How to Clean your Baby Properly?
Every mother loves to touch and feel her baby’s skin. Baby skin is simply so soft, smooth and delicate, and every mother wants to take good care of it.
However, since the baby skin is really soft and delicate, the question is how to clean the baby skin properly without harming the skin in any way while ensuring cleanliness at the same time.
Every baby is precious to their mother and therefore a caring mother is cautious before trying random cleaning products and cleaning techniques on their baby.
The key here is to know how to do it the right way so as to keep your baby’s skin clean and soft.
This then ensures the prevention of possible baby skin diseases of any kind or any other health issues that might develop due to poor skin hygiene.
Cleaning and moisturizing the skin of the head
Washing the baby’s head with baby friendly shampoo is very important in order to keep it clean. Depending upon your set schedule, you can wash your baby’s head once or twice a week.
After washing the baby’s head properly, make sure you dry it well and put some oil or a good moisturizing cream to keep your baby’s head skin moist. Moisturizing is especially important because some infants have very dry head skin and they suffer from skin problems if the skin is not kept moist.
Cleaning the baby’s face
Your little one’s gorgeous face definitely needs some extra care. In order to do it right, making sure you don’t harm the facial skin while still ensuring cleanliness, there are a few recommended steps to follow.
Start with wiping your baby’s face with face wipes or a damp cloth. If using a damp cloth, make sure that the cloth is clean and soft so that it is not too rough on your baby’s skin. Wipe gently and very carefully around your baby’s eyes and around your baby’s ears.
You must also check for any ear wax, also called cerumen, which needs to be taken out of your baby’s ears. This can be done using baby ear buds. While cleaning the baby’s ears and getting ear wax out, it is really important to be careful since your baby is very delicate and so are the baby’s ears.
Make sure you are very gentle when using the ear buds on your baby as you might hurt your baby’s ear drum by accident. Your baby might start crying out loud in the process of you trying to clean your baby’s ear. This is very common since your baby may feel a bit scared of it. The crying could also be a result of the mother inserting the ear buds a bit too deep inside the baby’s ear. Please make sure you are gentle and not too deep in the baby’s ear while using the ear buds.
While washing your baby’s face, it is a good idea to wipe off the baby’s neck. Make sure you use baby cleaning wipes all around the baby’s neck to remove any dirt due to sweat or otherwise.
Moreover, while cleaning your baby’s face, it is a good idea to check for any skin rashes or spots on the baby’s face and neck. Finish off cleaning your baby’s face by applying moisturizing cream to prevent drying of the skin.
Cleaning your baby’s body
Daily bathing is not absolutely necessary for your baby. Babies, especially infants and newborns, usually do not go out or move around much and therefore they do not get very dirty. Washing your baby’s body once or twice a week is normally considered sufficient.
Scrub the baby’s soft skin with a very soft baby sponge. Use a mild baby body wash. Although cleaning the whole body is a good idea but make sure you clean the baby’s armpits properly as the arm pits tend to get sweaty and therefore dirt gets into the skin folds.
Next is to scrub your baby’s legs to remove any dirt. Once legs are properly scrubbed, rinse off the baby’s body with clean water. Your baby will now look and feel clean and fresh. Once the scrubbing and rinsing is done, it is then time to dry your baby’s skin properly using a clean and soft feeling baby towel. Make sure you do not apply too much pressure on your baby body while drying your baby using a towel. Bodies of babies, especially newborns and infants, are very delicate and need to be handled with care.
Towards the end of the baby body cleaning process, it is recommended to apply some baby lotion (with or without fragrance) on your baby’s body. Some people also prefer putting on some baby powder especially under armpits to keep it dry and because of the pleasant fragrance of baby powder.
Cleaning the baby’s private areas
As mentioned earlier, your baby’s delicate skin needs gentle handling. It is really important to wash your baby’s private parts regularly while giving bath. Since the baby’s sensitive skin can easily get rashes and other skin problems, regular cleaning of the private areas is highly advisable.
Wash or wipe your baby’s private organs properly and make sure to dry it with clean soft towel or cloth. Once dried, make sure to moist it with baby nappy lotion. Use the baby nappy lotion that best suits your baby’s skin. However, some nappy lotions come with fragrance and sometimes the fragrance can be a bit too strong for your baby. Make sure to use fragrance free lotions if you observe your baby getting irritated after using the lotions with fragrance.
Cleaning your baby’s hands and feet
Proper cleaning of your baby’s hands and feet is also necessary. As babies get older they start chewing their hands and feet. Germs can enter your baby’s body easily through the mouth when your baby licks and sucks on its hands and feet. This can harm your baby’s health and can lead to illness.
This is one of the main reasons that cleaning your baby’s hands and feet carefully is essential. The immune system of a baby is not as strong as adults and babies are therefore more prone to infections and diseases than adults, if proper hygiene care is not given to the baby.
Furthermore, baby fingers and toes are very tiny and delicate. Cleaning your baby’s fingers and toes comparatively needs more effort to clean.
Cleaning your baby’s nails on both the hands and the feet is very important as well. This is because the nails can sometimes get really dirty and properly cutting the nails is another big hassle altogether. Make sure to properly dip your baby’s fingers and toes in water while washing. Doing this usually washes out dirt from the nails easily.
Once the hands and feet are properly cleaned, use soft sponge to clean gaps between the fingers and toes, as it gets dirt stuck in them.
Tips for better skin care
· Protect the baby’s skin from getting excessive sun.
· Try to cut your baby’s nails on time as babies often scratch their skins off.
· Wash the baby’s clothes regularly even if they are new.
· Protect your baby from insects by covering the baby’s body.
· Avoid using strong skin products, that can have possible adverse skin reactions.
More Baby Hygiene Articles
How to Clean a Baby’s Belly Button?
How to Clean your Baby Properly?
Caring For Babies With Sensitive Skin
Cloth Nappies: Benefits, Types, and Care
How to deal with nappy rashes?
