Follow-up On Nick’s Fear Of Baths

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With so many fun recap posts lately I’m getting behind on updating about Nick.  One update that I needed to write is a follow-up on Nick’s fear of baths.  If you remember almost two months ago I wrote a post about the fact that Nick had developed a terrible fear of baths.  When he realized it was time for his bath he would scream and cry.  We figured his fear stemmed from the fact that he hated having his hair washed.  It got to the point that I hated bath time too.  I was desperate to end his fear.

In an attempt to make hair washing easier I bought Nick a FunSponge.  It’s a sponge that goes around the head and collects the water and shampoo as you wash your little one’s hair.  I read about it in Working Mother magazine, and I ordered it right away.  I was so excited to try it.  I had such high hopes that it would solve the bath problem.  Sadly Nick screamed bloody murder when we put it on him, so we never got a chance to truly try it out.  I still think it’s a great idea for kids that hate getting their hair washed.

We tried the FunSponge just before we left for vacation.  When it didn’t work I started to fear Nick screaming while taking a bath and that the people in the hotel would think we were torturing him!  It turned out though that I  was worried about nothing.  At the hotel we bathed Nick in the tub since he obviously wouldn’t fit in a bathroom sink.  We kept calling it the bathroom pool.  Nick loved it!  He thought it was the best thing ever.  We bought him some new bath toys on the ship, and they were enough to make him want to play in his “pool” for long amounts of time.  Our room on the ship had a nice round tub, so that helped him think of it as a pool.  He was even happy to be washed.

When we got home I wasn’t sure whether to put him back in the sink or move him to the tub.  We decided to go with the tub, and he has loved his bath ever since.  He tries to climb into the tub (literally lifts his leg and tries to put it over the side) before I can get him undressed.  Bath time is now one of his favorite times of day again.  He will play in the tub until the water gets so cold that I force him to get out.  Best of all he doesn’t make a sound when I wash him.  He now doesn’t even scream when I wash his hair (although I don’t think he’d mind if I didn’t do it).

I honestly can’t figure out why the bathtub made such a difference.  We have a very large kitchen sink, so he wasn’t too big for it.  I guess Nick likes the extra space to move around and play, but that still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t cry when he gets his hair washed anymore.  I’ll probably never figure it out.  For now I’m just going to be happy about the fact that bath is once again a fun time in our house.