How old was baby when you first gave him/her a bath?

[Melittlebee]

My baby is 2 weeks old, the cord has now come away so wondering if I should bath him or wait a bit longer?
His feet are really dry and flaky so was going to at least moisturise.

HerSymphonyAndSong Misinterpretation of the guidance issued by the RCM.

Babies don’t get dirty? Not mud, no but mine were regularly plastered in mustard coloured explosions after or during a feed. I wouldn’t want skin creases caked in faeces.

How does wiping not remove vernix caseosa but gentle immersion in water does? That’s just daft reasoning or lack of reasoning.

Definite change. mine are now 14 and 11 but we bathed them both the day after birth. My favourite video clip is of DH in the bath with newborn DS2 and two year old DS1. DS2 was sleeping in DH's arms in the warm water.

Ds was born with a full head of hair and was COVERED in all sorts of bodily fluids (mixture of vernix, blood, amniotic fluid and meconium) at birth so he had a wash UNDER A TAP in the delivery room before he was even dressed for the first time!

I washed him in the sink at 4 days when we came home from hospital, then every few days.

DD1 was five days old and the midwife showed me at home in the kitchen sink.

I had no idea how to bathe a baby so asked her and she obliged. She was also a brilliant breastfeeding coach. I loved her.

DD2 I have no idea. Poor second child

I didn’t have any skin creases caked in faeces because that would have been neglectful and horrible so I wiped him properly and topped and tailed him as necessary. Why would you think not immersing in bath water would mean covered in poo?

DD3 was about 12 hours old, she had passed a fair amount of meconium in the womb. She came out looking a real mess, they did give her a clean up on labour ward but it was in her hair and all. The ward sister took one look at her when we got to the ward and sent an auxiliary off to bath her, very grateful!

I had a preemie in the NICU and they encouraged us to bathe the day after being born and then every three days.

Two weeks. Although a mw washed the gunk out of his hair under the tap in hospital 😂
I didnt use any products directly on his skin but a small squirt of baby oil in the bath water sorted his flakyness right out!

Dd was 2 days old and midwife showed me at home

They used to teach us how to bath a baby while we were still in hospital, so probably a couple of days after he was born.

About two weeks here.

People are complaining about the blood in their hair but I found that the little blood matted hair smelled amazing! Weeks later, after I'd bathed him I found a baby grow from hospital i had forgotten to wash and I could smell the smell on it again and it was still amazing.

At about 3 or 4 days old when in hospital, then about a week later soon after I got home. I remember being quite apprehensive, but luckily didn't drown the baby!

My kids are grown up but back then it’s was considered important to keep babies clean. They were all bathed every day from birth. Babies are mucky little creatures, covered in poo, wee, sick, milk. They loved their baths and were always clean and sweet smelling.

Cant say mine has ever been covered in any of those.

YU @ParadiseLaundry that smell is like a drug. I think not bathing for a while helped us with bonding actually.

Am I the only one who watched the video upthread and just kept thinking what a waste of water?!

I have a 2 week old.
Around 7 days old she had her first bath. Think she’s had about 3 now .

People are complaining about the blood in their hair but I found that the little blood matted hair smelled amazing!

Definetly this.

DD1 about 4-5 days. DC’s 2 and 3 about 2 weeks. Neither of them had much hair but what they had wasn’t blood matted, and I liked the newborn smell .

I loved the smell in of my newborn 🥰

Funny how advice changes with babies. All mine were bathed day after they were born (youngest is 12). Then bathed more or less every day. They all loved bath time and it was absolutely part of the daily routine.

Mine is bathed every day as part of a bedtime routine, he loves it and he is crawling and eating solids messily and needs a good wash. (Eyeroll at the “in my day keeping babies clean was important” goady jibe). However he was clean but not bathed for the first couple of weeks of his life as that was what was advised by the midwives, NCT etc. And if I had thought he was grubby enough to need bathing before that I would have done it. It’s not really a big, astonishing, dramatic SIOB thing surely?

When DS 7 was born they advised after one week. What's the current advice?

Ds3 was 3 weeks! His cord wouldn’t fall off and they advised us to wait until it did.

All three of mine’s cords came off after 2 days!
Still didn’t bath them for ages.