advice overcoming bathtime trauma?

[Luke's mama]

Hi mamas,
I could use some advice. I had to go out of town for a few days and left my son with his grandparents (he is 20 mos.). During his bath, my husband and I have never poured water over his head, just washed with a cloth and rinsed with a cloth, or my husband has taught him to be lowered backwards on his back in the water to have his hair rinsed that way. He seems very sensitive water in his eyes even with different soaps that are all supposed to be tear-free, and is very cautious about water in general (this summer he liked his wading pool but would not go in a lake with me and was nervous about his cousin's deeper, bigger wading pool). My mom didn't know this stuff and poured a cup of water over his head to wash him and he went ballistic. Ever since bathtime has been awful. At first I found that he liked to go in and play as long as we made no move to wash him (so I would wash him really quickly as I was undressing him before he got in), but now more and more triggers make the bath a miserable time for him. Last night he freaked when I washed him outside the tub and even when I tried getting in the bath with him (to play, nurse, etc.) he was too upset to calm down. He used to LOVE his bath and we also rely on it as an important part of the bedtime ritual (the first part to get ready for bed) and I would like to restore harmony. Any ideas about how to help him overcome this?

[PhotoJournMama]

My DS (22 mo) has started to not like the bath as well... but I have to admit I do sometimes pour water over his head. I try to get him to look up, but of course as soon as the water is poured he looks down again and it still goes into his eyes a bit. I guess it's not the same situation, but I found that if I took him in and got him undressed right away and got him in the tub, he was more comfortable - if I let him take his time and come to me, he would start working it up in his head and crying One day I got in the tub with him and poured the water over my head to wash it, and he took the cup from me and started doing it to himself! Since then there hasn't been much of a problem. Maybe he will just come back around - it has taken over a month to get my ds feeling comfortable in the tub again (and some nights are still a battle). We have also cut down to a bath every other day.

[Vancouver Mommy]

When my dd was about that age I gave her a bubble bath. I though it would be such a nice treat after playing in the snow. She absolutely freaked and didn't get in the bath again for weeks. I just sponge bathed her the best I could and eventually it got better. I washed her hair on the bed with a bowl of water, a wet washcloth and lots of towel.

[sapphire_chan]

Y'know, I'm now feeling a lot better about having a dd with hair so sparse there's no point to shampoo.

As to the original question, any chance he's okay with sitting on you in the tub to be washed?

Nvm.

Put him in an empty tub a bucket of water and a cup so he has fun with water in the tub without any bath? See if that gets him to stop shrieking at the sight of the tub? Or if that's not something he can handle yet, get a big rubbermaid-type bin and use that as a tub for water play and work up?

Or start introducing washing and water completely away from the bath tub?

(Getting these ideas from a suggestion in a dog book that you start help a dog not freak out over something like having his paw touched by starting at a point where the dog doesn't freak out, e.g. maybe you slowly move your hand to 10" away from his foot, and then step by step (e.g. go 10" near his foot for a week and after that's fine for a week go to 9" for a week, etc) get closer and closer to the desired goal. If there's any bad reaction on the dog's part, you take it back to the last step where there wasn't a problem (or even a few steps farther back if you aren't sure that you didn't miss a bad sign). Obviously dogs don't talk and don't understand speech as well as a toddler, so you probably don't have to go that slowly. )

[sunshadow]

My daughter hated water on her face for awhile. She totally freaked out! What helped at first was getting a bath tub baby doll and showing her how to wash it's hair without getting water in it's face. I think I only did that twice and the next time she laid back on my lap, while I was in there with her. She did that a few times and then was fine on her own without me in there. She just lays back in the water now, np. I never thought the day would come! Now, at 31 months she has started to sit up and just looks up while I pour the water over her head, though now she has decided she hates water in her ears! But, luckily doesn't freak out as much about that. It's alway something!

