Best baby bath

[TisforTucan]

Me again..

Last few items before baby is born in 6 weeks, hit me with your best baby bath suggestions.

I'm having an elective csection and I find it easier to sit on the floor with a baby bath so no sink items or seats ( I can't sit at my bath really, it's a big room with a Victorian bath so it would be painful to bend and stand).

The only one I've ever used was an IKEA one and I've always found it hard to hold baby inside it.

Thank you

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MNHQ Update
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick round-up of the best baby baths as recommended on this thread:

• Shnuggle Newborn Baby Bath
• Nuby newborn baby bath
• Angelcare bath support
• IKEA baby bath
• Stokke Flexi Bath

For a deeper dive into all the different types of bath you can buy for your baby, check out our guide to the best baby baths of 2024 - all tried, tested and recommended by real Mumsnet parents. We hope this is helpful!

We had the shnuggle one which was good despite the cringy name.

It’s very upright so the baby leans back in a reclined sitting position but there’s a thing at the bottom that stops them sliding down. I’m not explaining it well but it’s very good.

We used a 'Nuby newborn baby bath' from birth to around 6 months. Only one I've ever used so nothing to compare it to, but it worked well for us.

Use the shnuggle one for newborn, as it mostly supports baby sitting up - all you have to do is keep them balanced

When baby can sit unaided, I switched to the bigger ikea baby bath - shnuggle was too small by that point anyway

Also came on to say the Schnuggle one

Snuggle. My not small 19 month old still uses it (planning on purchasing the toddler size).
Being deep means they can keep more of their body warm underwater if they love bathtimes too.

Shnuggle is the only one worth having

Another vote for Nuby. Once our babies were sitting we sat them at the other end of it which have them support when sitting up. Loved that bath. 😄

What’s the difference between the two? They are both basically those bucket baths with a little stopper in the bottom so they don’t slide down, just different name brands it looks like?

what I don’t like about them is that little stopper at the bottom.. when the baby gets bigger you then have to buy another one without this stopper thing in the bottom as it looks like it would be a tight squeeze to turn their position around in one of them.

I still cannot settle on a bath yet as I want one of those old school ones that was just a mini tub and plug, they are so hard to find now (I found 1 on Amazon and that’s all) otherwise every single one have those bumper stoppers at the bottom and I’m going to have to buy yet another tub to suit a different age stage.

Just go into any baby shop and they will have those old fashioned baths or there are millions of them on marketplace.

Or large supermarket etc

@BertieBotts ah okay, I literally haven’t seen them for years! I mean I did wonder why they just stopped using them but never had a need for one so just continued on as usual but now I have a need for one and cannot find them it makes me wonder what changed! I saw one one time that also allowed you to rinse the soap off the baby after the was and never saw it again!🤦🏽‍♀️

TBH I ended up with one of those second hane for both DS1 and DS2 but never used it. I think we used it for DS2 once and it was an awful awkward faff!

But the Angelcare bath support is meant to be good, maybe that could be useful for a standard baby bath.

I never really saw the point in baby baths. We got on really well with the Angelcare bath support.

Can those angelcare bath supports be used in a baby bath? I don’t like the idea of using the standard bath for multiple reasons and a main one being the amount of water used in them is so much more than what’s actually needed, then I saw there was a separator thing so you can half it and only fill one side of the tub, but really and truthfully I have OCD when it comes to our bathroom.. I don’t even sit in that tub, showers only and don’t like that you cannot clean the side hand rails efficiently enough to make me feel okay about a growing baby that will want to touch stuff (they designed our in such a stupid way). Our bath is incredibly low also and bending down would be quite difficult especially after birth.

@Tropicaliyes you can definitely use the Angelcare Mini support (the smaller slimline one) in the IKEA baby bath. That's what we did at first. The larger angelcare seat also fits in, but there was literally no room around it to dunk the flannel or jug in the water. So that got put in the cellar.

And yes, the larger one is great in the normal bathtub but you need a heck of a lot of water to be able to even slightly immerse the baby.

We carried on using the IKEA bathtub but lay our little one on an "ergonomic mesh bath pillow" off Amazon. Worked amazingly well for ages. Then used that same mesh bath pillow in the normal bathtub. He was warm in the water, safe and supported.

Now he's sitting up we got the 7quid Ikea flexible laundry basket and fill that up (it sits in the bathtub). He loves that the water comes up to his chest!

@Regenbogen22 i didn’t even realise ikea does bathtubs lol I never even thought to look 😂 I’m going to check out the types now but it makes sense they would. Neither did it occur to me to just use a bucket 🤦🏽‍♀️ don’t know where my brain has been tbh.

I don’t mind using one of those nuby tubs for toddlers until we can put LO in the shower but upgrading the size of baths just because it’s designed just for newborns or similar just seems silly to me and a waste of money!

I thought I was stuck with the 1 old school tub I could find on Amazon until this post made me aware they are in stores too! So glad I got 3 ish months left to sort this all out lol

I never bothered, always found it easier laying them on my legs while I bathed with them.
So easy to wash them this way!

Be warned though, they loved it so much I didn't have a bath on my own for about a decade 😂

We had a shnuggle, which was definitely the best thing until they could support themselves a bit, but actually the thing we liked the most after that point was a round deep flexi tub - both DDs loved bobbing around submerged fairly deeply and obviously used loads less water. And of course you can use it for toys or something else later.

There are heaps on marketplace by the way, easy to disinfect and clean fully, so don’t buy new. Hell, don’t buy most things for a baby new…

Angel care seat all the way for me, three sections, never a problem, huge old deep farm house bath. Baby bath was a challenge to fill and empty on my own,

Shnuggle here too. I would use it on the changing table so I didn’t have to bend over. Got mine for a fiver off FB Marketplace.

Stokke bath with newborn support here. It lasted us all 3 DC and goes well beyond the baby stage, mine have all used it until they were toddlers (I think my eldest still used it when he was 3 - he loved the fact we would fill it right up so it was a lovely full bath for him).

Shnuggle here. Our bathroom is cold so wanted something we could use in the living room, and I like that we don’t need as much water. Took DD a few goes, but then she enjoyed it.

I do later on but I'll have stitches so I won't be able to bath only shower until I get all clear plus I'm always kinda sore and afraid of slipping after birth.

I did like the IKEA one only trouble is ours got mouldy and i know I can goto shops I'd just like some suggestions 😅

Hey @TisforTucan thanks for your thread! If you're still on the lookout for bath tub recs, check out our guide to Mumsnetters' best baby baths. Any thoughts or feedback on the article, let us know💐