How often do you bathe your baby?

[feebeeglee]

With #3 I find that a week can go by and he'll only get "spot cleanings" in his dirtiest parts (neck, between fingers/toes, behind ears.) He loves his bath in my lap but with two DDs "helping" it's just too dang much trouble, KWIM?

[sleepies]

every day, here is why.

1. He sits in pee and poop!
2. It is fun!
3. They smell good after a bath.
4. Makes his hair look better if I wash it.
5. Gives me something to do.
6. I take one everyday.
7. He touches dirty stuff all the time!
8. He spills food and milk on himself.
9. Gets rid of germs
10. WORKS FOR ME

[zombiemommie]

LOL I am glad to see on the poll, which I did before opening the thread, has somebody else besides me bathing only once a week. Honestly, I bathe my 4 month old dd when she poops. She poops once every 6-7 days and its a doozy and thats when she gets her bath. No sense trying to clean that off without a bath LOL. My son who is almost 3 gets a daily bath, sometimes 2 plus a shower for entertainment purposes. My dd is a bit stinky sometimes (usually pukey smell behind her ears) and I'm sure when she starts solids she will get a more frequent bath but I'm just to lazy, period. I usually just wash her privates once a day and if I remember, her neck. She loves the bath too maybe it will come in handy down the road ROFL.

[LaffNowCryLater]

I would say 2x a week to once a week. He is only 4 months old, gets spot washings, and as for sitting in pee and poop I clean him at diaper changes with a solution I made containing bath wash and water on a wash cloth.

[jazminflower]

she usually gets a bath every other day, but sometimes a couple days in a row if i need to shower before work and dh is not home ....probably why she LOVES it sooo much.

[BowenTherapist]

well dd doesn't sit in pee or poo (we ec), but i still take a bath with her at least every other day. mainly cause i don't do spot cleaning and i just use tp to wipe her instead of a wipe with solution. also this coincides with days she poops, so that i just wash her with water in the sink then give her a bath later on.
but we don't use soap and oil her after the bath so her skin doesn't dry out.

[Alexander]

Please remember

Baths are not for anything disgusting, (like washing), but for having fun. What do you do that is fun in the bath?

We

eat strawberries

paint each other

play puppets with the toys

Play "Hair dresser"

wobble wobble balloon wobble

etc.

a

[corrie43]

Ok, So I may be a weird but my dd has only had like 3 or 4 tub baths in 4 months, But just about everyday I get her all naked and wash her from head to toe with a washcloth and soap and water. Then she gets a massage with oil. I feel shes clean and it's a pain in the butt to get that tub ready and I don't really get her clean as well as I can the other way. We EC so she hardly ever gets poop on herself, and doesn't do much to get dirty anyway.
BUt when she can sit up I will start the regular tub. My 2 year old takes a VERY long bath everyday and he loves playing in there.

[mags&jordy]

Sleepies - I like your list!
I too voted for taking a bath everyday.
She has been getting a bath from day one and I can't imagine otherwise. It took quite long to establish her routine and bath is one of the keypoints of the evening right now. When "Friends" start at 6, I tell Jordy (don't know if she understands yet what I say) that Friends start now and after Friends it's a bath. So every day at 6.30 I run a tub, put a big bear-shaped sponge in it (to sit on), throw in some toys and put her in. I think she enjoys it so much.
I take a shower everyday and so is dh, so i thought this was an obvious thing for dd too.

[lilylove]

My dd takes a bath about every other day. It is not so much that she is dirty(although I am sure that will change as it gets warmer and we play outside more), but that she loves it . Either a shower with me or play time in the tub she has a blast either way. In fact recently her (11 months) and her cousin(12 months), went into a indoor pool. Lily loved it, but her cousin who only had sponge bathes before, or bathes in her baby tub, was terrified. Anyway, for us it's more for fun.

[feebeeglee]

I notice that, by and large, the more frequent bathers are only children or have much older sibs. I bathed my first baby every day for the fun factor. Second baby was so close to the first in age that I hardly remember anything about her newborn times. First bath memories with her start at around 4 mos when all 3 of us could get in the tub together without a fear of older sis drowning her inadvertently. Now, as I said above, ds babe #3 is a grimy little monkey. I know he'd love it as mucha s his big sisters did if I did bathe him everyday but I just don't get around to it.... When he sits up he'll start getting baths as often as they do!

[Kiki Runs]

I TRY to give ds a bath every other day. Some days it just doesn't happen, but we're usually pretty good about it. I make sure to clean him well at diaper changes, and I change him frequently.

We have a 7mo old puppy who is still very hyper - it makes bathing ds kind of tough sometimes. Plus, like other posters have said, it's not like he's doing aerobics or playing in a sandbox - he's 8 weeks old. As he gets older and DOES start playing in the dirt or running around getting sweaty, baths will probably take place on an as-needed basis.

