Tips to help baby stay calm after bath

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has any tips I could try to help my six week old stay calm when she comes out of the bath and gets dried (as she normally finds this time very distressing and cries a lot).

Thanks in advance! :D

I have found no matter what you do little babies hate getting out of the bath. You have 2 options really. Either try and calm her by giving her a massage when she gets out. Or, dress her quickly so you can give her a cuddle and a feed.

For me I just got them out, dried and dressed them as fast as I could, wrapped them up, made them snug and warm, gave them some booby and then they went to bed. Bath time is exhausting you know ;)

Make sure whereever you are dressing bub is nice and warm and draught free too.

Shellshell - it's awful, isn't it :(

For our DD, it lasted until she was about 8 - 10 weeks old (can't remember exactly) and it just seemed to improve slowly.

We found having the room really, really, really warm helped and also wrapping her up tight as soon as she got out of the water to soak up water on her skin/hair then changing to another dry towel to keep her wrapped & warm while you dry in her creases and dress her..

She seemed to get more stressed if both DP and I were rushing to get her dressed too. If it was just one of us, she was a little better. We couldn't even think about a massage until about 12 weeks but some babies love it.

It will improve and as Trish said, a nice warm cuddle/drink at the end will work wonders.

HTH.

Amy.

Dont know if this works for anyone elese, but with Charlotte I found she SCREAMED the house down both during and after the bath if I bathed her at the temp the midwives wanted me to, the way they wanted me to.
From day 1 I wanted her in a warm bath, not the tepid water the nurses were puttin gher in. So I fill the bath very warm (for what most people consider normal for a baby) and she LOVES it! And I found that she stopped screaming when she got out.
She grizzles occasionally, but I just bundle her up in her towel and cuddle her for a bit, then dry and dress when shes calmed down.
Also, talk to them while you are drying them "we have to dry your little toes...and all you creases..." She loves it.
I tend to find that if I can get in with a stupid face and happy voice when she starts getting grizzly, I can avoid the full bown cry...I ignore the grump! lol sounds weird, but ignore her crying and stay happy and she may just be too amused by you to keep crying! :)

Good luck!

Marc used to sing Old Macdonald for both kids and it had them quiet. Or he'd do raspberries and play with hands and feet. If you have a cold house it might be worth warming the towel near a heater whilst bubs is in the bath and try and dress them as quickly as possible as its often the shock of the warm water to the cold air that makes them cry more. And if you use a change mat make sure there is no plastic showing as this can be freezing too, so something like a towel covering it will help cause less shock.

Shell, I just really cut down on the amount of bathing at this stage/age as DD hated being bathed. I think she used to scream when she got out as she hated it so much, not that she was sad that she was out of the water. I would just stop whatever was happening ie drying, dressing and cuddle until the screams stopped and then restart the jobs...GL