Is there an effective method for cleaning butts?
When bathing a child (particularly a baby under or around 1 year old, who can not stand on their own yet) is there an effective way to clean all of their body parts that are usually submerged under water? What I mean by this, is that regardless of the type of bathtub you use (or sink), the bottom parts of their body (their butt, legs and privates) will be submerged under water. This makes them complicated to clean. You can try lifting them up out of the water to clean those parts, and all around them, but this is difficult to do on your own, and if the child squirms you are at risk of dropping them in the water face first. You can also hold them against you, but then you have to be ready to get soaked yourself. You can simply resort to leaving them where they are, but then you are just wiping them with a wet rag (all of the soap gets diluted once the rag goes in the water) and plus its still difficult to get into all the rolls/cracks/crevices this way. When they are an infant its a little bit easier, since they move less, and you can put them on the slanted portion of the bath, but the difficulty still holds there too.
Is there a better way?
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For an infant, I don't recommend submerged bathing: I like the kind where you have a foam "bathtub" insert either in the sink or in the bathtub, and you just use soapy water to clean them.
Once they're older than infants (ie, can fully support themselves) then it's not particularly hard in my experience. Bubble baths help this a lot: then they're submerged in soapy water, and if they're playing in that for 20-30 minutes, odds are you don't have to do very much to clean them at all - a little underwater wipe is sufficient.
In general, you don't really have to sterilize or sanitize this area; it's not going to be touching anything other than a diaper or underwear, and germs aren't going to crawl up and do anything other than help digest your food a bit better. I wouldn't worry too much about the amount of soap getting there - getting off anything solid is important, but if it's not soapy enough, you'll be fine.
We had a wonderful midwife who showed us a very neat trick for turning our baby safely onto her front while bathing. I couldn't effectively describe it, but it basically involves cupping the baby's head carefully in your hand, and gently lift and turn the baby, ensuring their nose and mouth is to the side and well clear of the water. They love being on their front and will have a good kick and splash with their hands at the same time. It also gives easy access to clean their little bottoms.
Some other tips. You'd want to get their bottom reasonably clean with a nappy wipe before putting them in the bath. Also we always gave ours a rinse off with clean water after lifting them out, to remove any soap residue and any other gunk that might have ended up floating about in the water. This can be hard to do on your own though. If at all possible try to have a helper for bath time.
What you could do though if you need to wash the baby by yourself. At the end of the bath, let the water out, and then rinse off with the plug out. One of those little hand shower things that attaches to the tap is invaluable for this.
Finally lots of parents eventually decide that baths are too much work, and instead opt to take the little one into the shower with them. This tends to be easier for slightly bigger babies, like 6 months.
The strategy we used with my son when he was smaller was to do a two-stage bath.
First, we'd start off with a small amount of water that was very soapy, and use that to scrub his genitals and butt (in that order) with a small washcloth. The soap was in the water, not the rag. I can't say we had any issue with other crevices or rolls, though. Everything else was accessible while holding him upright/sitting. After scrubbing, we'd drain the water and rinse him off with some plain, warm water, usually by filling up a bath cup and pouring it over him.
Second, we'd fill the tub back up, but this time to a normal "full" amount and without the soap. We used a baby tub inside our normal tub, so it was a very quick process. After that, we'd have a normal "bath time" that was primarily play/interaction with some gentle cleansing.
Our son did (and still does) love to play with the water coming straight from the faucet, which kept him entertained during that brief lull. When he was tiny, and couldn't sit up by himself, he'd kick at the stream with a big grin on his face.
(While doing this, I always kept my hand directly underneath the faucet. 1) It let me make sure a safe, comfortable temperature of water was coming out. 2) It spread out the water more gently and evenly than the faucet would do naturally.)
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