Mom Confesses She Skips Daily Baths for Baby

(Image credit: Baby bath via Shutterstock)

How often should a newborn be bathed? One mother recently confessed that she doesn't put her 3-month-old son Charlie in a tub very often.

"I will confess that I have gone longer than a week," Claire Goss, a 32-year-old mom, told Good Morning America.

Goss said she gave her first child a bath every night. But Charlie is her third child, and now she just doesn't have time.

Experts say a daily bath for an infant is not necessary. The March of Dimes recommends that babies be bathed every two to three days. More frequent bathing can dry out skin, the March of Dimes says.

Parents should pay special attention to cleaning a baby's face, neck and diaper area, which can be addressed with quick diaper changes and use of burp cloths, according to the Mayo Clinic.

"This makes total sense to me," Goss wrote in a blog. "It’s not like he's touching every filthy thing he can find, or running around and sweating a lot, so spot cleaning should be pretty sufficient."

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Rachael is a Live Science contributor, and was a former channel editor and senior writer for Live Science between 2010 and 2022. She has a master's degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. She also holds a B.S. in molecular biology and an M.S. in biology from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has appeared in Scienceline, The Washington Post and Scientific American.