First Bath at Three Weeks

Hello there! We gave Theodore his first bath. Finally! At the time it was three weeks after he was born. No, he did not get an immediate bath after birth. He got wiped down a little bit, but a lot of the vernix on him got rubbed into his skin as the perfect moisturizer.  Babies really do not need to be bathed immediately after they are born, as many hospitals do. I remember watching an episode of Giuliana and Bill, of when their son was born. He was given a sponge bath and he just cried and cried. The sponge turned his new skin bright red. . The nurse giving him his bath seemed to think that the baby was really dirty and had to be rubbed clean till he squeaked. You could tell that he just hated it. If you think about it, it must be terrible. After all a newborn has never felt any kind of artificial texture, so even a soft towel could feel awful.  Anyway, I remember thinking that I did not want to do that to our newborn.

Then I saw some pictures of birth stories which showed a different approach to a baby's first bath. The babies were given their first bath in a normal bath tub in the arms of either mom or dad. They looked so calm and peaceful, some were even asleep. It was so much more gentle than rubbing down a baby, that I decided that we have to do it this way too. You can see these pictures here and here. Well three weeks after he was born, we did just that. Teddy really liked it and was very calm through the whole process. I just let him float in my arms in the soapy water, (we used Burt's Bees Bubble Bath), making sure to keep his body in the water as much as possible so that he wouldn't get cold. For now that's how all his baths are going to be. I want to buy a Puj Tub soon though, to use until he is big enough for the toddler bath which we use for Jude. Tell me have you tried getting in the tub with your baby? Did you like it? Did your baby like it? XO, Yana.