First Bath Given By Daddy
A lot of these posts from here on out will probably have something to do with Keila, but I'll do my best to include some culture, too. Today's topic: bathing babies!
Here in Japan, nobody waits for the umbilical cord to fall off before putting babies in the bath. I was quite surprised to learn this fact, since I'd always been taught that you keep the cord stump clean and dry, only giving them sponge baths until it falls off.
By the time I learned of this different practice however, Keila had already been given her first bath, so there wasn't too much I could do to protest. Plus, I figured...well, I haven't heard of many Japanese people with belly button problems, so perhaps it's more of a cultural issue than a sanitary one? And in terms of the Japanese perspective, the nurses seemed to think it crazy that in America, we DON'T give anything more than a sponge bath the first few weeks...and that we don't actually bathe the babies every day! (In both countries they do, however, rub around the belly button with ethanol to keep it sanitary, although I recently read of a study indicating that just leaving a stump alone to dry may be the best practice).
I have to admit, babies do LOVE being in the bathtub. As part of the new parent training at the maternity center, I watched a nurse bathe Keila on Wednesday morning, and yesterday I gave her a bath myself while they supervised. The look of utter bliss on her face was so obvious, she might as well have been purring with pleasure. I felt bad taking her out when we were done!
Today, since Yuki took the day off, he got to try his hand at giving Keila her bath while I of course recorded the moment with tons of photos:
Happy girl!
Cute little elf
What a great dad!
Enjoying the spa treatment
Finally, a back rub!
1 comments:
I gave both my kids submersion baths before their stumps fell off. I think a sponge bath would be way too cold for them only being partly covered and wet. Both fell off around 3-4 weeks. I used lots of alcohol because one of my friends wen the 0 alcohol route and her baby ended up getting an infected belly button stump!
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