How often should I be giving my baby a bath?

[browneyedgirl9]

How often do you give your baby a bath? I have only been giving DS a bath every 3 days or so, so about 2 times a week (he is 3.5months for reference). My mom sounded surprised when I told her this the other night.  I don’t know when I should start bathing him more frequently or nightly? I wash his face/ neck/ hands every morning and night because he gets drool/ milk under his chin, and is always putting his hands in his mouth so they get stinky. This should probably go under a Stupid Questions thread!

[rupertpenny]

That sounds fine, unless you want to make the bath a part of a bedtime routine.

B didn't really need an bath more than that until she started eating solids. Now she is gross all the time haha.

[Deleted]

We only do 2x a week. DS has some bad eczema and pedi said bathing too often could make it worse.

We do the same face etc. washing morning and night.

[gibbinator]

A couple times a week is fine. We went through a phase of nightly baths when ds was an older baby, but mostly we do 3 times a week now (more frequently in the summer to wash off sunscreen before bed).

ETA: even when we did nightly baths I only used soap every other day. Otherwise it dried out his skin.

[whitepicketfence]

FWIW, I still don't bathe my girls every night. We only do every other night at ages 4 and 2.5 unless they're exceptionally dirty.

At 3.5 months, I probably only bathed them every 2nd or 3rd night. DD1 had horrible excema at that age and if we bathed her more frequently, it would really flare up.

[wilbs]

DS loves his bath and it's been part of our bedtime routine since 6 weeks or so. We use soap/shampoo every other day.

[brooklyn]

That's about what we were doing then too. He gets bathed more now since he's eating solids and making huge messes, but we still have to be careful due to his excema

[purplecow0206]

We only bathe DD twice a week as well. We wipe her face and hands down frequently, and she obviously gets the diaper area cleaned up multiple times a day, but she's not getting into any dirt so I see no reason to bathe her every day. I don't shower every day, and neither does DH. No need for DD to be so fancy-pants.

[redpenmama]

I was doing every third day until a few weeks ago, and now it's (usually) every other day. He just started to like the bath, and I find it calms him down when he's fussy or wound up in the evenings, which is why I upped the frequency.

[runblondie26]

We're on the same bath schedule browneyedgirl9. Anymore just dries out their skin at this age.

It isn't until they start eating solids and crawling around that I feel the need to bathe them more often.

[halfpint]

I only did once/week at that age. Now that he's on solids we do twice/week, more if needed.

[rex]

we started with a bath every night for bedtime routine, and then i got lazy.

i bathe L 2-3 times a week now.

[soozy87]

Every other day normally

[ktw]

We usually do 2 baths a week, more if she needs it. Even with eating solids, she doesn't seem to get that dirty. I do, of course, wipe her face/hands after eating, but so far we haven't usually needed to bathe her more often.

[MadamePresident]

I've never understood the reasoning behind needing to bathe everyday unless it's a relaxation thing as part of bedtime routine. But my child generally hates baths so we do it as little as possible.

[Deleted]

We bathed DS twice a week for a long time, until 9ish months old I think? When he started crawling and was legitimately dirty. Non-mobile babies don't get dirty, and soap dries out their skin. I think you're doing great, just KOKO.

Even now at 26 months old, DS gets 3 baths a week (mon-wed-fri). He just doesn't need it more frequently.

[kershnic]

Apr 30, 2014 8:38:36 GMT -5 ribollita said:

Less than that, lol

This. . But the NICU nurses said no more than every few days to not dry their skin.

[bazinga]

We do every other day. Sometimes on the weekends we will do every day since there is more time for it. DD loves taking a bath so it is fun for her and us.

[vmars]

We do bath time as part of the bedtime routine, but we only use baby wash 2-3x per week on the other days we just play with him in the bath.

[readyin07]

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. In the first month, I was more likely to skip bc my kids didn't love baths those first few weeks. But after that I did daily before bed. Just personal preference bc I love the smell of fresh baby. I also just felt like after a gazillion poos a day that we needed to soap down the diaper area. Neither of the, ever had problems with dry skin.

[niq]

We've been on 2x/week since about 3 months. When he started daycare, we thought about going up to 3x/week, but haven't yet.

[chicago]

We are also at 2-ish times a week. If she's had a particularly gross blowout or super spit up day, it could be more frequent. Right now that works for us.

[lmb5109]

We do Tues, Thur, & Sun. I hate giving baths because I'd rather be playing with her at this age (16 months). But if she's dirty from being outside at DD, we'll do a bath on an off night so she's not gross for DC the next day. Poor girl has my thin hair so you know when she hasn't had a bath!

[ladygrey]

We do baths EO night; DD loves the water and it's a fun activity (plus freshly washed baby hair - mmm!).

[ryry]

We usually do every other day, but it's more because I bathe both girls together and it gives me 45 minutes of time when I don't have to actively entertain them--they both love the bath. I think 2x a week is totally fine and if it was just the baby, I'd probably bathe her 2x/week.

[thebreakfastclub]

We have always done every other day.

[greencrayon]

Probably 1-2x a week. Most of the time I just wash her hair to remove the cradle cap, and just wipe her down with a wet wash cloth. I don't think she needs soap if she doesn't smell and she's not getting into stuff yet.

[pig's eye]

Usually two times per week, max.

In the summer; however, the older one gets more because she's outside a lot and hot/sweaty. Plus, she's at the pool most nights. 

[degal99]

We do 2x a week. DD likes a hot bath so I don't want to do them to often and dry out her skin.

[Deleted]

We do every 2-4 nights, depending on how dirty she gets at daycare.