When should I start using products to bath my baby?

[Stefka]

My DS is 10 weeks and I just wash him with warm water and cotton wool. I don't feel the need to use any products on him yet - is there a point when I should start? I was thinking he will be ok until he starts on solids.

how about this for a horror story:-

in South African hospitals, newborns are routinely whipped away from their mothers after birth and given a bath with hospital grade disinfectant...

Supposed infection control

I refused and had to have a fair old barney with the Head Nursery nurse to avoid the dreaded disinfection

I have used nothing on DS, he is 2.4. He has some eczema and am happy with using nothing as have seen that it makes NO difference. He and his hair look clean always, I just wash his hair with water. If he looks clean and smells clean with just water, why would I start using products?

I am a bit because not letting anything but water touch baby's skin sounds like a bit extreme on the 'wrapping them up in cottonwool' scale.

It is understandable to be careful with detergents, what you wash baby's clothes with, what you wash their bottles with, what you wash them with, etc in the first couple of weeks of a baby's life, slowly introducing them. It does sound bizarre that a 2 year old would still not have had simple soap touch his skin, or shampoo to his hair.

If we are not talking about a kid with particular allergies/sensitivities, I can't think of a reason to hold off soap and shampoo for years.

I say this as someone with various allergies, who has spent years on weekly injections, with several hospitalisations. I just don't see what is so scary about soap. Find one you feel is free of the chemicals that scare you, and use it on a small patch of your baby's skin. If you don't see a reaction after half an hour, don't hesitate to use it from then on.

Cote, why would I need to purchase stuff to use on a baby that's perfectly clean just being bathed in plain water?

Why is it so bothersome to you? DS2 has peachy skin precisely because he's not had soap on it, I reckon.

And ROFL at the cotton wool thing - nothing could be further from the truth!

knowing now that my (hypothetically allergy free) baby/toddler would be clean nevertheless without soap, why in the world should I spend (my) money on it?

We have never used anything on ds and he is 4.
Well, the odd bit of soap when he's really grubby.
Water is perfectly good......
He gets shampooed once a week, he does wash his hands with soap of course, and in the morning gets a face wipe with a wet flannel - no soap.
IS THIS WEIRD????? WHY????????

I am not bothered at all. Just rather surprised. Until now, it had not occurred to me that some people would want to protect their kids from... soap.

Most healthy kids have peachy skin. DD certainly does, and she has been washed with baby products from day 1, you know, when she was born with all that blood all over her.

If your kid never had diarrhea, never was sick all over himself, got food in his hair, or never fell down and stuck dirt on his bleeding knee, I guess you could live without soap. Still, why would you want to? It's not acid. And they will use it at some point. Why delay that point?

the odd bit of shampoo on dd and that is all. soap if REALLY bad.

i don't use soap myself, except to wash my hands, although i use shampoo.

so what?

oh, and i don't use deoderant either!

Green People products are very good and free from parabens, when you feel you need to start using products

the point of delaying using toiletries is that a lot of the ingredients in them are questionable or worse, Cote, as other posters have explained

It's not protecting them against some heinous substance!
It's just...generally not necessary to use it every day.
Diarrhoea, sick, ground-in mud, yes. But general dirt is washed off in a bubble-free bath. They aren't the sweat monsters that we are.
I'm not that fond of the chemicals, I suppose, but I realise they aren't fatal.

pooey!

I think the more soap you use the more you need IYSWIM. Some people obviously are concerned about all the crap (I am one of them BTW) that is used in toiletries and you can't trust big names like Johnsons, I'm not quite sure how their 'no tears' formula works though I still wouldn't use it and Simple couldn't be much further than simple in chemical make up.

How odd that you are choosing not to see the point, Cote.

Franny - I didn't realize we were talking about 'toiletries'. My surprise was at people avoiding soap, which is basically just some plant and/or animal oils.

Why not find one without the added chemicals and use it?

But food and sick and dirt all come off with a soak in the bath. I am not trying to wrap DS in cotton wool, quite the opposite but he doesn't NEED soaps.

It's a bit like saying that they are going to use perfume and make up at some point in their life, might as well start them now.

But why go to the trouble of finding it and buying it and using it if you don't want or need it?? Children don't really need it

I do, Cote, as you'll see from my previous post

but why use it at all on a baby that doesn't need it?

Soap and shampoo and bath products are all toiletries and there are not many that don't contain a lot of different ingredients other than vegetable oils.

I didn't bath DS2 for six weeks, Cote. He had a bit of vernix on him, but no blood. Vernix v good for the skin, so I wanted to let it absorb rather than stripping it off instantly. DS1 born into water, so a bit different - he had a bath on the ward and another on day nine. Why I remember these things beats me, but I do

I licked ds clean

ROFL!

I bit through the umbilical cords, obv.

err why would you want a newborn to smell of anything other than a newborn?

my 5yr old washes in water, except for a tiny amount of soap on her bum. We started using the soap when she was about 3.