If you haven’t ever cared for a newborn before, your baby’s skin care can be intimidating. When you are a new parent, taking good care of your baby’s skin (as well as keeping your baby healthy and alive) quickly becomes one of your top priorities and it can be easy to get overwhelmed in trying to get everything right. Baby skin care is often little more than common sense which should be good news. You don’t need any fancy products to keep your baby’s skin clean and clear. In fact, you don’t need many products at all! Read on to learn some hints and tips that you can use to put together your new baby’s skin care routine.
Your baby’s bathtime doesn’t have to last very long. The truth is that if your newborn’s bath is too long it can be harmful! Your baby’s bath time shouldn’t last longer than five minutes–all you need to do is get her wet, soap her up and rinse her off. After rinsing off the baby, apply a little bit of lotion or moisturizer and then towel her dry. Dry your baby’s skin completely or skin rashes or yeast infections can develop. Remember how rolly and polly a newborn baby’s skin is! Be sure to use a soft towel! Skin needs clean, fresh air, especially a baby’s skin. Most diaper rashes and other skin issues can be completely avoided because most of them result from sitting in a soiled diaper or being constricted in tight clothes for longer than the skin can take. Your babies skin needs to be able to breathe in order to stop these problems in their tracks. Tip: from time-to-time let your baby crawl around naked so the skin has a chance to be dry and soak up some clean air. Remember, babies do not care about modesty-that is something that develops when they are older. You need to use your better judgment when choosing to use this method because you don’t want your baby crawling around naked when guests are present or being exposed to cold air that can lead to serious health problems.
Your newborn baby’s skin is incredibly sensitive to direct sunlight so you should take care to make sure that your baby is not exposed to direct sunlight until he or she is at least six months old. Once your baby is six months old you can take him or her into direct sunlight but make sure that he is completely covered in a strong (baby friendly) sunblock.
Be careful around your baby’s umbilical cord stump. Don’t mess around with it. Until it falls off simply swab it with rubbing alcohol a few times a day. Leave it alone the rest of the time. Forego giving your infant a “real” bath until his or her umbilical cord stump falls off. To keep your baby’s diaper from irritating the stump fold down the top of it. The stump area is sensitive and is easy to infect which is why a high level of care is important. The stump will leave behind a spot on your baby–talk to your pediatrician about how to best care for that spot.
There are many different ways to care for your newborn’s skin. You will be glad to learn that taking care of your infant’s skin does not have to be very hard at all. In fact, if you choose the right products and practice some common sense, your baby should enjoy clean and clear skin with very few problems. Don’t forget that there is more to baby skin care than caring for your baby’s face. Keeping your daughter or son’s skin clean and healthy is an all day long type of process but don’t worry too much about it. Before long taking care of your baby’s skin and protecting it will become second nature. Before you know it you won’t even need to focus on it to keep your baby’s skin healthy. It will be an automatic response!