Dogs need and love baths (they don’t groom).
Cats do not need and hate baths.
You can bathe a cat in case of emergency situations, like your white cat disappears for a couple of weeks and comes back home black, covered in soot because she was probably trapped in a coal cellar between deliveries.
Or your cat was sprayed by a skunk.
Or it’s a stray cat that is a flea bag with out of control flea infestation.
Or got into some oily chemical exposure…just like when they wash wild birds exposed to an oil spill.
Take your new kitty to the vet.
Not just for the sneezing but to schedule her vaccine, check her out for fleas, ear mites, worms…
The vet can also provide you with hairball prevention gel, special kitten diet and how to take care of a long-haired cat.
Surely making sure you don’t think you should bathe a kitty…even a muddy one should just be sprayed with water but they hate water and would be better off lying in the sun, getting her mud dry and then you can brush the dry mud off her and wipe her with a warm cloth.
Learn how to take care of your kitty and not assuming that sneezing is normal for a cat.
Occasional sneezing is ok, like if you put too much perfume on or the cat got his nose in a spider web in the garage.
Long haired cats need much more care as they’re more fragile and sickly (more vet visits) and need daily brushing to prevent hairballs (along with hairball-control paw gels, your kitty needs a specific diet).
They have to lick 2 or 3 times more hair than short haired cats and semi-longed haired cats that just need a good diet to groom by themselves.
You need special grooming tools for long-haired cats (like to detect and eliminate/detangle fur mats/knots)
Long-haired cats need special litter, not the clumping kinds that will stick to the fur so you’ll have to deal with the smell of not using clumping litter.
Her poop will stick to her fur on her behind (neither you nor your cat wants to deal with that knot), so she’ll need to get some trimming there and regular visits to the pet groomer.
Having a cat is having a fierce predator so you have no mouse in your house and no bugs like cockroaches.
It’s also having a warm, soft, cute, ball of fur to cuddle and admire.
Having a long-haired cat is all that but it’s also a hobby and requires a lot of your attention and care.
Unless you don't want to cuddle so you don't mind having a disheveled cat with fur knots and sticking poo that would throw up hairballs in your bed and sneeze in your face.
So, occasional sneezing is ok but regular sneezing because of a runny nose is not normal (for any cat).
It’s actually quite dangerous for your kitten as she could stop eating, since cats use their nose/sense of smell to get an appetite.
If your kitty cannot eat well, she cannot grow well and groom well, plus having to deal with spreading her viruses from her nose to her eyes, using her paws when grooming, and licking her nose with her tongue…
Even if she only has a URI caused by a virus, you need to keep your kitty warm (they like to cuddle anyway and hide in warm blankets when napping) and make sure she's eating.
You can use a kitchen scale to monitor your kitty’s growth…she could momentarily stop growing when sick but NEVER lose weight.
Help her groom, surely by NOT getting her all wet and cold in a bath (the after bath shivering could kill her, especially if she’s sick and sneezing and she gets pneumonia), but by using a soft cloth damped with warm water and very gently rubbing (once) her eyes, nose and mouth (in that order…they love it and feel loved) and also wipe her paws and front legs after each time she’s grooming, using different parts of the cloth for different parts of the face and legs. You can wipe her front legs (the part she uses to wash her face) even while she’s in the process of grooming because once she get all the gunk out of her face, it’s on her front legs which become useless to keep grooming her face, until you wipe the gunk out from the legs (again, gently, lovingly, with a warm damp cloth, one stroke).
Gently clean up her four paws as well (the pads and between the toes), as she’s walking on those so it will save her the trouble of doing it and she can concentrate on her runny nose.
I don’t know about the cleanliness of your floors but even very clean floors contain chemicals (carpet cleaners, kitchen floor cleaners, hardwood floor cleaners...) and you don't want your cat to lick that.
An outside cat having to swallow dirt trapped between the toes, would be better off.
If you clean up your kitty's paws, you can put the hairball-control paw gel on the tip of your finger (pea size) and she should lick it with delight, it's very greasy (to ease hairballs elimination in the digestive system).
She could still have Kennel Cough, caused by bacteria (not viruses) and would need antibiotics.
(Kennel Cough in cats = Feline Bordetella = Bordetellosis).
Kitten coming from a shelter are at high risk (it’s very contagious).
The ones with long hair are more fragile and the white ones are the weakest to survive it, even with treatment, as they can develop pneumonia and then need round the clock veterinary care.
This is why you need to get a vet’s assessment.
I cared for 2 kittens with Kennel Cough for the Human Society (they provide kitten food, a litter box, meds and weekly medical check-ups).
I adopted the Tuxedo female one (still needed 3 x 10 days course of treatment) but the other one (a cute grey male kitten with long hair and blue eyes) developed pneumonia so he had to be hospitalized. I took it back within a week when I realized he was not gaining weight, but losing weight and needed a vet 24/7.
I’m not sure he made it. I was told he’d been adopted but the person had all the body language of somebody who’s lying but who could blame her?
I was just a foster for that kitten, not the owner.
The sentence “le petit chat est mort” (the little cat is dead) is the hardest to say when learning about how to perform acting.
Once my kitten got old enough and got over her Kennel Cough, I then had to deal with the eradication of her fleas…which cats from a shelter always get.
I have experience in that so it was no big deal for me, using my diligence, my expertise, my sense of observation, and good meds from the vet…
Cats get fleas from shelters (like 100%, ok…99.99%), from other pets or exposure to any animal (like a mouse or anything having fur…), from people being exposed to fleas outside the house and then bringing them home and from hardwood floors.
Any cat, even indoor ones, need eradication of fleas and them monthly prevention flea control meds to render any future fleas infertile.
Cats being treated with monthly flea prevention meds are like walking birth control pills for fleas and protect your house from flea infestation as any flea getting in your house won’t be able to lay eggs and multiply exponentially.
Some people could envy you because you have a white cat and black fleas on a white cat are easy to spot.