[lifeguard]

I would try to be really nonchalent about the whole thing. If you are nervous at all about the bath (because of his reactions understandably) he'll pick up on that. But I would literally be really extra upbeat & cheerful about the whole process & downplay as much as feels reasonable his negativity towards it.

[Luke's mama]

thanks, everyone. it has now gotten so that he cries if any attempts are made that smack of a bath--even just undressing! I tried to give him a spongebath first away from the bath and then do the bath, but he wasn't having it. Taking the bath with him did not help. And I tried just bath with no washing and lots of fun throwing stuff in the bath, but that did not help. I am thinking at this pt. we will give up the actual bath for a while and just do a spongebath at night--he fusses and doesn't like it, but is not really all out crying and I think he will get ok with that soon if he sees the bath is not forth coming

[Artichokie]

my dd went through bathtub fears around 16 mo old and what "cured" it was two baths with her older (6 yr old) cousin whom she really looks up to. The two of them sitting the the tub together got her completely over her fears. o/t she also pl'd at 20 mo after spending a weekend with this same cousin.

[prancie]

Don't wash him! Let him bathe but don't use soap. He'll get clean enough that way. After a few days (or longer) you could get him a cool looking washcloth, like those ones that look like puppets, and start rubbing him with it, no soap. Work you way from there. Take it slow and do not force anything.

You could also try switching to showering as well. It's different and fun and he may get into that.

[Drummer's Wife]

I would try showers wth you (that's all my toddler does, no baths) or sponge baths for a while until the trauma passes. And when you do get him to take a bath, I wouldn't wash his hair... at least until he's not so afraid anymore. It's rare that my toddler has his hair washed with soap - standing in the shower gets it clean enough (he does have super short hair, though).

[Picard]

We can entirely relate with our 20 month old DS. So far, he still gets in the bath. I began calling it 'playing with water' instead of taking a bath. He loves playing with water and so, he was game. I also do not let him know beforehand that he is going to have a bath like I did before. DH then showed him goofy stuff with blowing bubbles under water and DS looked on while sitting high and dry outside the bathtub. I was the cheerleader and we managed to get DS into a laughing fit. Now, when I wet his hair, he wants to leave the bath, so he does. But he likes playing, so a minute later he is back in. This repeats itself a few times, but in the meantime I do manage to get him washed. It's pretty tricky!

[Peony]

DD2 went through a bath refusal stage, I just didn't bathe her and eventually she wanted a bath. Now I get that sometimes you have to get the dirt off so we had to get creative. Trips to the swimming pool, playing the sink with water and toys, anything I could think of!

[vrclay]

My son 27 months has a love/hate relationship with his bath. He hates the idea of having "bathtime" - mostly because he knows that's the beginning of bedtime. But once he's in there he loves it. We use lots of "tactics" to get him excited about playing in the bath.

He is most recently a Thomas the Tank Engine enthusiast so we tell him it's time for his "washdown" like THomas gets. We also have some Thomas bath toys that my MIL bought at Target so he can give Thomas, James and Stepney a washdown too.

My son also hates water in his eyes (as did I when I was a kid). We have him look up (lean his head back) at "Mr. Moon" and give him a washcloth to cover his eyes. I got some glow in the dark decal stickers of the solar system at Target and put them on the ceiling. He loves to look up at Saturn while I rinse his hair.

[Smokering]

Interesting. DD (22 months) has recently started disliking baths. I always bath with her and we do WO washing, so no shampoo. I did give her a bubble bath recently, however, and she freaked out and hated it. So I assume we're still dealing with the trauma from that.

What I did last time was to distract her by pouring water from a bowl on her knees, my knees, her toes, my tummy etc. She liked it after a while. I didn't scrub at her, but kind of surreptitiously washed her when she wasn't looking!

When we wash her hair, we fold a washcloth and press it to her forehead to prevent drips going in her eyes. It's a two-person job though, DH washes while I hold the cloth. You an get hat/sweatband-type things that do the same thing.