Despite the fact that for some time we have been recommending that we bathe the baby every day , for hygiene and so that he can pick up habits (you will tell me what good it is for a baby to take the habit of bathing if until he is several years old He will not do it alone, and also will not bathe, but will shower), the reality is that the latest recommendations speak of bathing the baby about three times a week , being a flexible figure, obviously, due to “caquile accidents and vomitiles “that may require water.
Now, about how long the bath should last, it seems that not much has been said and that is why a few days ago, when they asked me this question: “And how long should the baby’s bath last? ” I was confused. Then I answered while inside I asked myself when we have lost the human being the ability to reason.
What should be the ideal water temperature for baby bath?
What an eye, I’m not saying it just because of that mother and I’m not saying it just because of the question. I say this because of many other things that happen around babies and in that many parents do not know how to act because nobody has explained anything to us about that. Perhaps that is the problem, that now there is so much talk about everything that it seems that there is an answer to everything. And actually there isn’t.
A few years ago, if you went to the pediatrician, or whoever it was, and asked how long the baby’s bath should last, many would answer ten minutes . Others said fifteen , perhaps more relaxed or brave, and others said nothing. People believed them because of course, if the pediatrician tells you that the bath should last ten minutes, it will be a sign that, after eleven, the child is at risk of … well, I don’t know, then his skin will fall off in chunks, to catch pneumonia or, if a certain hour passes, in contact with water, to transform into a kind of Gremlin.
Well, ignore me, jokes aside, there are no studies that talk about how long is the ideal time to have the baby soak . And since there is no such documentation, the answer is clear, the time necessary to bathe him and the time that the baby likes or wants to be, as long as it does not harm his skin or cool him.
Yes, I know that it seems more and more difficult, but it is quite logical. If the child has been in the water for a quarter of an hour and he is having a blast, then you take it out for a moment, you ask Dad to add a little hot water, you put it back in (sure that it will not burn) and you keep playing with him. If you did this yourself a few days ago and you noticed that his skin was very dry , then you take it out, you ask Dad to empty and dry the bathtub and you keep playing with him while you put the cream on him and you dress him.
If, on the other hand, the baby has been there for seven minutes and is fed up with being in the water, do not look at the clock seeing that there are still three minutes to go. You take it out and go. And if you are in a hurry that day because there is football, you bathe it, Dad, who in three minutes you have finished, and you take it out with the bathrobe like a plane flying towards the sofa, that “today I see you here, the game begins.”
Come on, there is no fixed rule in reference to bath time . The only thing to watch, as I say, is your skin, that the more we wet it the more it will dry out (taking into account that there are babies who get a good soak every day and have great skin and others who just look at the water already flake) and that the longer they spend in the water, the colder it will be.
Well, and something else you have to watch, the child . Every time he is in the water we have to be by his side yes or yes. If we have to go, we take it out of the water and take it with us, mandatory. Essential. Non-negotiable.
