In my last article (Eight Tips of Successful Fatherhood), I recommended that fathers should learn to bath their babies once in a while and got so many funny feedbacks, comments and remarks. From all the responses I got, it is obvious that most men think bathing your baby requires rocket science. They see it as a very big task which is an exclusive preserve of the women. Bathing your baby can also be fun if you work towards it. It like every other human endeavour, the more you do it, the better and more experienced you become. However, I have decided to break the process down to just three stages for easy learning and to show how easy it really is. I mean the process of the seemingly “tall task” of bathing your baby is just THREE stages!
The stages are:
- Preparing to bath your baby.
- 2. Bathing your baby.
- 3. Having fun in the bathtub.
Preparing To Bath Your Baby
Before bathing your baby, you need to take the time to prepare for it. It won’t take more than ten minutes to do that. You should get everything you need to bath together near his bathtub. You need things like sponge, soap , cotton balls, diaper, his cloths , washcloth , towel , comb , lotion , oil , powder , socks. Make sure everything is around his bathtub before you bring the baby. You should make sure the water is warm, not hot and you have to be very careful about it. You need to be careful because the water that feels warm to your skin maybe too hot to your baby’s skin. This is because the baby’s skin and body generally, is very tender and delicate. The water shouldn’t be too cold the baby too. That’s why I stressed that you have to be very careful, you have to strike a very good balance between hot and cold. When everything is ready, you can now go and bring your baby. Please, don’t ever leave your baby in the bathtub to get anything, not for a few seconds. It can be dangerous. If you receive calls often, I suggest you also take your phone along when you’re going to bath your baby. If you have to get something urgently, you should either carry your wet baby along , let someone watch over your baby or let someone get it for you. Finally, if you’re the only person at home and you need to get the door, please carry your baby with you.
Bathing Your Baby
You will have to give your baby a sponge bath first, you will continue like that until his umbilical cord heals up completely. When his umbilical cord heals up completely, you can now bath him in the tub. The tub could be a big bowl or a basin. Fill the tub with warm water like mentioned earlier. Now take the steps below:
- Use clean wet washcloth without soap to wash his face gently. Wash his ears , his neck, both front and back.
- Use wet cotton balls to wipe his eyes before you put him in the tub.
- Now you can wash his hair and scalp with either soap or baby shampoo. You don’t have to do this every time you bath your baby. Be careful not to let soap lather get into his eyes.
- Wash your baby gently with soapy washcloth and rinse him off with warm water. Rinse and sun dry the washcloth later.
- Clean him dry with a dry towel. Your baby should always be covered and warm whenever she’s wet.
Finish dressing him up and put him in his crib before you go and tidy up the place where he took his bath or you get someone to help you tidy it up.
Having Fun In The Bath Tub
When your baby is about six months, you can start bathing him in the family bathtub. There is every possibility that he may have outgrown his bathtub. By then, he would be able to sit down on his own all by himself. This is a very good time to make his bath time fun time for both of you. When you’ve finished bathing him, you should let him spend some time in the water-filled bathtub with some floating toys around him. Let him splash as much water as he wants to. You can also get into the tub to splash some water with him. Like I said earlier, don’t leave him alone in the tub to go and do anything. It can be dangerous still. When he’s done or you’re done or tired, you can bring him out, towel dry him and go and dress him up.
Conclusively, I recommend that a father should bath his baby, at least, once in every week. It is not as difficult as most men think it is. Because of the little fun he gets after his bath, he’ll always look forward to bath time.
