I don't generally give advice on this blog. I like to think of myself as a friend and fellow-traveler to anyone who reads here, not some kind of big sister or "expert." But just this once, I want to send out a word of advice / reassurance to any parents out there with children younger than mine, who have reached the ripe old age of two and a half. And it is this: There may well be phases in your child or children's development when, for absolutely no reason fathomable to you, they suddenly HATE taking baths; when they will scream and flail and resist with vehemence your attempts to get them into the tub and to wash their bodies and/or hair.
Do not be alarmed. This condition generally will resolve itself within a matter of days or weeks for equally inexplicable reasons. All you can do is wait, try to make baths as quick and painless as possible, or -- if getting your child into the bath is completely impossible -- settle for swabbing her down with a washcloth or see if you can get her near a pond, pool, lawn sprinkler or other source of water with less drama than the bath inspires.
A happy bath period -- the girls at circa 15 months
We have had several bath "strikes" in the Baby Squared household since the girls were born. I wrote about one of them here, when the girls were a little over a year old. There have been others as well. Sometimes it's one child or the other, sometimes it's both of them. Lately, it's sort of both of them. Elsa doesn't want to get into the bath to begin with. (Which is kinda weird, given her penchant for getting wet in other circumstances.) When I try to get her into the bathroom, she'll run and hide behind her crib or curl up on the glider with her pacifier.
If I manage to get her into the bathroom and close the door, she'll squeeze herself into the tiny nook between the sink vanity and the wall. If I can get her undressed and wrestle her into the tub -- like, it's the second day without a bath and she's sticky with melted popsicle and dusty with sandbox sand and muddy from playing in the dirt in the backyard (ah, summer) and she really needs a bath, like it or not -- it's usually a screamfest. (Ever wonder if your neighbors think you're beating your children with a log chain, given the volume and intensity of their tantrums?)
Clio, on the other hand, has developed a bizarre phobia of things being in the tub -- washcloths, bath toys, the soap, nail brushes, etc. The only thing she wants in the bath is herself and/or Elsa. Even if Clio's not in the tub, she will freak out if any of the above objects are in it -- even if there's no water in the tub. I have no idea why. I guess I might understand feeling like it's creepy to have stuff floating around in the water that might bump up against you unexpectedly. But this takes it to a strange extreme. And the intensity of her object-in-the-tubs reactions can be unnerving.
The other night, she threw a five-alarm tantrum because after I'd taken Elsa out of the tub, she came back into the bathroom (I'd bathed them separately to try to deal with Elsa's reluctance) and saw that I'd left a washcloth in the tub. She was inconsolable for ten minutes. It was a little scary. I know todders can be weird in this way, and I suspect this is linked to her recent neat-freakness. But sometimes I worry that she might actually have OCD.
But I am going to take my own advice -- and reiterate it once again to anyone else out there who might be dealing with a bath crisis of their own: be patient. This, too, shall pass.
Squeaky clean and happy after a bath, watching Curious George.
Fancy PJs from China courtesy of Grandma Jaycee, who got them on a recent business trip.
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