Are you pondering on how to clean baby’s neck?
An infant’s skin is smooth and delicate.
While it’s all parents and caregivers’ priority to take proper care of a baby’s skin, it can be pretty agitating considering their skin’s softness and delicateness.
Cleaning a baby’s skin properly without harming it can be disconcerting. It gets more complex when it involves cleaning your little one’s neck.
It’s almost impractical to access a newborn’s neck for cleaning since they have little or no neck control.
In addition, newborns lack the muscles to hold their heads upright and still. As such, it’s quite knotty to access the neck fold for a thorough cleaning.
Fortunately, as your little angel comes of age, the neck muscles develop, making it easier to look around.
This, in turn, makes it more elementary to clean their necks.
So, how do you go about cleaning a baby’s neck? Here is all you need to know.
How To Clean Baby’s Neck
A baby’s neck is a perfect habitat for yeast and bacteria to grow. This is because spit-ups, milk, hairs, drool, sweat, and pieces of fluff tend to gather in the neck fold.
As a result, the mixture of different fluids, crumbs, and objects and the heat created when the layers of skin rub together create a fetid smell.
Rashes or a yeast infection might appear if parents don’t clean the baby’s neck appropriately. Also, that’s why most skin issues occur on an infant’s neck.
Therefore, it’s vital to clean your baby’s neck regularly. But how do you go about it?
1. Wiping The Area
Although you don’t need to bathe infants every day, keeping the neck area dry and clean is imperative.
A thin face cloth can access a baby’s neck fold and keep it dry.
In addition, especially when your newborn starts drooling, dry their face immediately when you notice the drool dripping down.
Drooler bibs are practical for keeping the face and neck area dry.
Still, constant wiping can irritate the neck folds. Therefore, it would be best only to wipe the baby’s neck when necessary.
2, Clean Baby’s Neck After Every Feeding
After every feed, ensure you run a wet cloth across your baby’s neck.
Don’t get it wrong. It’s not ideal to bathe your baby immediately after a meal as it makes them uncomfortable.
Instead, what we mean is washing the baby’s neck and face gently with a wet washcloth. Also, you might consider using a wet cotton ball but don’t use soap.
As you clean a baby’s neck and face after every feeding, you can use a squirt bottle to cleanse the area.
You might also use wet wipes, especially when you are out and about but ensure the wipes are unscented.
Scented wipes can be harsh and irritating to the tender and delicate neck skin.
Also read: Baby Squirming When Breastfeeding
3. Bath Time
As already outlined, daily bathing is not necessary for your baby. A bath 2-3 times is sufficient to keep an infant clean.
But if you enjoy bathing your little angel every day, there is no reason you shouldn’t.
Still, don’t overdo it, as washing a baby more than once a day can dry out their skin.
During bath time, it’s essential to focus on the neck folds. But, unfortunately, it might not be as straightforward as you might expect.
Besides requiring gentleness, it might be hard to access the neck folds.
As such, allow your baby to lie on the bath chair facing the opposite side of you.
While at it, introduce a conversation or song such that the baby keeps pulling his head back to look at you.
This will give you better access to clean the neck. Alternatively, hold the baby upright against yourself when you are bathing together.
This will give the baby a better sight of exciting stuff such as toys on the other side of the bath.
Due to their curious nature, toddlers will keep glancing, giving you access to their neck folds.
More importantly, ensure you dry the baby’s neck after bath to get rid of trapped moisture.
You might also apply cornstarch powder to the neck folds after a bath. Also, don’t apply lotions to the neck area as they moisten the neck folds, causing rashes.
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Summary
Knowing how to clean baby’s neck properly isn’t a walk in the park.
However, it becomes more streamlining to keep your little one’s neck folds clean and dry by heeding to these measures and practical tips.
Most importantly, contact your pediatrician if you notice rashes or yeast infections on your baby’s neck.
Iesha is a loving mother of 2 beautiful children. She’s an active parent who enjoys indoor and outdoor adventures with her family. Her mission is to share practical and realistic parenting advice to help the parenting community becoming stronger.
