Everyone always says it's almost impossible to find time to shower when you are taking care of a newborn. Is that REALLY true? Why can't you just strap the kid in a carrier, leave him/her on the floor of the bathroom, and peek out every minute or two to make sure s/he's ok? I am 9w along with my first and just trying to wrap my head around my impending new reality. Is this a ridiculous question? Please advise. Thanks!
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I always just put DS in a bouncy chair in the bathroom while I showered. It was fine for us. I couldn't take long ones, but I did take them.
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I just put him in his bouncy chair in the bathroom while I shower and get ready. He likes it and sometimes even has a short nap.
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When she was a newborn, LO usually slept through my showers (I'd just shower after her first feeding at a decent time, usually 8 or 9). Then when she was awake for longer, she played in her bouncy seat and I sang to her (we have a glass shower so I just watched her through that usually). Now, I shower before she gets up but there have been a couple of times when she gets up earlier and she's just played in her jumperoo while I sing (she's a year old and if I don't entertain her, she freaks out, she's having separation anxiety issues lately).
So I've never really had an issue. It helps a ton when DH is home though and there have been maybe a handful of times in the past year where I just couldn't shower because she was in a growth spurt or not feeling well.
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My problem was that M was such a fussy newborn that she was almost always screaming unless she was being held AND bounced. When I would say that I couldn't do something I just meant that I couldn't bear to listen to her cry for long enough to do it. There's something about hearing your own baby scream that desperately that makes the shower not worth it some days. I used to just put her in her crib where she was safe and take the fastest shower of my life.
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Another bouncy seat user here! I actually still enjoy longish showers, too. LO does great in the bouncy seat with music/me singing. Never had trouble showering from day 1.
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Thanks all. Glad to hear that my expectations are not completely unreasonable.
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DS is 3 weeks and I put him in his rock n play when I get a shower. I just pull it into the bathroom. He falls asleep to the sound of the running water.
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We used a bouncy chair, too.
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I usually wait until he is napping to shower and just pull the Rock N' Play into the bathroom with me.
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Depends on the baby! Some want to be held/rocked constantly. If you don't mind showering while LO screetches, then it isn't impossible.
Mine was usually content to sit in the bouncy seat. And in the early faus, anytime someone else was holding the baby, I made sure to shower then. I never loved showers as much as I did in those days.
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I put him on a towel on the floor of the shower and showered with him.
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I wait until he's drowsy or content and bring the Rock n Play in the bathroom with me. I also turn on music, which seems to help. He is a fussy sort of drama-baby, so I have to make my showers quick and I don't always get to take them at a time that's ideal for me, but I do get to shower every day.
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I just showered while he napped. I never take him into the bathroom.
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My kid refused to nap anywhere but my arms for the first 6 months, HATED the swing/bouncer/etc. I tried pulling him into the bathroom like that and he just screamed bloody murder the entire time. I stopped trying after a while.
I waited until DH got home at night to take a bath and shower. Usually I had nursed LO to sleep in our bed and could sneak out (with DH keeping an eye on him). I actually preferred this way because it gave me a good block of time to relax and take my time and not feel rushed by a crying baby.
But most LOs seem to love the bouncer/RnP/swing. I think mine was just weird
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Pack and play!
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Here's what we do: http://www.hellobee.com/2013/05/09/the-cave-people-made-me-do-it-showering-with-the-small-set/
Thing is-- babies like to be close to their moms. And moms like to be able to see their babies. And sometimes with newborns there is only enough time in the day for nursing. And getting ready to nurse. And napping. And then nursing. Again. So this way everyone gets clean.
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I showered whilst LO napped, her PnP was in our bedroom and I could see it from the shower (en suite bathroom) and never worried about it. Once she was older (including now), she goes in her cot and I take the monitor into the bathroom with me so I can hear her.
I never struggled to find time to shower, even when she was a newborn!
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I've taken him in the bathroom with me before, but I don't really like it. I just wait until he's in bed or DH has him.
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I always laugh when I hear this, honestly. What it needs to read is 'if you can't stand to let your baby cry, you will never shower'. I saw this as a good way to teach my child, from the start, that some times she just has to wait while I take care of my own needs. I showered while she was napping, or while she was hanging out in a moses basket (either in the living room, or on the bathroom floor when she got a bit more wiggly and needed watching). Some times she cried a bit, and I took a fast shower. And that was it. I've not missed a shower in the two years since she was born. Not once.
I think that we all need to put ourselves first, from time to time, at that our children need to know that sometimes, they don't come first. I thought this was an excellent way to teach this.
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I just showered while she napped and then when she was older after she went to bed. I remember in my breastfeeding group one lady was struggling with her production and the LC asked her if she was drinking water and the lady said, "oh no, I can't drink anything during the day because then I'd have to pee and who would watch the baby???" Poor lady was stressing (and dehydrating herself) because she was terrified of taking her eyes off her newborn. If I had stuff to do I'd put her in the bouncer, rock n play, or strap her to me.
