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My wife and I are on our third infant/toddler tub, and haven't liked any of them.
We started with the safety first tub that slides open with the frog sponge. It leaked. Next up was the Summer infant deluxe baby bather. That worked until our daughter got too big for it. We just tried the summer infant fold away bath and plan to return it tomorrow (she kept sliding down).
What features / styles have you found to work well when bathing infants and toddlers?
I say you don't need special baby products for this. We bathed our infant in the sink, and once he outgrew that we moved to the tub with a hand's width of water. Still works well at 18 months!
We are ALWAYS next to the tub; our child is never unsupervised near water. It's also a lot of fun to watch, and after playing for a while, it's soap time and then done.
How old is your child? Is she able to sit up herself yet?
When we started immersing our young infant for a bath, we used the First Years Infant to Toddler Tub with sling (first photo, on the left). In the end, we didn't use the sling much since though it provided some support, I thought it got in the way of us cleaning the baby. The seat provided me some peace of mind in handling a slippery wet baby.
Once he outgrew this tub (around 6-7 months old), we opted for a basic tub and found exactly what we were looking for in the $7 IKEA Lattsam (second photo, on the right). It has rubber grips under the tub and in the tub to prevent slippage. We originally used it on our bathroom counter (and rigged up a tube to siphon away the water because the tub with water was too heavy to carry), and then just put it in the bathtub when our son started splashing too much. It's better than using the whole tub in my opinion even though we could do that now since it requires less water to fill it up to a comfortable depth, and I think it's cleaner and easier to keep clean. Since it is pretty large, I think he'll be able to use it until he is 2.5-3 years old.
Maybe you are expecting too much. Babies will kick and wriggle and are prone to sliding around. Try and find something that they are happy with more than finding something that you are happy with.
We bathed our son in the tub next to our washing machine (you know the ones) and he was content. We purchased a bath seat which was good at stopping him from slipping and he could still kick and wriggle. Baby seats are a lot cheaper than baby baths and we were able to use it when we move him to the bath tub until he was able to safely support himself.
Note: Regardless of your choice, be sure to supervise your child in the bath at all times.
We used towels in the bottom of the bathtub. I laid down 2 towels in the bottom of the tub and poured just enough water in to cover the towels and about 1/2 to 1 inch above it. I put down big soup cans on the corner of the towels so they wouldn't float away. I continued to do this until my boys were sitting up and moving around enough that the towels wouldn't stay put. After the bath was done I put the towels directly in the washing machine and did a load of laundry right away so that they didn't sit around for very long.
It seems to be you are overcomplicating. A plastic tub with rubber on the bottom is all you need. One that comes with a stand is good so you don't have to bend your backs. We've used the same tub from day 3 when we came home up until now, a year later, and it still fine. I expect she will outgrow it soon.
Yes, you will have to hold the baby on one arm until he/she can sit up. It's generally not a big problem, in our experience. YMMV.
There are some tubs that have a little "seat" molded into them, ostensibly to make the kids not slip. We heard kids in general do not like these, and after using one at my grandmas place this was confirmed. So avoid things like this:
We got one with a little seat, my mother-in-law brought back from Taiwan; so I disagree with Lennart on the seat question but every kid is different. The molded one works great and 5 years later our second son is getting some use out of it. We just try to keep them amused during bath time and have never had a problem
We got a little kiddie pool and partially inflated it to provide some padding in the bath.
I've always just bathed baby in the tub with me, at least since he was 14 days old and we were allowed in the water (after 2 weeks for C-section incision to heal and for his belly button). He's 13 months now, and it's been easy and fun. It's a great bonding time since my attention is completely on him. Another plus is that he loves the water and has never been afraid of it. I do have to take a second bath if I want to wash my hair or shave.
