Baby Stuff Installment #1: Bathing the Babe

Now that I have two little ones, I am bursting with unsolicited advice to give "from the trenches." I love sharing my thoughts about stuff that works and stuff that doesn't work. So many baby things *seem* like good ideas and then turn out to not be and we the parents get suckered. And now, on to the subject of bathing which can be both fun and a serious pain.
Take a journey with me...
Bathing the newborn:
Here is my younger son just days after birth. This is the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders baby bathtub. It has this great hammock that fits inside of it and works pretty well for newborns. I have found that when the baby outgrows the hammock, though, it becomes incredibly awkward and I begin to hate it. After struggling with it for awhile with my older son, I decided that the bathroom sink was just a better alternative for bathing.

Here are both my boys at similar ages enduring the sink-bath (older on the left, younger on the right). I found this worked fairly well, but by about 4-5 months, they had both outgrown the sink. Both times at this point, I scratched my head wondering what to do next? Neither of them were old enough to sit up in a tub unassisted. I chose to go back to the baby bathtub shown above, but this time set it inside the bathtub instead of on the kitchen counter. It worked okay, but I decided there MUST be a better solution. With my older son, I chose to go the route of an inflatable baby bathtub. The duck tub was lots of fun, but almost more awkward than the baby bathtub. The good thing about it is it cost about $10 - very minor investment. The babe seemed to like it. He could splash and it supported him but as you can see in the picture, he still looks like he's ready to float away. With the duck tub, I had to be right next to him at all times because if he moved wrong, he'd slip down into the tub. I saved it for baby #2, but quickly realized that having both boys bathe together would be far more fun and far less time-consuming. So, I looked on Amazon. Between Amazon and Ebay, I can usually find whatever I am looking for and I love how it gets shipped right to my door. What I discovered was a bath seat. It is a plastic seat that has giant suction cups on the bottom and pretty much keeps the baby from floating away. My younger son loves it, loves splashing with his big brother and I love that he's fairly secure and independent. It is very easy to get him in and out, the suction cups have stayed firmly attached and the front bar also stays firmly in place.

Of course, isn't it nice of the manufacturer to throw a big raincloud on my perfect solution? Check out the giant warning label that I see every time I use this seat - I particularly enjoy the capitalized words for emphasis:If you are interested in this seat, it is sold on Amazon HERE and costs about $37. I should warn you that it seems to take about 6 weeks to ship, so plan ahead of when you might need it. It has a fairly short life of about 6 months (I'm guessing) at which point the baby will most likely no longer happily sit confined in a seat. I will keep my son in it as long as he will let me. It has plenty of comfortable grow-room.