Choosing the Right Baby Skin Care Routine

Baby skin care is more difficult than most people think. Proper infant skin care means caring for all of a baby's skin (aka the whole body). Newborn babies are very susceptible to skin conditions because it takes time for the skin to get used to life outside of the womb. Proper baby skin care means that parents must make good decisions continually throughout the day. Everything from the soap you use in the bath to the clothes you put him into will affect the condition of your baby's skin. Don't stress out too much though: practicing good baby skin care does not have to be intricate or hard. With just a little bit of common sense it can be really simple. If you need some help figuring out a good routine, here are a few hints to help you out.

You don’t need to use powder when you change your baby’s diaper. Lots of people use powder because it soaks up moisture and helps keep the baby's skin dry inside of the diaper.

The problem is that babies are able to inhale the fine dust that occurs when you sprinkle talcum powder on your child and yeast can grow in corn based starches. Instead of using powders or corn starches simply wipe your baby clean with warm water, dry her off with a dry towel and then put on a new diaper. This will keep away diaper rashes and yeast problems.

Make sure to test the temperature of the baby's bath water before you let that water touch your baby. A baby's skin can be easily burned by water that is too warm. You might not believe this but most people don't start to like hot showers and hot baths until later on in life. Put your elbow into the water to see if the bath is too hot for your baby. Your elbow has very sensitive skin so if the water is too hot or cold for your elbow you need to adjust the temperature of the water. The warmest your baby's bath water should be lukewarm.

Lukewarm water keeps you from putting your baby in water that is too cold and too hot.

Take care to protect your infant's umbilical cord stump. Don't pull it, rub it or play with it. Swab the stump with rubbing alcohol a few times a day. Don't mess with it any more than that. In fact, you don’t want to bathe your baby in a bath until after the 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. The number one element of skin care is keeping it clean. That‘s right, it mostly all comes down to staying clean, that‘s the big secret. A baby‘s skin has no use for the large variety of skin care products that adults use. In fact, using them usually does more harm than good. Your baby’s skin care depends on you being able to cut through all of the misinformation. Remember, there is no need to overcomplicate something that is not complicated to begin with.

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