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I've showered, put on real clothes, and managed makeup every day since I've been home. I'm very lucky to have a very chill 2 week old that sits happily in the rock n play while I shower. So no, never showering again does not have to be your new reality!
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I have showered every day since giving birth at 7 weeks PP. It was a priority for me. I either wait until he goes down for a nap and bring the monitor in with me where I can see it or I bring the bouncer/RnP in where I can see him.
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I always put DD on her portable swing when I showered. It was great because she always fell asleep on it!
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Luckily LO is pretty easy going. I either put her in the p n' p in our bedroom or wait until she's napping and bring the monitor in. She's always been pretty happy in the p n' p though. I give her Sophie or something to chew.
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Mine screamed if I put her down for a single instant, for the first 6 months of her life. I don't mean she cried or fussed a little- she screamed until she vomited, hyperventilated, or both. She was so colicky she wouldn't even nap without being held. Ever. No bouncer or swing would do, and showering while hearing your baby scream and make herself sick is not exactly ideal or safe, so I had to wait for my husband to come home and just showered in the evening.
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@sarac: it's easy to laugh until you have an extreme circumstance like I did (see my above post). No amount of teaching my child to be patient would have worked. Not all babies are the same and mothers like me tend to feel like we're doing something wrong when we hear how much easier it "should be" from other mothers.
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@ErinPye; I can't even imagine! I'm glad you had a husband who was involved and could spell you when you needed to do something for yourself. I have low tolerance for infants crying. Not that I don't like the sound, just that it definitely sends a message to my primitive brain that something is really wrong and needs to be fixed NOW. You are so right that babies are different people from the start, just like all us adults, and there really is no "right" or "easiest" way to do things.
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I definitely had trouble finding time to shower. Sometimes I managed to get her to just chill or nap in her bouncy chair, but it was really hit or miss. Usually I just waited until DH got home at night and then made him watch DD while I showered. Even to this day, I shower at night after DD goes to bed, or I shower in the morning after I drop her off at daycare but before going into work.
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I usually shower at night so I was able to take advantage of bedtime a lot. If I needed to shower during the day, I used the bouncy seat if I didn't have anyone to keep an eye on DS. He loved the "white noise" from the shower and would usually sleep. I did learn how to take really fast showers though!
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This conversation has gotten more interesting. I don't know if I would want to shower with my baby because showering seems like one of the last bastions of "alone time" I might have for awhile once the baby is born. I wonder how I will feel when I am staring at my actual baby instead of thinking hypothetically about it.
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I had no issues showering, I put her in her bounce chair or her rock n play and she would usually fall asleep due to the sound of water!
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E was an easygoing baby. I went to the gym in the morning and would set her on the floor in her carseat when I got back or set her in the crib for 5 minutes while I rinsed off. If i had to do a full on hair washing, shaving, etc, I usually did that while she was napping or when DH was home, simply so I could enjoy it and not rush. Plus, I like to shower at night. Morning showers were just to get the sweat off me!
Now that she's older, sometimes she cries while I'm using the bathroom in the morning...but there really isn't anything I can do about it. I wasn't comfortable teaching her this "lesson" as a brand new baby, though.
@sarac, that was very condescending.
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You know, that wasn't really the tone I was going for. What I meant was, I look back on those days and chuckle at the memory of feeling that way too. I remember feeling like I couldn't do anything if it made my baby cry. I made a conscious choice to push through it, for tiny amounts of time, and only for things like showering that were very important. And I would recommend that to anyone - even if it feels really hard.
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@sarac: I hope to adopt a similar mentality, but I can't tell if my expectations are reasonable. Based on everyone's responses to the thread, it sounds like a lot depends on the temperament of your individual baby.
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@ElbieKay: What is certain is that your time is just absolutely, utterly no longer your own - and that can be really hard to adapt to. Some babies make it easy, and some hard. Some parents find that they're able to carve out time for themselves, and some have a lot of trouble with that - for a thousand reasons. I always tell people to try to find time for yourself whenever possible, even if your baby is a little sad, even if you feel guilty.
I remember my first few months of parenthood, my daughter would nurse for about 8 hours a day. I can't eat while I nurse, because I feel nauseous. So I'd just go nuts, like, I have to eat, child. When am I going to eat? Sometimes I would just have to let her cry for as long as it took me to stuff a meal in my face. And I hated it, but the alternative was starving, and resenting her for it. It is way harder to be a good parent when you don't feel like your needs are getting met. Even just little needs (like for cleanliness). Waaaaaay harder. Very worth trading for a little sad baby time, IMHO.
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i used a bouncy chair, rnp or waited until a nap. i figured even if she woke up, it would be okay if she cried for 10 minutes.
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It probably depends on the baby. I always showered after Xander went down for his first nap of the day (or when Hubs was home and could watch him). I still take 20-30 minute showers.
But Xander's been a really easy-going baby and even if he'd wake up while I was in the shower, he was totally chill.
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