belly button - when does it fall off?

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

And can you wash the baby properly before it does? DD2 is 12 days old and could do with a full bath but her belly button hasn't fallen off yet.

I should have mentioned my other babies lost their cords early so I didn't have this situation before.

The cord stump falls off and what you are left with is the belly button!

Not sure about this as mine have always fallen off after 4 or 5 days before they got too smelly!

I wouldn't have thought it would hurt to do a full bath ??

ds was given full bath with massive amount of bubbles by midwives when he was about 36 hours old and nothing bad happened except my feelings were hurt. so i should think it is ok cristina. you might prefer to leave the bubbles out though.

Thanks for that. The thing is I put a wet wipe between the cord stump and her tummy as the stump was so dry and sharp I thought it might be uncomfortable for her but the stump swelled and became fleshy and soft (sorry, quite disgusting, i don't know how ppl do lotus births, yuck) so this made me think i shouldn't get it wet. My other two were bathed in hospital but i simply can't remember the details.

what is a lotus birth, dare I ask?

in a lotus birth, the cord is not cut, the placenta is delivered and the entire cord and placenta remain togeher, until the cord comes away .. the placenta is salted and often wrapped in a musling bag .. for many mothers the benefit is that not many people wnat to hold the baby and the placenta, so you could uninterrupted baby time for te first few days

They keep the placenta attached to the baby until it naturally falls off a few days/weeks after birth. Meanwhile it's kept in a lovingly knitted pouch.

I would just give her a bath, the cord will come off when it's ready. Both my dd's were bathed every couple of days from birth. dd1's cord was off after about 7 days and dd2's was off after just over 2 weeks.

i should think the main thing is not to let it become sodden or soggy, so not putting a plaster on. a bath and nice vest afterwards will be fine.

Thank you. I'll give her a quick bath then, DS and DD1 have their baths together and they've been asking for DD2 to join them. I'll dip her in and out at least.

DD's fell off by 7 days. The MW said to clean area really well with cotton wool and water from birth until all completely healed up (weeks later). They're fine to have a full bath and we just folded her vest up to let air get to it and put nappy on with top folded down etc. Not bare to the world but only one top layer when all was said and done.

Thank you for all the advice. DD's cord stump finally fell off tonight at 2 weeks old so there'll be lots of full baths from now on.

I was so relieved when dd's fell off, I hated it! Was always worried that I would knock it off before it was ready.

Glad it came off ok

Re Lotus Birth, and having the placenta still attached to the baby.
Yuk, doesn't it smell vile after a while? Or does salting it stop it going off?

ds2 had a little stump that stayed on for nearly a whole month. in the end he had to get in cauterised

I thought 2 weeks was long, imagine a whole month DD2 seems to like baths and it's so much easier to clean her that way.