Bath Seats

If you can believe the advertising, a baby bath seat is a great way of getting your little one accustomed to the big bath tub while at the same time keeping your hands free. Not having to sit or kneel at an impossible angle while trying to keep your little one upright in the great, big tub, the bath seat will hold your baby securely in place. The bath seats themselves feature four suction cups on the bottom which are used to temporarily attach the device to the tub floor itself. There are the Lumex bath tub seat, the DMI folding bath seat, the very popular Fisher Price aquarium bath seat and a whole host of other bath and shower seats.

Yet the news is full of stories where baby bath seats which were attached to the bath tub floor have become detached and as a matter of fact allowed the seat to tip over and the baby to drown. Generally speaking, it has been found that deaths were most common in babies using infant bath seats when they were between five and seven months of age. While it is true that most of the deaths occurred when the parent left the child unsupervised briefly in the infant bath seat, the fact that these bath seats are specifically not designed for use in tubs with textured floors makes them not as useful as one might have hoped. Most tubs today are outfitted with such non slip floors, making the suction cups of the baby bath ring seat virtually useless.

Another danger that bath seats contribute to is that of children getting stuck in them. While ordinarily the bath seats are only designed for certain age groups, it is easy to forget and a child may eagerly enjoy the idea of getting into their tried and accustomed bath seats only to realize after the bath that they cannot move. While a Lumex bath seat has not been implicated in this dilemma, there are copious bath tub seat models that have, and many a parent has found that a screaming, scared, and flailing infant is next to impossible to extricate from a folding bath seat without cooperative behavior.

Thus, rather than using a bath seat, baby will love sitting in the big tub by her or himself on a tub matt (a very thick towel) and in only about an inch or so of water. Yes, your child can still get in trouble in even an inch of water and you do not want to step away from the tub, not even for a minute, but the dangers of the tub seat will have been avoided.