just personal preference (of both you and your baby!) Some babies love baths, some hate it, some parents find it a nice bonding opportunity, others find it needlessly stressful. I urge all parents to bathe their babies only as they feel like, and not to put too much stress on it. Particularly in the newborn stage, sometimes bathing is just too stressful for both parties, and only doing sponge bathing is fine for a few weeks until you both get more used to this new life. Of course there are also any number of products that make bathing a little easier, but also lots of useless ones.

A Note About Newborns!

Before your babies umbilical cord falls off, they cannot be submerged in water. When your babies umbilical cord is going to fall of varies, but until then it is sponge baths only!

Baby Baths

There are lots of different configurations of baby baths but the two most popular ones are the Skip Hop Whale and the AngelCare. The Skip Hop is a contained bath in its own, while the AngelCare is made to support baby while sitting in your bath tub. Both have advantages and disadvantages. With the Skip Hop you can technically bathe your baby anywhere in your house, which can be helpful when you're recovering from birth and not wanting to sit on the floor and lean over the edge of a bath tub, but I've found practically they're almost always in the bath anyway for cleanup purposes. (It'd be a huge mess if the bath spilled in your kitchen, say, and you need running water available for bath time .) However the advantage of the Skip Hop is that the sling is considerably more adjustable for your babies developmental stage. The sling holds them well as a newborn, and adjusts as they can hold their head up more and more to be comfortable. The downside of this sling is that it will grow mould if you don't clean it properly and it can be a pain to clean. I suggest to parents to hang the sling to dry after each bath somewhere with airflow and not leave it attached to the bath itself. The AngelCare on the other hand is very easy to clean, you can simply wipe it down whenever you need, though it's mesh holes in the seat can get grimy. My actual favourite baby bath product is this Jolly Jumper bath. It's budget friendly, incredibly easy to clean, and keeps your baby in a very comfortable supported position. If you're looking for an in bath seat, this is the one I recommend.

Bath Seats

Once your baby is a bit bigger and outgrowing their newborn bath (depending on which one you bought) some people grab a bath seat. This can be helpful particularly if you have a baby who is on the larger side, so is outgrowing the baby bath, but still not able to sit up on their own in the bath. These are certainly not a necessity though, and I generally advise parents to wait until they need it to buy one.

Soap

When choosing a baby soap the first and most important thing is that it should be scent free. You'd be surprised at how many baby products are NOT scent free, but newborns have such sensitive skin, any added scents can cause rashes and eczema. Since they have such sensitive skin, it's important that you use an actual baby soap, because it will be milder than any adult product. However, it's not necessary to have separate shampoo and body soap products, even if your baby has hair, one will work fine for all and there's no need to make bathing more complicated than it needs to be. It's also important not to use soap too often. Even if you're bathing often, it can be hard on your babies skin to use soap more than 1-2 times a week.

Lotions

Like soap, any lotion you use should be unscented. Depending on the climate you live in, the season, and your baby's skin type, moisturizer is not strictly necessary, but it can be helpful. Follow similar steps to choosing a soap and only apply in a thin layer. I personally like CeraVe, but there are a lot of good options out there.

Baby Towels

Baby towels are largely useless. Yes, they can be cute. They can have little animal heads to put over your baby's head. Or patterns that 'adult' towels don't. But you already own towels (or I hope you do). And the towels you own are going to be better, frankly. Baby towels are often small (fine for newborns, but once your baby gets a bit bigger it's not going to cover them and they're going to be cold and mad), and they're often thin and less absorbent than regular towels. They are a cute thing that often get given as gifts and sit in the back of a closet, never touched.

Water Thermometers

Having a thermometer tell you the exact temperature of your baby's bath is unnecessary. It's pretty quick and easy to test the water temperature (which should be nice and warm on the inside of your wrist, but not hot). However if you tend towards being anxious, these can be a peace of mind item that is not particularly expensive. The most popular is this duck that floats in the bath with your baby, which is also cute.

Rinse Cup

This Skip Hop whale rinse cup to match the baby bath is incredibly popular and I find it a little bit useless. It's too large and inevitably dumps too much water where you don't want it. Buying a specific item to pour water over your baby with is a little bit silly, just use any old plastic cup you've got in your kitchen already.

Toys

Bath toys can be so fun! Once your baby gets a bit bigger and is splashing and enjoying watching water pour bath time becomes fun! However, it's very important when buying bath toys to not buy anything that has a small hole and can hold water because they will get mouldy. Very, very mouldy. So you want toys that are either solid without holes, or ones that have large openings that will dry out quickly. I particularly like having stacking cups in the bath (then you can use them for rinsing too and make it a game) and these 'stickers' that stick to the tub.

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