He was wrapped up in a blanket, he was warm, and seemed to be completely calm as I walked around the apartment with him.
That was the scene after bathing my son for the first time.
He seems to be OK with the process, but I on the other hand was a nervous wreck.
My First Time
I’m not sure if it was the fear of doing something wrong or just not knowing what to do, but I was definitely bit scared of bathing my son.
In fact, in the moments leading up to the event, part of me hoped that we could postpone the bath a day. Silly, I know.
I just didn’t want to screw it up or do anything to cause him harm.
As we got the process underway things seem to be going well and relatively straightforward. Granted, there’s certainly a lot of nooks and crannies you have to keep in mind!
The bathtub we have has a little sensor that lets us know if the water is an OK temperature or not. That’s helpful and all, but I realized one thing I need to quickly get better at is my speed and “bathtub coordination” to make sure he stays warm.
There was a moment where I could see that he had gotten a bit chilly and it was really eye opening. The rate at which a baby can go from warm to chilly is pretty amazing.
By the time I got him out of the bathtub, dried him off and was putting a diaper on him… I was sweating. My muscles ached. It flat out felt like I’d just done an epic workout.
But the payoff was huge.
A Good Dad Moment
Now getting back to where this posted started — the bath was over and I was holding our son in my arms.
As he looked at me and seemed to be as calm as could be, I had a big sigh of relief. We did it!
We’ve had some pretty solid bonding time, but when I held him this time around it just seemed to be a bit different. It’s as if he was thinking, “Thank you for warming me up. I trust you.”
It was a great moment indeed.
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