[sylviamama]

NEVER! Now, before you gasp, think to yourself "Baaaaad mama!", and run to the phone to call DSS, let me explain. Dd, who turns one in one week , has not been bathed since the age of three months !

No, she is actually squeaky clean and smells VERY good. She SHOWERS with mama or daddy at least every other day - now that it's hot and we're getting sweaty, it's often every day..... She LOVES it , and none of us would have it any other way.

[AmyG]

About twice a week. I'll probably start bathing him more often when he can sit up and have more fun in the tub, which will probably be in a month or 2 since he's 5 months old. Right now, he's really long, and it makes it difficult to bathe him. He's just way too long for the infant tub and tries to bounce out of it. But I'm not sure I'm too comfortable with sitting with him in the big tub until he can sit on his own. I feel like it will be hard to get out without dropping him.

I do plan on buying a cheap wading pool sometime during the next few weeks and "swimming" with him in the backyard frequently this summer.

[FroNuff]

We're a "once a week" bathing family, too. Sometimes we bathe DD twice in a week, but mostly, she gets one long bath on Sunday morning by her Daddy. She loooooooves it.

I do wash her down everyday with soap and water, but frankly, I'm too lazy to fill up her gargantuan tub everyday. Plus, I'm all about business when it comes to baths, DH is tons more fun that I could ever be! But he's way too tired to do a bath once he comes home from work during the week. I'm seriously jealous of you all who bathe with your babies -- our tub is beyond tiny, in fact, Alicia's baby tub is almost as big as ours! :LOL

[Mamatoto2]

Somebody please educate the ignorant new Mama....how do you safely have an infant join you in the shower?

Incidently, we recently started bathing 3 month-old DD daily (well, nightly) as part of her bedtime routine. She likes her tub, and is starting to kick and splash. Then it's massage, jammies, nursing, and dreamland.

[NWmama]

Just a shower once a week with me (no good tub for us to use). We use a mesh water sling in the shower--keeps her body from slipping. Unfortunately she really doesn't like the whole experience very much, which is really sad because I love showers and baths!

[Sofiamomma]

Dd1 got a bath in a kitchen sink every 2-3 days with the help of the little girl I was nannying at the time. It had entertainment value and was awesome I could take care of this babycare task at work. Sometimes I showered with her. We both loved that! I didn't have a tub at home when she was little, or a babytub, or a sink big enough, so it was either a shower at home or a bath at work! When she got old enough to sit up on her own I started putting her in the big tub and it became part of her bedtime routine. She still liked to shower with me or her auntie sometimes though. During the summer then and still she bathes every day if at all possible, but washes her hair only every other day. During the winter only every 2-3 days. This is because of the dry skin factor. In fact that is why I tell the new mommas I work with to bath 2-3 times a week. It dries their skin out and they are not doing anything to get dirty, so as long as you are washing the diaper area, neck folds, behind ears, and rinsing the face and hands daily you're good to go. Of course, like anything else if it works for you to bathe daily, bathe away! I did recently read that babies bathed more than once a day on a regular basis are more prone to eczema.

Dd2 has a little babytub, but I'm not crazy about it. I liked using it on the kitchen counter when she was tiny because it saved my back, but she was so unsupported. Plus her little bum doesn't stay on the little bump that is supposed to keep them up high in the tub, so she winds up with it in the small of her back. Ouch! I tried putting one of those sponges in there and that helped, but made less room for her in there and it was still awkward. I tried putting her in the tub with her big sister, but that makes me nervous. I finally found that putting the sponge in the big tub works pretty well. It kind of floats and keeps her from flipping over and getting her face in the water. My favorite, though, is to shower her! She LOVES it! I put her in her tub wrapped in a towel and sitting on her diaper. Then I get in and wash myself. When I'm done I reach out and pick her up and kind of flip the diaper out. I hold her facing me and get her wet. Then I wash her hair and rinse her. I turn her around and hold on very tightly to one thigh and wash the rest of her and rinse her. As long as I don't use too much soap or soap too many parts at once she doesn't get too slippery. Maintaining a good grip on the little thigh is key!

[blessedmomof3]

If I just had one I'd probably bathe her everyday. But..I have three. lol They get baths when they are obivously dirty, have been playing outside, when we have time. Which usually ends up being 2-3x a week.

[Peppamint]

DS gets a tub bath 1-2x week. He's only 6 weeks old and it's been rather cool lately (I know it's June! : ). I do give him a spongebath every day though.

DD is 2yo and gets a bath daily except for the occassional day where we do too many other things.

Once my 6w old DS can sit up he'll get baths every other day or daily.

DS is washed with plain water. DD gets a bath in a tub of fresh water and her hair washed with Burt's Bees Baby Shampoo Bar. We have a bar of BB Baby Soap that we use on her skin if she's obviously dirty. During the winter, I add a bit of Burt's Bees Baby Apricot Oil to her bathwater and it keeps her skin glowing instead of dry!