Dylan's First Baby Bath

Yesterday, Dylan had his first real Baby Bath! All we had to do is wait for his circumcision to heal (which amazingly only took about a week) and for his "raisin" to fall off. We waited a little longer, because of all the horror stories we heard that even baby soap dries out a newborn's skin.

Dylan's "raisin" (a.k.a. umbilical cord stump) fell off last week. It was during a 4am diaper change on the morning of Friday, April 17th. My mom gave it to me, which I thought was very interesting to look at, but gross, nonetheless. Apparently some people keep it in their baby record book. Ew. Later in the day, I showed it to Dan. If something grosses me out, I know it gets to Dan even more, and that's really funny to me. It was interesting because you could see the clamp mark on one side, and the inverted shape of Dylan's new belly button on the other. We now know why the nurses in the Childbirth Classes kept calling it a "raisin." It looked just like one. I saved it until Sunday, when my dad came to visit. I thought, as a doctor, he would find it interesting, too. And he did. But he also thought it was gross. Anything that grosses out my dad must be really, really gross, so Dan and I agreed that it should be thrown away after Show and Tell with my dad. But I took pictures first, so Dylan can have be grossed out when he reads his baby book when he's older.

On Friday, April 24th, Dylan experienced his first baby bath. He had his Newborn Photo Shoot scheduled for the next day, so I thought we would get a head start in preparing Dylan for it. Also, he was having a particularly fussy day, so I thought I'd give him something to be fussy about. During one of his naps, I made all the preparations. I dressed in grubby clothes that I could change out of if I got soaked. I put out all the items I would need for getting Dylan into the bath, wash him, dry him, diaper change him, dress him, and get him settled for a nap. After Dylan woke up, Dan was making some phone calls. I held and rocked Dylan to keep him quiet, and waited for Dan to finish his phone conversations, because I was certain that Dylan would start to yell when he was wet.

One of the nurses at the hospital had given me a tip for Dylan's first bath. I was prepping for the worst, so I figured I'd take all the advice I could think of into account for the bath. The nurse had said to take an extra baby towel, drench it in very warm water, squeeze it out, and lay it on the baby. Then you take out one limb at a time, clean it, then put it back under the warm towel. Occasionally you dump more warm water on top of the towel to keep the towel and the baby warm.

I undressed Dylan and put him into the bathtub and buckled him in his little baby mesh bath seat. The baby books say to actually undress him in the tub, but I figured if he messed it would be no big deal since he was already in the tub. No screams yet. I started the water at the tub faucet, but Dylan was far enough away from the faucet to not even get wet. I was worried that even the sound of the rushing water would scare him. It didn't. I waited for the water to get warm, and drenched the baby towel in it. I gently squeezed out the towel, but not enough to get all the warm water out of it. It was the moment of truth. I quickly draped the towel over Dylan's body and waited for a reaction. Dylan let out a contented sigh and looked at me. I remained tense, thinking that he was just working himself up. I filled a small plastic bowl with warm water and gently poured it on the already wet towel. I waited for Dylan's reaction. He stared at me for several seconds, then closed his eyes.

Relieved, I went ahead and gave Dylan the rest of the bath with no incident. Dylan actually fell asleep in his bath chair because he loved the warmth. It just made my job easier. Dan came in and checked on us. He was worried about both of us because it was so quiet and I had been repeatedly warning him that the bath would likely be a very loud event. Dan went to get the video camera.

All in all, the First Bath went well. Dylan was clean and wasn't traumatized by the water or the baby wash soap in the hair. My grubby clothes didn't even get very wet! We are probably just lucky, and Dylan's probably just storing up his resentment for the Second Bath. But as First Bath experiences go, I think this was a success! All clean!