Tummy Tubs Are Dumb - An Opinion

Call me, "old fashioned" (and even "unenlightened"), but I think Tummy Tubs are a dumb invention. What is a Tummy Tub? It's a see-through, plastic, bucket for bathing a baby. (Some are tinted pink or blue.) When placed in the tub the baby is in a curled-up position, said to be similar to his earlier position in the womb (in other words, to recreate the womb experience). A Dutch invention, the Tummy Tub has been available in Europe since 1996. For some reason, it has not made much of a splash in the United States during that time, although it is now gaining more recognition.

Here are the problems, as I see them, with the Tummy Tub:

Newborns can generally seem a little unsettled when given a bath in one of the conventional tubs for newborns. The perfect temperature and a cloth diaper in the floor of their bathtub (or in the case of babies like my own, tiny, premature babies, hospital basin) can make the newborn's bath fairly unsettling. Held closely and firmly by their mother's arm while being bathed can make having a bath even less unsettling. Since washing a newborn's hair/head usually requires little more than using a washcloth, and since newborns aren't sitting up and having shampoo and water dripping down their faces, the "hair-washing factor" (which can be unpleasant for some toddlers) isn't a problem with newborns. In other words, and in my opinion, at the stage when a baby may most "appreciate" experiencing the recreation of the womb environment, baths (and every other kind of baby care) require that close, in-Mommy's-arms, experience that help a newborn feel most secure.

Although some baby baths are designed to support a baby who can't support his own head, or hold himself upright; anyone who has ever bathed a newborn (the right way) knows that baths are often least "frazzling" to them when they are essentially held by their mothers throughout the process. Somehow, to me, sticking a newborn in a water-filled bucket means surrounding him with plastic, rather than his mother's arm and, apparently, hoping he enjoys the trip down memory lane. One question is, of course, of much memory any newborn really has - but that's a question for another day.

With babies who are past being newborns but still too young to sit up, the only real difference in the way they're bathed is sometimes the size of the basin/bath, as well as the way a caretaker holds them. While it is no longer necessary to use the crook of the arm as a way of supporting a slightly older infant's head, it is still necessary for the person bathing them to hold them. Babies in this age range are usually past seeming "unsettled" when having a bath. Most enjoy their bath. With conventional bath basins/tubs babies in this age get to enjoy quite a bit of human interaction, and touch, as they are bathed. Babies this age are still very much in need of that kind of interaction and touch, so it would seem to be, again, that sticking them in a bucket, surrounding by plastic walls (even if that bucket is see-through and filled with water, the way amniotic sacs are) could be seen as "too cold" or "too removed". While babies in this age range don't get into bath-time play the way older babies and toddlers do, even babies this young do enjoy some splashing (which, in fairness to the "buckets", they can enjoy there as well). The point is that babies generally do enjoy their baths - even those boring old conventional kind of baths that have served them well for generations.

Older babies may enjoy sitting in a bucket; but it seems to me that older babies have generally grown well beyond any familiarity with their earlier existence in the womb. Just as babies usually enjoy their bath in a conventional basin or tub, I suspect older babies may enjoy the (to me) claustrophobic bath buckets. At the same time, why choose a bucket when there is so much more freedom to move (under the still close watch of a caretaker) in a larger bathing environment? As older babies develop more advanced cognitive skills, isn't there even the chance that being placed in a fairly confining container of water may not be the best experience after all? I have no doubt that babies, with their usual affinity for water play and with being used to being strapped into baby seats or swings or carriages of one sort or another, may see the Tummy Tub as "just one more confining space". I'm not saying they would be more likely to find the Tummy Tub particularly objectionable. The point is, however, that there is at least the chance that, developmentally, an older baby would be better off having the old fashioned bath experience (that feels less confining, requires a little more back-muscle use, and even gets him used to taking a bath the way people usually take baths).

Anyone who has had an older baby or toddler knows that they seem to enjoy the great of freedom of "taking off" once a diaper and other confining cloths are removed. For older babies/toddlers, this affinity for the association of little or no clothing and freedom of movement are a stage of development that will, to some degree, pass. Might there be the chance that hampering this kind of freedom of movement at this stage in a child's life could actually be detrimental to his development in some way?

I can see that a Tummy Tub could be a handy thing to have on a hot Summer day, when a caretaker can't, or doesn't want to, get involved with a wading pool for a young baby. It may also be a handy gadget for a quick dip of baby after some diaper changes (but then again, a plain, old, hospital, basin is usually sufficient for that).

For the most part, I don't see a lot of value in this new-fangled attempt to convince a lot of parents that their babies will benefit from this bath-bucket. In fact, looking at photos of babies in the Tummy Tub, I can't help but feel that something that returns them to the isolation of the womb, without the benefit of hearing their mother's voice and heartbeat, is product that fails to offer benefits that manufacturers/advertisers claim it does.

Again, call me "old fashioned" or "unenlightened", but I can't help but think that when babies are born at approximately the right stage in the pregnancy, Nature has designed this process to occur when the baby, in his stage of development, has outgrown the need for the environment of the womb. I'm not sure that baby equipment designed to recreate that pre-birth environment makes sense, or even supports the type of development that is occurring in the months following a child's entrance into the world.  At a price of around $45, the Tummy Tub may, at best, not really offer the benefits parents think it does; and, at worst, may mean paying a price a lot higher than that $45.  The basins in which I bathed my newborns were something I got "free" (sort of, considering the bill for a couple of days in the hospital).  The conventional "bath bath" I used until they were old enough to use the regular bath tub was something I got at my baby shower, but that was probably purchased at a discount department store.  I can't help but believe they were perfectly adequate (but, yet again, call me "old fashioned" and "unenlightened").

Tummy Tubs, to me, look like a great place for washing the rattles a baby drops on floor, or in the cat-food dish; but I can't help but think the combination of a mother's supporting arm and a little freedom may be the better approach to bathing a baby.