To make sure tubby time is not only fun but safe, follow these important tips.
Wait until baby’s a sitting duck. You’ll both be more comfortable with big-tub bathing if your baby’s capable of sitting alone, or with only minimal support.
Take a safe seat. A wet baby is a slippery baby, and even a solid sitter can take a slide in the tub. And though a momentary slip under the water wouldn’t be physically harmful, it could generate a long-term fear of baths. (Of course, if he slips and you’re not there, the
consequences could be much more serious.)
A bath seat can provide an alternative to the old one-hand-on-baby-at-all-times
maneuver, but many experts feel they don’t keep baby safe enough and recommend waiting until the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) comes out with their new safety
standards for baby bath seats (now in the works). If you do choose to use a bath seat currently on the market, be sure the one you use comes with rubber suction cups that attach it securely to the bottom of the tub and be sure never to use the seat as a substitute for your complete and constant supervision. Some seats have foam pads to place under baby so he or she won’t slide around during bath time. If yours doesn’t, put a clean washcloth or small towel under baby’s bottom to achieve the same effect. Rinse, squeeze, and hang the cloth to dry, or use a fresh one each bath time to prevent the multiplication of germs in the damp material. If the seat has a foam pad, dry it in the dryer between uses for the same reason. If you’re not using a bath seat, be sure the tub bottom is lined with a rubber tub mat or skidproof stick-ons to prevent
slipping.
Be prepared. Towel, washcloth, soap, shampoo, tub toys, and anything else you’ll need for baby’s bath should be on hand before you put baby in the tub. If you do forget something and you have to get it yourself, bundle baby in a towel and take him or her with you. Also prepare by removing everything from tubside that’s potentially dangerous in baby’s curious hands, such as soap, razors, and shampoo.
Be there. Your baby needs adult supervision every moment of every bath—and will continue to for the first five years of bathing. Never leave him in the tub unattended, even in a baby seat (he or she could slip out or climb out), even for a second. Keep this startling statistic in mind when the phone or doorbell rings, a pot boils over on the stove, or anything else
threatens to take your attention away from your baby: 55 percent of accidental infant drownings take place in the bathtub.
Do the elbow test. Your hands are much more tolerant of heat than a baby’s sensitive skin.
Test the water with your elbow or wrist or a bath thermometer before dunking baby. While it should be comfortably warm, it should not be hot. Turn the hot water tap off first, so that any drips from the faucet will be cold and baby won’t be scalded. Setting the hot water tank at 120°F or below will also prevent scalds. A safety cover on the tub spout will protect baby
from burns and bumps.
Don’t pull the stopper until baby is out of the tub. Not only can it be a physically chilling
experience to be in an emptying tub, it can be a psychologically chilling one, too. The gurgling sound can frighten even a young infant, and an older baby or toddler who sees the water rushing down the drain may fear that he’s going down next.
Be patient. Eventually, your baby will take to the tub. But he’ll do it faster if he’s allowed to do it at his own pace, and without parental pressure.
BOTTLE REJECTION IN A BREASTFED BABY
“I’d like to give my baby an occasional bottle of expressed milk to free me up a little, but she refuses to drink it. What can I do?”
Your baby wasn’t born yesterday. And unlike a relative newcomer, she’s developed a strong sense of what she wants, what she doesn’t want, and how she can best go about getting things her way. What she wants: your nice, soft, warm breasts. What she doesn’t want: a fabricated rubber or plastic nipple. How she can best go about getting things her way: crying for the former, and rejecting the latter.
Waiting this long to introduce a bottle into your baby’s life has turned the odds against you; the introduction is better made no later than six weeks (see page 217). But it’s still possible that you’ll be able to win her over by following these tips:
Feed her on an empty stomach. Many babies will be more receptive to the bottle as a source of nourishment when they’re in the market for something nourishing. So try offering the bottle when your baby is really hungry.
Or feed her on a full stomach. With some babies, offering a bottle when they are looking for a
breast makes them feel hostile toward the impostor and perhaps a little betrayed by the bottle giver. If this is the case with your baby (and you’ll find out only through trial and rejection), don’t offer the bottle when she’s at her hungriest; instead, offer it casually between nursings. She may be more in the mood to experiment and be ready for a snack.
