Bath at bedtime

[AngelDog]

Daft question alert.

DS is 19 m.o. and we've only ever bathed him a couple of times a week. Now the dermatologist has recommended he has daily baths to help his skin (he has eczema on his face and dryish skin on the rest of his body).

I'm finding it a real chore and it seems to add almost half an hour onto the bedtime routine, once you've got everything organised, cleared it up afterwards etc. He doesn't spend that long in the bath - only 10 minutes or so.

I know lots of people bathe their DC every day - am I missing a trick in how to make it a stress-free and quick experience?

[notnowbernard]

I tend not to bathe DS every day because it makes his dry skin and (small) patches of eczema worse

[sittinginthesun]

It shouldn't take that long once you're organised. Keep all the bath stuff by the bath, run water whilst getting him undressed, then plonk in bath, let him play whilst you have a cuppa and chat to him, lift him out, dry, cream etc, teeth brush, pyjamas, bed. If I am calmly motivated, it takes 30 mins from going upstairs, to bedtime story and turning off light. What is taking the time at the moment?

[MagicFingerGoesPop]

There is a theory that baths every day make eczema worse. Personally, I have always thought this was due to the soaps used. All of my children had eczema and were all bathed daily with either nothing in the water, or oilatum or similar, or oats.

While you are cleaning up after tea, nip upstairs and run the bath. Then it is ready when you go up and get undressed. Undress and have the jammie out ready to get stright into after drying. Pull the plug out. Finish bedtime routine, then clean up bathroom after putting to bed (bathroom is 'safe' in the meantime as there is no water in the bath. Do teeth in the bath as well.

That routine has worked for all three of mine.

Good luck.

[Octaviapink]

I'd bath him in the sink if you've got a biggish one. You can run it while he eats, strip him off at the table, pop him straight in, five minutes with a quick wash (washing with aqueous cream is good for eczema), bundle into a towel and straight upstairs - ten minutes tops. Both my DCs have baths in the sink (dd is 2.3) because I bought a big one for the purpose!

[SilveryMoon]

AngelDog My ds2 has eczema, I bathe him (with ds1) every other day. A hand full of oats in a tied up sock is good, that normally sorts ds2 skin out within a couple of days.
We all have dinner at about 5 ish here, then the dc's play for a bit whilst I wash up and clean kitchen.
At 6:05, I tell them it's time to tidy up, I start running the bath and we all tidy up.
They then get in the bath whilst I either run the hoover round or quickly sweep.
They spend 10mins in there, then they get out, I dry them, put their pjs on and they each chose a book to read.
We sit reading books, normally just the 2 and they are then in bed for 7/7:15.

[AngelDog]

Thanks for all the replies. :)

I'd thought that baths dried them out, which was one of the reasons we didn't do many before, but the dermatologist has said we should bathe daily. DS's skin does seem to be better with doing that. We used to use oats before, but couldn't tell any difference from plain water in its effect. Now we've a prescription for Oilatum, but DS drinks such big quantities of the water that I still use oats instead.

I think organisation is probably the key - reading the responses was a useful opportunity to think it through. At the moment, bathtime goes:

• Take creams from kitchen up to bathroom
  
• Take DS up to bathroom
  
• Remove nappy bucket from big bath
  
• Pick up baby bath from landing & put in big bath
  
• Retrieve plug from wherever DS has left it the day before (he loves playing with it)
  
• Get oats in a sock from box in spare room
  
• Get clean nappy / booster / wrap from DS's room (and often have to hunt around the house for some if I'm behind on washing / putting away laundry)
  
• Track down PJs, which might be in the bathroom ready, or could be somewhere else in the house where they were drying after DS spilt his drink down them at breakfast
  
• Run the bath
  
• Find DS who's wandered off and encourage him back to the bathroom
  
• Remember that I left one type of cream in the kitchen and go back to collect it
  
• Find DS again
  
• Take off clothes and nappy
  
• Apply cream (Dermol) all over while he tries to play with his toys (not very helpful)
  
  Bath. I clean the bathroom while he's in there and empty the oats & rinse the sock near the end of his bath.
  
  
• Empty bath
  
• Dry DS while he attempts an impression of a Spanish bullfighter with the towel
  
• Clean teeth
  
• Wipe face after doing teeth
  
• Apply cream all over body while he tries to play with towels or toys again
  
• Put on nappy & PJs
  
• Apply different cream on face
  
• Apply different cream up his nose (he loves this!)
  
  
• Rinse bath toys & put away
  
• Rinse baby bath
  
• Rinse big bath
  
• Wipe side of bath with cloth and hang up bath mat
  
• Take sock from the oats and dirty clothes to the washing basket in the spare room
  
• Take dirty nappy downstairs and put in nappy bucket
  
• Track down DS and take him upstairs to bed.
  
  DS rolls around the bed for 5 minutes, then we then read & pray for perhaps 10 mins, and then I bf him to sleep, which takes 15-30 mins.
  
