My first bath

The pediatrician had warned us that some babies love baths and others hate them. She also let us know that full-fledged baths are rarely necessary with little babies, since they don't crawl around in the dirt and get dirty. Clearly, she had no understanding of the array of bodily fluids that Zack douses himself in daily. So, we went for the real deal immersion bath, not just the sponge bath (he's had those). Like the books said, I got all of the supplies laid out in the bathroom, and we filled the little infant tub we'd bought for this purpose.

Zack turned out to be one of the babies who don't care for the bath. He cried the whole time, the kind of crying where his face is all bunched up and his whole body turns red with anger. It was a short bath. In the end, I handed him off the Nathan, who knelt down in our bathtub and rinsed him thoroughly under the faucet. (The bathwater had gotten all soapy and rinsing wasn't so effective). In any case, after MUCH drama, we have a squeaky clean and great smelling baby boy. He also tired himself out fussing like that so he's having a long nap right now. Right after the bath, we diapered him and swaddled him in blankets and I got in bed with him and let him fall asleep on me, under the covers, to warm up and calm down. We both like that.

I even used baby shampoo on his hair. He really does smell great, but then he was born smelling great. He smelled like baby powder, naturally. Did they make baby powder smell the way it does to imitate the natural smell of newborns?

Today all three of us bathed - a milestone. Orly didn't get to bathe, but then he may hate a bath even more than Zack does. Today is Orly's birthday, by the way (he shares this with his cousin Callie). Orly is 7, or 49 in dog years, making him the oldest man in the house.