Feign indifference. Instead of acting as though there’s a lot at stake (even if there is), act as if the bottle issue is no biggie, no matter what her response.
Let her play before she eats. Before attempting to get down to business with the bottle, get her
hands on it. If she’s had a chance to explore it on her own, she may be more likely to let it into her life and, hopefully, into her mouth. She may even put it there herself—as she does everything else.
Banish your breast. And the rest of you, when the bottle is launched. A breastfed baby is more likely to accept a bottle given by father, grandma, or another care provider when mother is well out of
smelling distance. At least until bottle feeding is well established, even the sound of your voice may spoil baby’s appetite for a bottle.
Try a favorite fluid. It’s possible that baby’s objecting not to the bottle, but the fluid inside it. Some
infants will take to a bottle better if it’s filled with familiar breast milk, but others, reminded of breast milk’s original source, are more comfortable with another drink. Try formula or diluted apple or white grape juice instead.
Sneak it in during sleep. Have your bottle giver pick up your sleeping baby and try to offer the bottle then. In a few weeks the bottle may be accepted awake.
Know when to surrender—temporarily. Don’t let the bottle become the object of a battle, or your side doesn’t stand a chance of winning. As soon as your baby raises objections to the bottle, take it away and try again another day. Perseverance—while retaining your nonchalant attitude—may be all that’s necessary. Try the bottle once every few days for at least a couple of weeks before you
consider admitting defeat.
Should defeat become a reality, however, don’t give up hope. There’s another alternative to your breasts: the cup. Most babies can master a cup, even at five or six months, and happily take
supplementary feedings from it (see page 326); many become proficient enough cup drinkers by the end of the first year (sometimes as early as eight or nine months) to be weaned directly from the breast to the cup—which saves their parents the extra step of weaning from the bottle.
CHANGES IN BOWEL MOVEMENTS
“Since I started my breastfed baby on solids last week, his bowel movements have been more solid—which I would expect—but they are also darker and smellier. Is this normal?”
Alas, the time when everything that passed through your baby came out sweet and innocent is past.
For the parent of a breastfeeding baby, the change from soft, mustardy, nonoffensive stools to thick, dark, smelly ones can be something of a shock. But, though the change may not be aesthetically pleasing, it is normal. Expect your baby’s stools to become increasingly adultlike as his diet does—
though a breastfed baby’s may remain somewhat softer than a bottle-fed’s up until weaning.
“I just gave my baby carrots for the first time, and his next bowel movement was bright orange.”
What goes in must come out. And in babies, with their immature digestive systems, it sometimes doesn’t change very much in the process. Once they start solids, stools seem to vary movement to movement, often reflecting the most recent meal in color or texture. Later, foods not chewed
thoroughly—especially those that are harder to digest—may come out whole or nearly so. As long as bowel movements don’t also contain mucus and aren’t unusually loose, which might signal
gastrointestinal irritation (and the need to withhold the offending food for a few weeks), you can continue his newly varied diet without concern.
BRUSHING BABY’S TEETH
“My daughter just got her first tooth. The doctor said I should start brushing it now, but that seems silly.”
Those tiny pearls that bring so much pain before they arrive and so much excitement when they first break through the gums are destined for extinction. They can all be expected to fall out during the
early and mid school years, to be replaced by permanent teeth. So why take good care of them now?
There are several reasons: First of all, since they hold a place for the permanent teeth, decay and loss of these first teeth can deform the mouth permanently. Then, too, your baby will need these primary teeth for biting and chewing for many years; bad teeth could interfere with good nutrition.
And healthy teeth are also important for the development of normal speech and appearance—both important to a child’s self-confidence. The child who can’t speak clearly because of faulty teeth, or who keeps her mouth shut to hide decayed or missing teeth, doesn’t feel good about herself. Finally, if you start your child brushing early, good dental habits are likely to be second nature by the time that second set of teeth comes in.