Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater when you clean your room.
throw the baby out with the bathwater
idiomTo discard, inadvertently or through overzealousness, something valuable or essential ("the baby") in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted or undesirable ("the bathwater").
Origin
first recorded 16th c.Calque of German das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten, a proverb first recorded by Thomas Murner in his satire Narrenbeschwörung (1512). First appeared in English when Thomas Carlyle translated it in an essay on slavery (1849).
We need to fix the software bugs, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater by deleting the entire program.
While the committee sought to eliminate bureaucratic waste, they risked throwing the baby out with the bathwater by dismantling the entire department's essential research functions.
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baby and bathwater
Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted.
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baby elephant in the room
An obvious but mostly inconsequential issue.
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baby step
A small effort made towards the completion of a much larger task.
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baby up
To treat as a baby.
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basin of gravy
[Cockney slang]baby
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be left holding the baby
To be left with the responsibility of resolving a problem.
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food baby
A protruding belly resulting from the consumption of a large quantity of food; the contents of one's digestive system causing the protrusion.
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leave someone holding the baby
To abandon someone and put them in a position where they must take the responsibility or blame.