That O shaped thing was terrific. They could sit and play as long as they liked without me worried they would topple over. The best fun they had was me gathering up the soapsuds from their hair into my hands and they would swish their fingers around in it. This was inexplicably called a “Soap Bob”. Other than that they mostly liked to endlessly pour water out of cups.
You might not be able to buy one of those anymore. I’m pretty sure they made the same list as wheeled walkers after one too many people walked away from the kid in the tub and they fell over and drowned. I’ll look it up later when I’m not on my phone.
You can find them:
http://www.amazon.com/Juvenile-Solutions-Aquababy-Bath-Ring/dp/B000RJONY8
http://kidsstuff.stores.yahoo.net/b148-bathring.html
But please note, babies have drowned because parents felt they were “safe for a few minutes” in the ring.
They are not.
And it it’s helpful until baby can sit up anyway.
I never left my kids for a second alone. You are so right it only takes a second. The part I liked was she could sit up and play with her brother without falling over or hitting her head. The links show they have come a long way!
I did look it up, this is what I found so no, they aren’t banned in Canada (I thought they were, I was probably conflating them with baby walkers or misremembering the sheet we are given every time we take part in a children’s outgrown sale) but as you can see from the link I found they warn very seriously to never leave the child alone (or with just an older child).
It does take a second, I never had one of those and I never left Velociraptor alone (even now my mom is paranoid enough that she makes him whistle or talk so we can hear… a good precaution, he’s still young though I let him bathe on his own).
I do see they are meant for 7-16 months according to the manufacturer, by that time they should be sitting on their own anyway so I don’t really see the point for a ring. Have a good mat in the bottom of the tub and stay with them!
We kept a stack of baby washcloths on the changing table for covering the penis during diaper changes. Our friends with a little boy two weeks older than ours didn’t do this until Dad got hit square in the open mouth with a pee stream in the middle of the night. They are also easy to stick in a diaper bag for dealing with spit-up on the go.
We also bought a Costco size package of plain white washcloths and staged them all over the house. They were burp rags, leak cleaners, impromptu teethers/toys - very useful.
We found the sink to be the best place to wash the baby at least until he can sit up well. If you have a spray attachment on your faucet, that’s great for cleaning. You can get one of those little bath slings that fits in your sink, too.
Let the baby tell you what temperature is right. You’ll be surprised at how sensitive they are to heat. What feels neutral or lukewarm to you might feel excruciatingly painful to them. Start off with a neutral temp and if the response means it’s too hot, take their word for it. Keep up this practice until age 4 or so, until they can wash hands after using the bathroom on their own.
Yes. You need thousands of washcloths or diapers or something for kid-cleanup. We have a permanently-dedicated basket with diapers and baby cloths that have turned into toddler post-meal-rags.
We used the tub with a sling and baby wash cloths. I liked having a plastic tub because if they thrash or fall back, they are not as likely to crack open their skull. My daughter hated her bath until she was two and a half and would scream like we were murdering her slowly no matter what. She decided she liked the bath suddenly. One bath was a scream fight and the next was fun. No idea why.
We also had a safety duck to test the water. The word HOT showed on the bottom if the water was to warm.
My son has always liked to bathe. He had fun and cooperated. He loved to splash and play and yet was not too unhappy when bathtime was over.
The important thing is not to bathe too often when they are a small infant. I understand daily baths are not the way to go.
I used the baby wash cloths simply because I was given some, and it was sort of nice not having a big floppy thing to deal with when bathing a small baby.
I had a baby bathtub (secondhand) and used it until the kids were old enough to sort of sit in a bath seat. It was much more comfortable than trying to bend over a tub, for sure, since I had it on top of the bathroom vanity. Also, this way you only need to keep one hand on the baby while you’re using the other one to wash… I could even use both hands for washing, of course I was right there so if the baby had slipped somehow he wouldn’t have fallen). Never had the pooping issue there which I chalk up to luck. I don’t recall if we had any peeing in the thing but if so, it was a simple matter to just open the plug in the bottom.
I did use a bath seat - the sort where you plunk the baby in to the thing suction-cupped to the bottom of the tub. Again, freed up my hands; the safety issues (baby can slide / topple out of the bath seat) was dealt with simply by my never being more than a foot away. The one downside of ours was as my son got a bit larger, we had to be careful when sliding him into/out of it lest the family jewels get injured. That was about when we quit using it entirely - by then he was big enough to sit up very securely in the tub.
I also would take the baby into the shower with me on occasion. The downside of that was that I needed one hand to hold the baby, and two hands to handle my own ablutions. And the baby would get slippery, which made him/her hard to hold onto. Tub-bathing with baby was actually quite a bit easier.
And note that the cooler the water - the faster it gets cold, and baby gets chilled really, really fast.
Well, do remember that mom makes a great baby warmer. I would cuddle them skin to skin with a dry towel over the both of us after a quick toweling off. My daughter would always want to nurse after a bath.