Bathing Your Newborn

Some of your most precious memories will be of bathing your newborn. Every tiny bit of them is such a revelation that you feel you can’t possibly touch them enough or gaze at them sufficiently to communicate your love. The miracle of their birth and their safe arrival is to be celebrated daily and bath time seems a perfect event for deepening this growing bond.

Sponge Bathing

The remaining stub of the umbilical cord needs to be kept dry and exposed to air so that it will eventually fall off without getting infected. For this reason, newborns are given sponge baths instead of being submerged in bath water where the risk of infection is higher. Of course, you’ll be cleaning your baby’s bottom with every diaper change and wiping their face regularly to catch spit up and dribbles, but a full body sponge bath is only needed about once or twice a week.

Begin by choosing a safe, comfortable and convenient area to work in, preferably at a height that doesn’t require for you to bend uncomfortably, and one free of drafts. Room temperature should be warm, about 75º – 80º Fahrenheit is ideal. A padded tabletop or dressing table is fine, or you can use a combination baby changing and bathing station which can be equipped with a shower spray to rinse baby while changing or bathing. If you use a bathing tub for baby, only fill it with a few inches of warm water so their umbilical cord remains dry.

Proper support of baby’s head and neck is important all the time but it’s vital during bathing. You shouldn’t use soap of any kind for the first week and then use only a tiny amount of the most gentle and organic kind you can find. To prevent rapid heat loss, only undress when you are all set up and keep the bathing time short and efficient. Make sure you have everything you’ll need for drying, diapering and redressing them close at hand. A hooded terry towel is great to use since babies lose so much body heat from their heads..

Use soft terry wash cloths, a bathing mitten or soft sponge for washing. Always use a separate cloth for the diaper area. There’s no need to scrub your baby since they’re not actually dirty, but simply rinse away any accumulated sweat by running the sponge or mitten lightly over them with a gentle massage type motion.

Be sure to gently wash behind baby’s ears, in the chubby crevices around baby’s neck, elbows, and knees; and in-between baby’s fingers and toes. They may be sloughing off a waxy residue from the womb and some peeling of the skin is not unusual. It’s a good idea to wash baby’s hair near the end of bath time. This will help prevent them from losing too much body heat. Most newborns don’t have much hair, so it is easy to sponge it with water much the same way you do the rest of their body.

Almost all babies dislike getting water or suds in their eyes so carefully tip the baby’s head back just a bit and clean from front to back, to avoid dribbles into their eyes. Having a dry terry towel at hand helps in the event that sudsy water does splash onto their face.

Continue to sponge bathe your baby until the umbilical cord has fallen off – usually within their first month. When your baby’s umbilical cord is completely healed over you can safely submerge more of their body. There are tubs that prop baby up and fit their body so that you can use both hands for washing -  always keeping hold of them. When my first daughter was a few months old, I would take her into the bathtub with me and rest her along my thighs. In this position she was so secure that I could gaze into her eyes and have both hands free to bath her and play with her without worrying about her squirming out of my grasp. The other advantages of this method is that the bath room heats up nicely when you run a full tub and you can add more water to keep the temperature comfortable.

You will be doing little clean ups on your baby countless times a day, but bath time is different. It’s often the segue into a nap or bedtime and can become a ritual of fun and closeness that restores you both after a hectic day. As your baby gets a little older, you can start to experiment with tub toys, bubble baths, splashing, singing and even blowing bubbles together in the tub. Your babies happiness is fed with your enjoyment of them and bath time is a perfect opportunity to enjoy them lavishly and completely.

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