Saturday, January 14, 2012

Baby Bathtub Tricks

I don't know what got me thinking about this... but I remember when my little people were babies.  Every time I filled the tub with nice clean warm water and stuck their little tushies in it, they would pee right in the water.  No sense trying to clean a baby in yucky water, so I'd have to drain it and start again.  Meanwhile I'm trying to hold up a slippery wiggle-worm with one hand while they are getting cold.  Finally I wisened up.  I filled the tub and only undressed them down to the diaper.  All I had to do was let them put their feet in the water, and then they would pee in the diaper.  Diaper off--clean bath.

As long as I am on the topic of bathing babies, it would be fun to hear some opinions about fear of the water.  My children always hated to have water in their face.  Rinsing shampoo from their hair could often lead to panicked screaming and thrashing if any water got in their faces.  Faces need to get cleaned, too, though.  I often thought of putting a sticker on ceiling to help them understand better when I would repeat "look up high!"  I suppose some children come readily adapted to the water somehow, but mine certainly were not.  I resorted to giving them swimming lessons to help them overcome their fear of the water.  It has been a long time coming, but now Belle says she would like to train dolphins when she grows up.  She would rather BE a dolphin if that were possible.  Four-year-old Sweetheart is bobbing for rings at the bottom of the pool.  I'm so proud.

We've used waterproof books, Barbie mermaids, foam letters and road tracks with cars, boats, bathtub crayons, and of course plastic cups and bowls to make bath time fun.

What do you do?  Leave a comment.

No comments:

Post a Comment