CHILD DEVELOPMENT, HEALTH & WELLNESS, NEW GRANDPARENTS

BABY, BATH & BEYOND

By Jeanne Sager

Baby's bath time, for Rhode Island grandmother Sharon Couto, is an opportunity to pass on to her daughter an experience that she held dear.

 

"We had an old house with a big basin sink, and I used to plop the kids in that sink and just let them splash and soak," Couto says of her mom years. "Sure, the floor got soaked and the counters needed wiping, but the joy was palpable.

The fun was reborn when Couto's eldest grandson, 4-year-old William, came along. She found her daughter, Audrey, was timid about bathing her first child. It brought memories flooding back for Couto of her struggles in the early days of motherhood and her mother-in-law, Flo, coming to her rescue.

 

"What my mother-in-law taught me was that if I was organized with everything close at hand, the actual bathing was a delight for the baby and the mommy. This is the lesson that I learned so well, and was able to pass along to Audrey when she had the same fear of bathing her first little guy," says Couto (who writes at www.momsgenerations.com). "I bought a small infant tub, filled it with warm water, placed my beautiful new grandson on the mesh part, and just soothed him with the deliciously warm water. My daughter could not believe how much he loved the water! And I would sing to him."

 

 

The before-bedtime ritual is become an important step for children's physical and emotional health.

 

And then there are the statistics. The National Safe Kids Campaign blames scalding water for more burns on children under four than any other source. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reports drowning is the second-leading cause of death for unintentional injury-related deaths in American children and 60% of drowning victims under the age of one die in the bathtub - leading the American Academy of Pediatrics to caution adults never to leave a child under the age of four alone at bath time.

 

Scary stuff. And good reasons for an experienced grand to offer to help to new parents who are just getting acclimated.

 

"Grandparents aren't afraid of babies," says out pediatrician Jennifer Shu. "New parents often believe their babies are fragile, and they may be timid in holding the baby - not a good thing, especially around the bathtub!"

 

 

Grands got past fears of bathing squirmy infants years ago, and the examples we're setting for our own kids can make a big difference in a grandchild's life, as illustrated by the research of psychologist Dr. Howard Steele of the University of Central London that revealed children who were bathed at least three to four days a week were three times less likely to develop emotional problems when they became teenagers.

 

 The reason? The warm water of a bath combined with loving touch produces oxytocin the hormone linked to the development of trust and feelings of love or connection.

 

 "Most children feel relaxed in the bath," says family therapist Michelle Barone of Sunland, California. "That gives us time to sing songs,help them practice their ABCs, and play.  Kids really bond through play."

 

 

"It's never the same game with them, even if the toys are the same," says Karen Howe, the Dallas grandmother of Daniel, 5, and David, 6. "They take a plain plastic cup and make it become so many different things I sit and wonder why we adults don't imagine like that anymore."

 

 

In Couto's family, the torch passed down from her mother-in-law burns bright on evenings when she stands back to watch  her four grandsons readied for bed.

 

"I see the joy in how Audrey approaches bath time now," Couto says. "This is perfectly illustrated in how she allows her three older guys to help bathe Henry, the baby. She has the boys get Henry's washcloth, soap, diaper. She fills Henry's little blue tub with water. The boys pull up chairs to easily reach her kitchen counter top. She has the boys test the water for warmth. She lays Henry on the little net, and each boy takes a turn 'washing' Henry's legs and arms and tummy.

 

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