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I know babies don’t need to take a bath every day.

Heck, I’m lucky if I average a shower every two or three days right now. #momprobs

Even though daily baths aren’t a necessity, Matt and I decided to make a bath part of Raleigh’s daily bedtime routine when he was only a month or two old.

His baths used to be a quick wash and rinse. Now that he’s older, they have turned into playtime that lasts as long as we let it. It’s one of Raleigh’s favorite parts of the day and it’s one of mine too. Matt is usually home for bath time, and after I’ve quickly cleaned up the kitchen after supper, we all hang out in the bathroom together. It gives Matt and I a chance to talk, and to watch our cute baby play in the tub.

Here are some of our current bath time favorites, as well as two new Nuby toys that we are testing out.

Nuby Bath Links

One of the bath time staples we’ve had since Raleigh was born is a set of bath squirter toys. I’m not sure what brand ours are, but they are similar to these.

They are small, cute and fun but they get water inside and are nearly impossible to completely drain. I have heard mold horror stories when people cut those toys open. I haven’t tried cutting ours open but several times, I have been squeezing the water out after a bath and black chunks fly out into the tub… Gross.

That’s why I wanted to try the Bath Links from Nuby. I hoped they would be a fun toy to play with that would also be easy to drain and keep mold-free.

Bath Link Pros:

Bright and colorful
Different shapes and textures
They link together so there are lots of opportunities for practicing coordination
BPA Free
Big hole on the bottom of 13 of the 15 links that lets water easily drain out. Other two are squirter toys like I mentioned above.

Bath Link Cons:

They come with some suction cups that you can stick on the tub wall and then hook the links to. I’m not sure if these are just for playing with or if they are for storing the links on too. If they are used for storage, the links would be connected with the holes facing up, so they would not drain. This negates the whole mold-free pro.
Raleigh loves to drink his bath water. Anything that holds water, he will use as a cup. He has now started using these links as a cup, drinking out of the hole after he submerges them to fill them with water. Blech.
He also fills the links with water and then likes to throw them out of the tub. They get water everywhere when he does this. This “con” and the one above it really aren’t faults of the product at all. They are issues related to how Raleigh is playing with them right now. Hopefully as he gets older, he will be more interested in hooking them together and putting them in different color orders, rather than being focused on drinking the bath water with them. [Insert eye roll emoji]

The Bath Links can be found on Amazon.

Family time in the bathroom includes our Remy girl too! She spends most of her time licking the water droplets off the outside of the tub. Our kids are weird.

Nuby Tear-Free Rinse Pail

Raleigh hates having his head rinsed. This must be a common kid issue. There are home videos of me telling my dad “Don’t, Daddy!” as he tries to rinse my head in the tub. Raleigh doesn’t talk yet but he starts whining or crying every time that part of bath time comes.

I wanted to try out the Nuby Tear-Free Rinse Pail to see if it helped make things easier for him and for us.

Nuby Tear-Free Rinse Pail Pros:

Large size holds lots of water so only a couple rinses are needed
Handle for easy holding
Soft, flexible edge to put against hairline
BPA Free

Nuby Tear-Free Rinse Pail Cons:

When using with a wiggly baby, water still gets in his eyes.

Our experiences with the rinse pail haven’t been very successful in keeping the water out of Raleigh’s eyes. I think part of it is that he doesn’t sit still and he isn’t old enough yet to tip his head back to make things easier. So with those factors added into the mix, it’s impossible to get the cup placed properly on his hairline and tip the water away from his face without any running down.

I’m interested to see how it will work in the future when he can hold still and tip his head up. I think it will work better then.

For now, Matt has started using it basically as a large cup. He rinses Raleigh’s head from the back, using his hand to keep the water from his eyes. I asked him what he thought of it and he said he likes that it’s easy to hold, and that it is big and only takes a couple rinses to get all the soap out.

The Rinse Pail can be found on Amazon.

[See, anything becomes a cup to him. He’s sucking the water out of his soapy wash cloth in the photo below.]

Skip Hop Moby Whale Spout Cover

I wrote a detailed review about this whale spout cover a month or two ago.

It’s been a permanent part of our tub ever since!

I love the simple and cute style of the whale, and it’s done a great job of protecting Raleigh’s head from the square faucet’s edges.

The Skip Hop Moby Whale Spout Cover is a MUST for bath time at our house.

Victor the Elephant Toy Caddy

The other staple in our bathtub is Victor the Elephant. Victor is a toy caddy that holds all of our bath toys in one place.

My favorite features about Victor are the large size, and the mesh that allows the toys to dry out. The goofy elephant face isn’t exactly minimalistic and sleek but it’s funny and I know Raleigh will love it when he’s a little older.

We’ve tried other toy caddies in the past and the suction was never strong enough to keep them up on the wall. They always fell into the tub with only a few toys in them.

These suction cups are STRONG. I attached Victor in the fall and we’ve used him every day since. I have added more and more toys to this caddy as we’ve accumulated them, and he hasn’t budged one bit.

We do have a couple big plastic toy boats that don’t fit in the caddy. I store those in the linen closet. But all of the loose bath toys like the squirters and bath links, they all fit perfectly! The rinse pail even fits in there too!

[These photos are from the fall, before we accumulated double the bath toys.]