Benefits of Bath Time for Cognitive and Emotional Development

Being a parent, the most beautiful and intimate moments are the BATH TIME. My baby used to learn a lot of new things while bathing as she enjoyed staying in water. Research has shown that bath time plays an important role in your little one’s cognitive and emotional development. As it engages all the senses which can encourage their brain to really focus and pay attention. 

Although there are no set rules but you should bath your baby twice or thrice a week to keep them clean. In order to set a bath time routine, I would suggest to bath your baby always around the same time. You can start by picking up a moment when they are awake or during the time when they are neither full nor hungry. Gradually you can start shifting the routine before the bedtime.

This daily ritual comes packed with a lot of learning and early development opportunities for your babies.

Learn these golden rules for safety during bath time:

• You should never leave your babies, toddlers and children under five unattended or under the supervision of siblings. You have to supervise them yourself.
• Always Check that temperature of the water is between 37°C and 38°C before you put your child in.
• Get everything ready like towel, face washer, cotton wool, clean nappy and clean clothes in advance so you can stay with your child for bath time.
• Keep the bath time short and sweet. Normally 5-10 minutes is long enough for a baby bath. Let the water out as soon as bath time is over.

Benefits of bath time

It is no revelation that water is one the best learning tools for any baby to discover his /her undiscovered senses. When babies feel water on their skin, watch water pour and drain, play with bubbles and most importantly, feel your gentle touch it helps them de-stress and relax. Hence, here are some of the benefits of bathing you must know as a new parent!

1) Nurtures bond between parent and child

Most parents are juggling with lots of roles as they try to balance work with family life. But During bath time you only focus on your child and nothing else. This distraction-free time helps you bond with your child and those sweet little meaningful interactions support in shaping her rapidly-developing brain.

2)Bath time Helps in hand-eye coordination

Not just adults, but babies also love bubbles, especially while bathing. And most of the time they explore bubbles a lot and as a result their hand-eye coordination improves. Hence, try adding a few drops of your favourite baby bubble bath liquid. You can also blow bubbles across your kid’s field of vision to get their attention. If your baby is grown up try blowing bubbles above the tub and encourage your baby to build her hand-eye coordination as they will chase after the bubbles.

3) Helps in their cognitive and language skills

Bath time is very helpful in their language development. Don’t worry if you are a bad singer, it really doesn’t matter much. Just try singing during bath time since it helps baby’s to have fun. In this way, they will also try mimicking you which will eventually develop their language skills. You can also talk to your babies about what is happening and what they are experiencing. “Is this water warm?” “You are splashing!”. You can even try singing nursery rhymes in a fun way as they will sing along with you!

4)Bath time Helps in building hand and finger strength

Play time gets more enjoyable with sponges and it is a fantastic way to help your baby develop her fine motor skills as they will learn to squeeze water from the sponge! Buy some colourful sponge of different shapes and sizes and put it all in the bathtub. Tell them to squeeze and play. You can also offer some cups to make them squeeze in to improve their small muscle strength.

5) Develops creativity

Any type of creative art can enhance your baby’s imagination and as well as develop her ability to self-express. Kids often get attracted to vibrant and colourful toys. But when it comes to colouring, their excitement is on a whole different level. Hence, provide your little one with some non-toxic bath paints during bath time. At the same time, try encouraging them to use their finger to paint the walls instead of paint brushes.

6) Helps in fine motor and early math skills

Babies love pouring water into cups because it’s actually fascinating for them. You can give them a variety of small plastic cups to experiment with. They can learn language for the different quantities in the cups like half cup, full cup and so on. There are endless ways to help them with numbers during bath time.

7) Helps in calming your baby

A gentle skin-to-skin contact, cuddling and massage after bath time will help calm your baby before bedtime. You can eventually create a perfect evening ritual which can last through out the childhood.

SO enjoy this phase as Once your child turns into a pre-schooler, you may need more elaborate ways to turn bath time into an adventure.

This year, I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

I am writing 26 post in this series .Do check my earlier post

A: Anxiety in new mums

B: Breastfeeding

C: Crawling Skills