You’ve mastered your bathtime routine and your baby loves bonding with you while spending time in the tub. But when it’s time to come out, she cries and screams and can’t be consoled. You constantly ask yourself how to calm your baby after a bath???

Have no fear! I’ve got three easy tips and tricks you can start using to calm your baby today. I shared these tips over on our Instagram community and had amazing feedback! Keep reading to see how these tips can help you and your baby after bathtime. 

Don’t forget to leave a comment at the end with your favorite tricks to calm baby after bathtime!

Tip #1: Add some heat!

Like many babies, Baby J used to cry every time that he got out of the bathtub. You’d see his little body shiver and he would clearly express that he was not a fan of being cold after leaving his warm bath. 

So we started implementing one of our most helpful tips! 

Before bathtime starts, put the towel and baby pajamas (or clothes if you have a day-time bather) into the dryer. Let it get nice and warm throughout bathtime!

After baby’s bath is over, ask someone to grab these for you. Now you can wrap up your baby in a nice warm towel and get dressed in warm clothes! This will help to ease the transition out of the bath because your baby won’t be so cold or have such a dramatic temperature difference in and out of the tub. 

Tip #2: Snuggle and Play!

Now that your baby is wrapped up in a nice warm towel, spend some time cuddling and playing! Sing songs, rock in your rocking chair, and play with your baby to help him to feel safe and calm post-bath.

Wrapping in the warm towel and cuddling with your baby helps her to feel safe and warm as she transitions out of the bathtub. Likewise, playing and/or soothing her helps to associate good things with the end of bathtime. ⁣

Because Baby J loves bathtime, he hated getting out of the tub. After all, who would want the fun to end? By playing and snuggling after his bath, he knew that the fun didn’t end just because bathtime did.

This tip isn’t just a great way to calm your baby after bathtime. As an added perk, spending some time without a diaper is also SUPER good for your baby! It is a great way to prevent or cure a diaper rash that might be bothering your baby.

We found that the easiest way to add time without a diaper was right after tub time. We’d wrap up Baby J in his nice, warm towel and then cuddle, play, and air out for 30 minutes or so after his bath. Not only did it help calm him down after his bath. It also helped us to finally get over the nasty diaper rash we had been struggling to get rid of.

Tip #3: Listen to Your Gut

As I become more confident as a mom, I’m also learning the value of listening to my gut. If something doesn’t quite seem right, listen to what your gut is telling you!

Baby J used to cry every time that he got out of the tub. He would cry super hard for about 15 minutes.⁣ We initially thought he was just wimpy and didn’t like the cold. We joked that he HATED being naked and that his cold lotion drove him nuts. But we also wondered if it was normal for him to be SO upset.

After we went through our first bottle of baby soap, we moved on to our second, which was a different brand. Bathtime typically goes amazingly until it’s time to get out. But that night he started crying before he even got out! It seemed a little weird but we wondered if he was tired. ⁣

⁣ The next time he took a bath, it happened again! A few minutes after we added soap he started crying again! And now we really had suspicions. I started wondering if that brand of soap and the lotion we used was bothering his skin. ⁣

We switched back to our first soap and stopped using the lotion. Almost instantly he started doing much better after bath time!!⁣
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Moral of the story: As a new parent, it’s so easy to assume that certain things are normal, but that’s not always the case! Listen to your gut and experiment a little with soap/lotions if your baby is crabby at bath time or right afterward.

Bathing can be enjoyable for you and baby from start to finish if you start adding these tips to calm your baby after bathtime.

If you jumped to the bottom, here’s a reminder of the three tips you can start using today!

First, warm up your towel and clothes in the dryer while your baby bathes.

Then, snuggle and play after bathtime to make this transition fun and soothing for your baby.

Finally, listen to your gut if something doesn’t seem right.

What tips help to calm your baby when it’s time to get out of the bathtub?

Leave your comment below! I can’t wait to learn about what tips have helped you!