  So there is a lot of faffing going on at the moment!
  
  Unfortunately our bathroom is tiny so there isn't space to keep things like nappies in there, and we only have one bottle/tub of each sort of cream at the moment. Given that we have 3 floors to our house I seem to always be carrying it from one place to another or discovering it's been left somewhere else. I've asked the doctor for more but I'm waiting for the prescription.

[SilveryMoon]

Right.
It does sound like it could be better organised.
Why are the creams in the kitchen? Is this because you apply them through the day? Can you get into the habit of taking them up tothebathroom through the day instead of all at the same time?
Why is he using a baby bath? Can he not sit up in the big bath? This would cut off 1 job.
We keep our plug in a net bag (you know from washing machine tablets) which is hung on a rubber suction hook on the wall out of reach of tiny hands (and cats)
I'd start running the bath first so that it's running whilst you are looking for pj's/nappy etc etc
I clean their teeth in the bath too.
If your bathroom is too small to keep these things in, can you not keep it all in the same place somewhere else and take ds there to get dried and dressed?
I dry and dress both mine in the living room.

[Octaviapink]

Have spare creams all over the house.
Use disposables at night (we use washables too but disposables are a lot quicker and easier at bedtime).
Ditch the baby-bath!
Don't worry about pulling a clean pair of pjs out of the drawer if you're not sure where this morning's are!

[sittinginthesun]

Agree - ditch the baby bath. I always hated mine and didn't bother at all with DS2.

Keep all creams etc with nappies in box in his bedroom (kept ours under bed), so you can just pull it out as the water is running. I just topped it up with nappies and wipes a couple of times a week.

I empty the bath and tidy once they are in pyjamas in bed. It stops them running around and getting over excited. I try and stay child focused until they are actually down.

[Canistaysane]

My dd also has had eczema, not so much now though. When she had it bad we were told to bath her regular and we were also given Dermol. In the bath we were told not to use any soap. so apart from shampoo we just put something like oilatum junior or sanex for kids in the bath water.
As for getting organised, when it comes to baths I try to think about what I will need, pjs, nappys, wipes, towels, then get everything ready, then run the bath then get dd upstairs to bathroom.
My bathroom is small to, so I keep nappies, cream in bedroom.
and I keep some downstairs in a changing bag then I know where to find them.

[MrsHoolie]

Re: oats in the bath.
I have found the cheaper the oats the creamier they are in the water. I put them in a pop sock and really squeeze it about.
My DS has eczema and we were doing daily baths but are trying a couple of times a week at the mo.
He's never enjoyed bath time so it takes about 5 minutes.

[AngelDog]

Thanks. Tonight was faster and much less stressful. :)

It'll be easier once we get duplicates of creams as two of them are needed on an hourly basis or for handwashing in the kitchen, so we can't keep the one bottle we have in the bathroom. Keeping everything in one box ready for bathtime is a very sensible suggestion, so I'll do that.

Octavia, Disposables at night would be a good idea if I could find some which worked - the best brand I've tried leak only 50% of the time! (Half the leaks are due to too much wee, half the leaks are for some other random reason.) We had a holiday recently when we took disposables and I ended up washing all the bedding every other day so I've given up!

We use the baby bath as it uses less water but I'll have a think about just using the big bath.

I like the plug idea, Silvery.

Yes, MrsHoolie - we use Tesco value oats in a pop sock and it's great for washing hair with too.

Is there a knack to cleaning teeth in the bath? It was easy tonight as DS was in a co-operative mood, but often I need to have him out & sitting on my lap as when he's in the bath he's standing and splashing the water which makes it hard to get the toothbrush in without accidentally ramming it into the back of his mouth.

[Bumpsadaisie]

Ditch the baby bath - he doesn't need it at 19 months.

Leave all the cleaning/tidying up of the bath and related clobber until afterwards when DS has gone to bed. You're doing quite a big clean up operation at the moment which must take a while, and in the meantime your DS will be running round getting stimulated again and "switched on" again rather than straight from warm bath to warm jamas to warm bed.

[Bumpsadaisie]

PS

Its strange that his nappies are leaking so much. Try the next size up? My DD always had to be right at the bottom of the specified weight range for the size she wore. I think these weight ranges totally inaccurate, both for containment purposes and comfort! Strictly speaking my DD is in the central weight range for a size 4+, but she is in size 5+ now - not least because 4+ would be terribly tight. And she is not a particularly big girl either.

[AngelDog]

I did use to clear up after he's in bed, but it made it feel like a real chore. My evening is only short - DS goes to bed at 8pm on a good day, 9pm on a bad day, and I start getting ready for bed at 10pm. I've got plenty of other housework to do in the meantime!

Yes, I've tried various different sizes of nappies but maybe I do need to try an even bigger one. He is a heavy wetter, though - the cloth nappies hold a lot more wee than disposables IME, but I have to add boosters for night time otherwise even they leak.