Did you know it's best to bathe babies in water alone?

[mears]

As a midwife I get hacked off seeing the advert that says 8/10 midwives use Johnsons baby products ( unfortunately a survey by the Royal College of Midwives has found out that is true!).

Anyway - I get annoyed at colleagues and mums giving baby's baths full of bubbles as it has been shown that the use of these products disrupts the balance of the skin, increasing the incidence of eczema and skin rashes etc.

The advice is that babies should be bathed in water only for at least the first two weeks ( including hair) to allow the skin to continue formation of the protective mantle post delivery.

In 'Practical Parenting' magazine this month mums are advised to take baby bath and shampoo into hospital with them as part of essential items. Not only are they an unnecessary expense they are potentially damaging to tender skins.

How many mums thought these products were essential?

Thanks Mears - had never seen this before and to be perfectly honest, without someone telling me not to, i would've followed what the advert says.

I am not a great lover of E45 - my son's skin was worse with it. However it is safe to try it, not all skins are the same. Is it just flaky or red as well. If it doesn't bother your baby I wouldn't worry about it.

I tried it this morning and flakes went but redness came up.
Should I stick to almond oil?
TIA

thanks Mears, I saw this thread last year, and threw away all my baby bath bottles. Since then he's been bathed in pure water, no shampoo either. When I was using the baby bath stuff he had dry bits of skin, now his skin is so smooth and lovely, I recommend just water to everyone I know!

Mears - you say that you now use bubble bath sometimes on your little ones. What age would you say it was safe to use it - I know my 21 month old would enjoy it but she only has water at the moment

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When I saw this thread title I thought it meant bath your baby alone, not with one of the parents in the bath too!

I have never used anything in dd's bath bubble wise as she has ecezma.

Really after the first 2 weeks you could use bubbles if you want. However, I have found that my dd gets a sore bottom if she has bubbles all the time and she is 10 years old!
There probably isn't much of a problem with a 21 month old. Try it and see. If she develops skin problems then stop it again. It really is a product we 'like' but isn't actually necessary.
Suzywong - try pure olive oil.

suzywong - e45 not great stuff for sensitive skin. I am a recent and enthusiastic convert to Aveeno (thanks to recommendations from Sunchowder and others) - made with oats. Can get it in boots. Great stuff and hasn't bothered my ds at all, who has reacted to EVERYTHING else, including aqueous cream and diprobase.
Also highly recommend tying up a big handful of porridge oats in a muslin and using that to make an oatbath and to squeeze onto baby's skin - softens the water and helps heal bad skin and moisturise. My ds's eczema is unrecogniseably better since doing this and using aveeno for the last week. and they smell lovely and oaty afterwards!

mears - sorry to bother u

my dd keeps getting a very sore bum any surgestios as to what i should bath her with.

thanks in advanc

fairy

Water alone fairydust. Sudocreme would probably help. Bubblebaths are notoriously bad for girls. Soap is also not recommended for sore bots - nor baby wipes.

Interested in Aveeno princesspeahead. Is it in cream form? Any good for sore bottoms or eczema?

yes, it is a cream - and my ds2 has bad eczema poor little thing and it is the only thing he has been able to tolerate apart from vaseline and olive oil. Which stop dehydration but don't really moisturise if you know what I mean. Tried him on cetomacragol, dermol 500, diprobase, aqueous cream and homeopathic calendula cream and they all made him worse. My mum first mentioned it to me - she was at a CPD lecture on paed derm (she is gp) and the paed derm told her that aveeno was one of the best tolerated creams and had advantage of not being prescription, so one could try and out and see if it worked without tromping off to GP. Sunchowder then told me it worked excellently on her dd's eczema.

Was slightly discomfited to notice it is manufactured by J&J - oh well!

i've heard good things abour aveeno cream actually. might try the oatmeal bath on my stinky kids who cant tolerate bubbles (one eczema, one just a little bit dry skin) and sometimes pong at the end of a day.

DS's eczema is on his eyelids and top lip mainly. GP prescribed hydrocortisone which helps for a short while. Don't want to use it continually. Will give the Aveeno a shot.

oh,i definately agree about aveeno,works fantastically.i always tell people to specifically ask their gps to prescibe it,as so many dont-is it the price?anyhow,it honestly has worked on everyone i know who has tried it.i expect it wouldwork on sore bottoms,it worked on my burnt skin(obviously not recommending people but it on burns,it was healing and all dry).

princesspeahead

great idea about the oats will try it with `ds1 too who also has a bit of mank.

aveeno, were can i buy this stuff from and how expensive is it?

dd1 used to be so good at keeping clean and smelling sweet without bubbles,. but since dd2 started getting into mischeif they have turned into stinky kids.

and how much is aveeno? can u gwet it in small tubes, i'm looking for something easier to fit into my bag rather than a huge bottle of dermol500 for days out.

my tube is about 100 ml and cost £6 something from boots. so expensive for hand cream but not expensive for miracle worker on ds's skin! don't know if you can get bigger tubes, that was the only one my teeny tiny and crappy boots had

the oats are great suzywong. you really need to squish them around in the muslin to make the water all white and cloudy so you can't see through it, and then really squeeze the creamy stuff out of the oats onto their skin. makes your hands v soft as well! I use organic oats - figure that if I'm trying to sort out skin I shouldn't be worrying about residual pesticides.

DD1 had excema that was definately made worse by anything Johnsons. It has now cleared up but I avoid most products.

I am expecting baby no2 and don't plan on using any bubblebath etc but I did used to like massaging dd1 with baby oil as part of her bedtime routine.

Any idea what is best to use, should I go for a natural oil like almond etc rather than a mineral based one or use some kind of emollient cream.

I was just wondering about this the other day. Our son is now 16 months and has NEVER had a soap product anywhere near him. We've never even shampooed his hair.

There must come a point when we'll have to though, surely? But at the moment he is a clean, shiny nice-smelling little boy (most of the time) so it seems daft to start using lotions and potions for the sake of it....

Wonder if this Aveeno cream would work on my dd.

She has small patches of dry skin on the back of her thighs that come up every now and then and occasionally on her tummy as well. In all honestly they worry me sick as they look like burns when they appear and I hate it if they appear and I know that she is getting gym at school the next day. I've tried nivea and cocoa butter which seems to help but they do come back eventually. Thing is every time I say I'm going to take her to the dr's they disappear never to be seen again for ages.

Will check in boots for this cream to see if it helps.

JulieF, MWs always tell me to use olive oil to massage. DSs and DD were all really late and so had very dry flakey skin so we bathed them in water and olive oil. Its a good idea to get the one from the chemist though, as I find the one we use on the salad makes them a bit
whiffy!

We used grape seed oil on ds recc by baby massage lady. Worked very nicley, but now he has some dry patches and we use callendula cream. Will stop using bubble i think though.