The El Cheapo guide to bathing a baby

Because of our tiny house I spent a while researching compact baby baths, since every “must-have” list told me I needed one. There are some pretty cool solutions out there – like the Boon collapsible one, or the bath divider that fits in your tub so you only have to half fill it. But unfortunately these all tend to be kinda costly and I was really looking for something cheaper. And the traditional ones take up a lot of space we just don’t have.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that there’s no need for a dedicated baby bath at all.

We sort of had one for the first few weeks – our laundry basket is a black plastic tub that worked out to be a pretty good size for a newborn bath, so we filled it up and had benchtop baths. It was unwieldy to empty though – and if we hadn’t had it I probably would have given the kitchen sink a good clean and used that.

As Young Sir has almost doubled in size since this photo was taken he no longer fits in his box

After a few weeks we worked out that it’s awesome fun to bath with the baby. Now, you do have to sit in the same bathwater as the baby in order to achieve this, and the likelihood of your baby peeing in the bath is approximately 100%, so there is a slight ick factor. There is also the chance of a poonami, which would be truly gross and I understand if you’re not willing to take that risk. It hasn’t happened to us, and I figure the shower is right there in case of emergency (likely to be accompanied by a dance of ickiness – similar to the creepy crawly dance - surely I'm not the only one who does that?)… But the risk is there.

However. Young Sir really likes kicking around in the deep water, and it’s much easier sitting in the tub than leaning over the side. So that’s a good option.

The other option is the shower. It sounds treacherous but honestly – easier than filling a tub and the baby is only the same amount of slippery. It’s easiest as a two person job – getting in and out is simpler with an extra set of hands to pass the baby to – but completely doable solo as well. If I’m on my own I get Young Sir ready, wrap him in a towel and pop him on the floor, shower myself, pick him up and get him clean, turn shower off, wrap him in a towel, put him back on the floor while I get sorted, then dry him off and get him dressed. Like everything this will get harder when he gets mobile… But for now we’re good!

As for the other baby bath stuff you ‘need’ – the hooded towels are nice and quite cute, and we got given several, but regular towels (astonishingly) also work just fine. Washcloths are handy – when Young Sir was very little we used a muslin as the cloth is a bit softer, but now we just use the regular flannels we already had.

We don’t use much in the way of shampoo or soap (he’s mostly bald and doesn’t get very dirty!) and we have a few samples we got from I-don’t-know-where which do the trick if we do want more than water. By the time we’ve used those up he’ll probably be fine with our normal shower stuff! Toys are completely optional (and reasonably useless in the shower) – Young Sir was given a set of squirty bath toys and he loves them, but he also loves flannels and splashy water so the toys are optional.

So basically… We’re lazy and cheap, but it works for us and our baby seems happy and clean. Happy days!

Where do you bath your baby? Have you tried showering them?