So, with the bath fear conquered (read more here), I now have the opposite problem on my hands. Now that I made bath time into the most fun experience in my daughter’s life, that’s literally ALL she wants to do! She begs for the bath, she attempts to crawl into the tub, she hopefully tosses her toys (be they waterproof or not) into the tub and declares, “I want bath!”. Even more bizarre and hilarious is the fact that she’s figured out how to turn on the bath tub faucet and shower head and she will climb in fully clothed, turn it all on, get herself and her clothes soaking wet and then bend down to play with the drain. Yes, that’s right the DRAIN?! She’s gone from being totally freaked out about the drain to loving it and playing with it. I don’t get kids!
Archive for the 'bath' Category
The Extremist
Bath Saga Continued…
As mentioned in my last post, Maya has been afraid of the bathtub for over a month. In particular, she is scared of the drain. I was over at my neighbour’s house yesterday while the kids were playing in the sprinklers and my wonderful, wise neighbour offered for her children (who Maya adores!) to come and join Maya for a bath. So, Maya’s two friends (both quite a bit older–aged 3 and 5) came over with many of their own bath toys in tow and they helped to convince Maya that having a bath was a fun endeavor. Maya cried a lot at first and she insisted that her friends get out of the bath so that she could play with them on dry ground, but they just ignored her and eventually she got in the bath, although she would only stand up–no sitting. By the end, everyone was out of the bath and she was reluctant to get out. That said, she only got her ankles wet, but she had fun–this was progress.
So today, in an attempt to build upon this success, I bought a bunch of new bath toys, and (at the recommendation of friends and family) I picked up some bathtub crayons at Michael’s. I also bought a new container of bubbles and bubble blower. I was determined to make bath time into the event of the century! The result was pretty good. Maya got in the bath, wouldn’t sit down but was crouching down with her new and exciting bath crayons. But wait, she wasn’t just crouching, she was also kind of grunting… and yes, you guessed it, she was going number TWO while she was drawing with her crayons in the tub! In an effort not to make this a big deal out of this and ruin her experience (she usually freaks out if there’s even a bit of sock lint floating in the tub), I whisked Maya into the other bathtub in the house where my wonderful husband took over and finished bathing her there, while I got down to the fun job of cleaning up the contaminated tub and toys.
Regardless of the fact that this was kind of a disaster, since she’s only pooped in the bath two other times EVER (and one of them was when my mom was bathing her–thank god!), Maya didn’t seem to notice any of the chaos and she enjoyed her time so immensely that she was complaining that she wanted to go back in the bath after we took her out. She even sat down for my husband and she did so RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRAIN!
I declare the bathtub fear officially conquered.
Bath Fears
About a month ago, for no apparent reason, Maya went from loving bath time to having hysterical crying fits when she came near the bath. My husband and I can’t figure out why this has happened, but it’s been a month and she is not letting up. Her main concern seems to be the drain, but this is even more perplexing because she used to spend a good portion of her bath time playing with the drain, opening it, closing it, opening it, closing it… you get the idea.
At first we thought she’ll surely get over it if we just keep bathing her, but we hugely underestimated our daughter’s ability to remember and perseverate about things. With each bath session, her anxiety grew worse and worse to the point where she broke down in frightened tears at the mere mention of the bath. She would even tell herself “it’s okay, Maya, it’s okay!” through her sobs. It’s like she wants to be unafraid but can’t help it. And this isn’t like an ordinary crying spell over wanting her own way or something… it’s somehow different when she faces this particular situation. It’s genuine fear. So, I did some reading on the internet about this issue… and what little I did read said that you shouldn’t ignore your child’s fear. So I tried getting in the bath with her, blowing bubbles in the bath, introducing new toys… all of this did nothing to distract her from her certainty that she was totally afraid and unhappy.
So, we’ve started showering with her, and while she was a bit weary at first, she’s enjoying the showers a lot now. She’ll even stand up in the shower for a few minutes, but then she sees the drain and wants to be picked up right away. She still goes and looks at the bath tub from time-to-time and she’s even asked to go stand in it without any water running, but then she immediately changes her mind. I’m just beginning to wonder if she’s ever going to shake this fear. I don’t think I’ll be able to shower with her when summer’s over and I have to go back to work… suggestions anyone?
