I know this is slightly off-subject, but I have to ask.  Isn't bathing with
one's baby very common?  This is what we always did, especially with a
newborn.  One parent got in the tub, with legs together and knees drawn up,
and the other parent handed the baby over, with feet in parent's abdomen and
head on parent's knees.  It's much easier to bathe baby this way than in one
of those baby bathtubs they sell -- baby feels secure while touching
parent's body, seeing parent's face, etc.  This is how all my friends bathed
babies during my early years of motherhood in 1980/81.  When the other
parent wasn't available, we used the procedure outlined before, of putting
baby in baby carrier or an Australian device we had that was sort of a
bouncy hammock-thingy for baby.  I guess I never thought about it much.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Texas A&M University
e-mail to [log in to unmask]