Newborn Bath Stress

[carly-g]

My 3 week old son and I are working towards getting on EASY, but bath time is really throwing us off! 

I have tried both sponge baths and tub baths, morning and evening, but it always results in a complete meltdown of my otherwise textbook baby.  When we bathe, I lower him into the infant bath, and my husband pours water over his body while I wash him.  With in 20 seconds of being in the water, he is hysterical.  This makes it more difficult for nap time, because I have to really work on calming him down. 

Besides mastering the 5 minute bath, is there anything else I can do to make bath time less stressful for all of us?

[EllenS]

You know, my lo did not like baths at first either.  You could just do a sponge bath on the changing table (they don't get that dirty) until he gets a little more body control and can deal with more sensations

But I might tweak your technique a little - are you lowering him backwards into the water?  In Tracy's book she notes that this can trigger the "falling" reflex.  When I started lowering my lo feet first into a sitting position, then leaning her back on my hand, it helped a lot.

Also, I would not pour water continuously - that is very stimulating.  I just sit/recline her in the water, swipe with a very soft washcloth or my fingers to get all the creases.  When she was smaller, I would also just put the baby wash on the washcloth and then use the bathwater for rinsing - sort of gently splashing it up and wiping around with my fingers to get the suds off.

When the nurse bathed my lo in the hospital, she did not rinse at all, so I think the very mild baby washes you don't need to worry so much about getting the baby "squeaky" clean.

We also try to have max separation between bath time and sleep time because she gets so wound up (now she LIKES it and gets excited).  We only bathe her every other day.

Hopet this helps

[Henna21]

my baby used to scream the whole time she was in the bath until i figured out if i put her on her tummy istead of on her back in the bath (with my arm going across her chest under her arms) she loved it!
good luck!

[Jimbob]

It might be worth trying a tummy tub bath. I am not sureif youcan get them in the US. Here is a link so you can have a look at them.

http://www.tummytub.co.uk/tummy-tub-testa.html

They look really good.

[yaya]

i like stacy's idea
ps we ar dealing with this too but with us its an OT issue

[EllenS]

Okay, out of curiosity I checked out the Tummy Tub and watched the video.  Maybe I"m dense, but how do you actually WASH the baby in one of these things?  It seems like the parts that actually need washing - the poopy bits - are the hardest to get to!  All the photos and video just show the happy mommies rinsing the baby's head.  Well, her head is not the part that's dirty, kwim?

[skatty]

My DD hated the bath for months, it was so stressful! We were so worried as we thought she'd grow up just being sponge bathed the whole of her life lol. Anyway we decided to  leave the stressful baths and tried again after she was 3 months old and put her in the kitchen sink instead and she suddenly loved the water, she now cries when she has to get out the bath! I wouldn't put you all through the stress if I was you and just sponge bath and implement real baths into your routine when baby is older and enjoys it 

[kris dg]

my 5-week old seemed to like her first bath but she kept on screaming for the succeeding ones.  she also didn't like her sponge baths.  i noticed, however, that she didn't like getting her head wet most.  so we started cleaning the head part last. 

now, she's pretty happy in her bath tub until the very end where we wash her face and head.  the past 2 days, she hasn't cried =)

[yaya]

the tummy tub is great, I cant find mine i had with T grrr...to answer yr Q...do u really need to scrub!?! babies arent really dirty as such, I wipe off the poop and let the water do the rest of the work

[carly-g]

Thanks everyone!  I'll look into tummy baths.  I think he probably would like them, as he LOVES tummy time!