Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
((HOST EMILY FRANCES)) Hello everyone, this is Emily Frances. Welcome
to How to MomTV. So you’re home with your newborn baby. They’re so little and fragile,
it’s natural to get nervous when it comes to giving your baby a bath.
Board Certified New York City Lactation Consultant Andrea Syms Brown and her husband Peter have
been teaching Infant Care Workshops for a decade.
The essentials before you get started is a washcloth and a baby towel. And make sure
to scrub and rinse your sink, bathtub or baby bathtub with dish soap twice before using
it. And make sure to clean your baby’s gushy before you put the in the bath and use a soap
product that both mom and dad have tried first.
((Andrea Syms Brown and Peter Brown, Infant Care Experts)
The bathtub should be filled with water only to a shallow depth. When I say shallow I mean
this, place fingers into base of tub, water should not cross into your palm. You want
to test it by putting elbow, forearm and fingertips in water. It should be so nice and hot, mom
that you wanna climb in and take your own bath. The reason I say mom because Mom likes
the temperature warmer than we do guys and babies tend to like temperature that mom likes
for a bath. Grab a washcloth, dip it in water, soak and lay a wet washcloth on baby’s chest
and this keeps them warm throughout the bath. Every so often splash water on this to keep
them nice and warm. Use your hand to scoop up water and thoroughly wet the baby’s hair
dont use a cup because if you slip, you can overwhelm baby w cupful of water. Now that
hair is wet, take 1 pump of liquid soap and wash baby’s hair with it. Now baby’s hair
washed, rinse hair thoroughly and soapy water now in tub is all need for rest of the bath.
All you’re doing is massaging baby with hands in all areas you need to clean, between
toes, extremities, to get to back and diaper area shift weight to other arm. Mom you will
show dad how to be gentle w girl parts all cleaning on outside, and dad can show mom
how spread fingers gently around testicles, not poke too hard. You clean the back and
that’s pretty much it. For newborns you don’t want to belabor the length of the
bath.
((HOST EMILY FRANCES)) Andrea and Peter suggest giving your newborn
a sponge bath for the first 2 weeks of life until their umbilical stump falls off. It’s
a whole different process. We’ll show you how to do a proper sponge
bath in another video so stay tuned. Thanks so much for watching and make sure to go to
our website and follow HowtoMomTV on Twitter, Facebook Pinterest and all our social media
channels.