With DC1 I was able to have a few (shallow) baths a day (with tea tree and salt and lavender)
Might be a bit wishful thinking with 2nd child though.
Anyway - for shallow baths (or deep baths) you can rinse your feet off with the shower first before stepping off a clean towel into the bath (to not transfer dust off bathroom floor into bath - this might say something about state of my bathroom floor!)
If you're using essential oils in bath you can dilute them in a bit of milk before adding to the water and this helps them disperse (rather than just float on top).
I kept a special clean kitchen roll for patting the area dry after baths/ showers (I didn't rinse every wee - but I know a jug/sports bottle of water is useful for a lot of people if weeing is particularly sting-y).
Some people use a low temp hair dryer to get really really dry!
Yes to washing hands before and after changing pads (and basically treating the pad as a sterile wound dressing - so not lying it top down on aforementioned bathroom floor).
I think the maternity pads are better than normal sanitary pads because the sanitary pads are a bit plasticky/ sweaty (this my unprofessional opinion)
After a few days I got really sore (much worse) - I don't know if this was just my stitches "tightening" or an infection - but I got my doctor to prescribe me antibiotics (this was after weighing the risk of increased risk of thrush etc with the antibiotics).
I think I had to also ask to be prescribed diclofenac - as just paracetamol wasn't enough. Probably best to avoid co-codamol as can have constipating effect.