It is a rite of passage for every expecting parent: compiling The List. I’m talking, of course, about the list of feeding supplies (bottles, pumps, nursing covers), safety items (car seats and bases), hygiene items (nasal aspirators, nail clippers) and other baby must-haves that every new parent is convinced they’ll need. Similarly, it is a rite of passage for every veteran parent to roll their eyes and say, “You won’t use half that stuff.”
And indeed, as a veteran parent of two children who are now in elementary school, I can confirm that there are indeed things I never used. Those baby mittens were adorable, but utterly useless. Ditto for the matching knit caps. My husband and I still laugh about the eco-friendly reusable changing pad liner that went straight into the garbage after an epic blowout in my oldest daughter’s first few weeks of life.
When I see new parents anxiously shopping for baby items, I’m tempted to bust out that eye-rolling line myself. But there are a few items, practical items that hadn’t yet come on the scene in my baby parenting days, that give me pause. I would have loved the rubber duckie bath temperature gauge that I saw on a friend’s Instagram story. I’m deeply envious of how many colors of Zutano booties are available these days, when my kids only ever had them in gray.
And now, I’m adding TUBzi to that list.
TUBzi is a creative bathtime solution intended to make baths safer and more fun. It’s an adorable elephant-shaped device that you fit under your tub spout, where a container (the elephant’s body) fills with water. The water then comes out of the elephant’s trunk in a slowed-down stream that your baby or toddler can play with while being safely bathed. The trunk spout is adjustable so that you can change the angle to easily rinse hair without needing a cup. The elephant’s legs are also adjustable, making it easy to change the height of the trunk spout as your baby grows.
Like so many of the best parenting hacks, the TUBzi was invented by parents. Morgan and Josh Weiser found themselves in the painful position of caring for a baby who required multiple surgeries in the first year of life, and they needed a safe, easy-to-use bathing method that would keep their son’s stitches clean without submerging them. As the idea for the TUBzi came to life, the Weisers realized that not only would this device be a wonderful solution for babies and toddlers post-surgery, but that it could make baths safer (TUBzi effectively blocks the hard metal tub spout) and more fun (who doesn’t love water play?) for almost any baby or toddler.
I think both of my kids would have enjoyed the water play aspect of the TUBzi, and I would have enjoyed their being safely distracted while I bathed them. But, like the Weisers, I also have firsthand experience with an injured child’s surgical incisions. My daughter was four when she had pins placed in a fractured femur. Water could run over the incisions, we were told, but they could not be submerged. We resorted to a backward-facing shower chair to bathe her, but when the Weisers launched the TUBzi, I found myself thinking how helpful it would have been.
Of course, as with any aspect of parenting, there’s no turning back the clock. But just as I can tell new parents not to bother putting the reusable changing pad liner on their baby registry, I can also tell them about the items that joined my own short but hallowed list of items that became indispensable. The nursing pillow that I loved so much, I brought it to the hospital with me when I had my second baby. The super-absorbent burp cloths. The thin-but-warm car seat-friendly jacket. And a TUBzi–not from my own experience, of course, but from the experience that, with my hard-won wisdom, I know enough to wish I’d had.
And one day, when those new parents earn their stripes, a whole new generation will hear about the TUBzi. Not from a commercial or a blog, but from the greatest source in existence: parents who have been there, for whom the TUBzi became one of the cornerstones of their journey.