Rub-A-Dub-Dub: Child Safety in the Bathtub
Of course, the number one way to ensure your child’s safety during bath time is to never leave your child alone, even for a second. However, you can take more precautions in the bathroom, and help make bath time less stressful for both you and your child, with these commonly used child safety products.
What mother doesn’t feel anxious the first time they bathe their newborn child? In fact, this fear is so common that before a mother leaves the hospital, she’s usually shown how to bathe the baby by a nurse. When you get home, you’ll want an infant bathtub basin. These come in a variety of sizes and styles, my favorite being Primo’s EuroBath Infant and Toddler Bath Tub. It’s designed to be used for infants and toddlers (you just place the baby on the opposite side when they are bigger), and we used this tub for a good number of years with our first and second children. It’s convenient, easy to clean, and durable.
Some parents may be put off by the large size of the Primo’s Euro baby bath tub, but those tiny infant baths, in our experience, are a huge waste of money. They last no longer than a few weeks, the baby hardly fits in them, and they are usually more difficult to clean (with the foam layer that’s often added to cushion the baby). We just placed a soft, doubled over towel inside the Primo tub, and this acted as a cushion when our infants were tiny.
As your baby grows into a toddler, bath time safety starts to focus on how to prevent your now-active child from slipping and sliding in the full size tub. You’ll want to place a non-slip mat on the bottom of the tub to prevent sliding. While you could use those shaped non-skid stickers on your tub, they tend to leave a nasty mark over time, and collect dirt around the edges. A non-slip bathtub mat is easier to use, can be removed between baths to prevent mold and mildew build up, and can be cleaned on top and bottom, whenever necessary.
While we’re talking about slipping and sliding toddlers, another boo-boo maker in the bathtub is the faucet. So many kids bump their little heads on the rough, metal bathtub faucet. There are a variety of faucet covers on the market, which you can purchase and use to protect those painful bathtub accidents.
One particularly neat faucet cover is made by Boon, called Flo. Flo is easy to install, doesn’t get in the way of a shower diverter, and changes the actual flow of the water into an extended waterfall stream, for easier hair rinsing. Plus, as a cute bonus, you can load some bubble bath solution into Flo, to help create a fun bubble bath for your child.
Speaking of rinsing hair, how many parents have kids who are afraid of the water dripping in their eyes when it’s time to wash and rinse? OneStepAhead makes a shampoo visor just for this bath time problem. The foam visor fits around the child’s head, helping to keep water and soap out of their eyes. Of course, you should still only use tear-free shampoos. But this will help your anxious little ones from worrying about drops of water falling into their face.