Hi everybody, welcome to CloudMom.
So bathing your newborn -- this can be a terrifying thing.
When I took home my first baby I was so scared to give a bath that I didn't do it for a week
and I finally I had to have my mom come in and show me how to do a sponge bath because
I was just so intimated by the whole thing.
So I'm going to walk through with you guys the key things that you need to know in order
to do a sponge bath.
Now you'll do the sponge bath until your baby's umbilical cord falls out which probably will
happen in the first two weeks.
After that point you can continue to do the sponge bath, but you don't have to.
You are safe to put your baby in water.
And I have another video about bathing your baby in water, which you should also watch.
But anyway here are the fundamentals for the sponge bath.
What I try to do is make sure that all the elements that I need are in one place and
within arms reach.
And this is really important because you don't want to start bathing your baby and realize
"oh I need the soap, oh I need a gauze pad, oh I need another towel" then you have to
pick up your baby and wrap them in a towel and your towel gets all wet already and then
you go get your thing.
No no no, get everything you need in one place, get all the items you need and it will make
it much less stressful to bath your baby.
Okay, where are you going to do your sponge bath?
You have a couple choices here; one choice actually is to do this on the floor.
You can do this on the floor in your baby's room and in that event I would put down a
pad.
I put here a waterproof Chuck's pad, which I really like.
I also doubled up the bath mat, which is a good idea; it provides a nice soft surface
for the baby.
So you can do the sponge bath on the floor if you feel more comfortable.
You also can do it on a raised surface such as the counter next to the sink in your bathroom,
you can do it on your bed or you can do it on the changing table such as I have here.
The raised surface, keep in mind, you always must have one hand on the baby.
This is what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends and it's obviously very, very important.
Okay, so with these fundamentals in mind we're going to quickly walk through how you're going
to do your baby's sponge bath with all your elements here.
What I actually do is I actually have two bowls of lukewarm water and in these bowls
I use them.
And in one, I put some soap that's very diluted, okay so I just put a tiny, tiny bit of soap.
And this is what I use to wash my baby with the washcloth.
The other bowl of lukewarm water, I keep for rinsing my baby.
Okay, I've my washcloth here ready to go and I put the soap in the bowl and I just sort
of spoon it with my fingers like this to get all nice and integrated.
And now, taking this washcloth, which I'm going to dip into my bowl of lukewarm water
with diluted soap, I begin the process of washing my baby below the head going in and
out of the folds.
Now what you're really trying to do is not have too much water because the key thing
here is keeping the area where your baby's umbilical cord is dry.
You just don't even want to go near there.
So here I go and this neck is a funny thing because what can happen with your baby's neck
is that actually dried milk can get caught in the neck and you see this and you're like
" oh my God that's so gross, I'm a terrible mom."
It can also smell which is kind of a funny thing.
But this is really normal, your baby is consuming all this milk and it's dripping down and you're
tired and you're exhausted and you might not really see it.
So don't feel bad, that's why you're giving your baby a bath.
You're giving your baby a bath because you want to clean your baby.
So if you find that your baby is actually not clean that's okay.
So you're going through all these folds, you're working your way down while keeping your one
hand on your baby.
Okay, now I'm going to undo my little dolls diaper, I don't have my real baby here sorry
-- she's just too big for this.
My hand is still here and carefully I'm going in and out with the washcloth, having my hand
supporting my baby, going in and out, all of the little folds.
I do this at once with the soapy water; I do the whole thing at once.
And I actually use my fingers quite a bit.
I use my fingers to get in between the toes.
I like using my fingers to get in between all the folds, around the feet, the folds
in the leg, the diaper area- very important.
So I get this whole area clean and once I've done this I dry my hands on my washcloth.
And then I go to my other bowl with the clean water and I just use small cup fills of water
like this.
And I sort of spoon it over my baby just to rinse her off like this.
Okay, through the folds of the neck, keeping in mind the whole time that I want to keep
that umbilical cord area dry.
That's the whole point of the sponge bath.
Okay, so there I go.
Now I'm going to switch hands here, I've got one hand on the baby, and I'm just sort of
drying her off to make sure that she doesn't get too cold.
I'm going to put the diaper back in place, like this.
And show you guys one other trick that I think is a really good idea.
Now you do not have to bathe your baby like this length wise, you also can bathe your
baby like this, this way.
A lot of people prefer to do that.
And in one respect, this is actually a very easy thing to do because you are going to
have to clean your baby's backside.
Some people flip their babies but that's a little scary for some of us in the beginning
so what I did in the beginning is I took the soapy water and I just, while holding my baby,
I sort of raised her up like this on each side and I did that part of the back and I
got a little more there underneath the neck and then I did it on the other side like this
also.
But when it comes time to doing the diaper area it is helpful to have your baby in this
position because here's what you can do: you can do this chicken hold.
You can support your baby and you just lift your baby up a little bit and like this you
can get that whole area which is very important because it's going to be dirty, you're going
to have diaper cream and all that that you're going to want to rinse off.
So here you go, then you have you're clean water.
You're going to take handfuls of that which you use to rinse off your baby.
So there I go, I'm going to put my diaper back on and I'm going to show you guys how
you're going to do the head.
So come back here little one, the key with the head is to have one hand underneath the
baby's neck at all times.
So here you are, you have your hand underneath your baby's neck, you take your same soapy
gentle baby water and you massage your baby's head.
I'm going behind the ears, I'm holding, supporting the neck, and then I'm going to rinse the
head by using spoonfuls of the clean water like this.
And the key thing here is that you don't want the water flowing down into the baby's face
and eventually down to her umbilical cord.
You want it to flow down the back of her head.
Okay, and this is how I rinse, I take the clean water and while supporting the neck
I just sort of smooth the water over my baby.
So my baby's body is clean, her head is clean, now I'm going to tackle her face and her eyes.
When it comes to the face, I just use water.
I don't bother with the soap at this very early stage.
So I take my clean water and I just kind of smooth it over her forehead, over her cheeks,
get a little more behind the ears -- very important, milk can get stuck there too- go
behind the ears, the cheeks, the chin.
And now I'm going to show you how you can clean your baby's eyes.
Again, this is just for water.
Noooo soap should go near your baby's eyes.
And you have to clean the eyes very, very gently.
Smooth over the eyes very gently using a gauze pad.
Okay, a clean gauze pad and you can go from inside to out.
And this will gradually break up all that icky stuff that can get in your baby's eyes,
but the idea here is that you might have to do it several times very, very gently, like
this, going from inside to out to get the guck out.
Okay, some babies can have blocked tear ducts so they really do have a lot of stuff coming
out of their eyes and it's nice just to clear it all up.
So this takes a while, so there you go.
Her eyes are clean, her face is clean, at this point she's smelling really, really cute
and clean.
So now my baby's clean, I'm going to wrap her up in a towel.
And with this, it's very important to have a towel within arms reach and just to lay
the towel out and to gently lift your baby onto the towel.
Don't put your baby on shoulder and be trying to throw the towel over her backside and then
try to get it around her, it's too tricky.
The best thing to do is to lay the towel down and lift your baby into the towel that's waiting
for her.
Okay, so I'm going to carefully lift up my little baby, I'm going to wrap her up like
this so she's all nice and cozy, pick her up while supporting the neck.
And that is how you bathe a newborn.