DS won't sit down in the bath for me - but he will for DH

[Rachel1963]

Hi all, would appreciate any words of wisdom on this one.

21 mth DS has always loved his bath. We haven't been hugely routine driven but we cracked the bath and bed thing early on and it's usually fine. DH generally does the actual bathing, I do the towelling dry and then DH does stories. DH is away for work approx one night a week, though it varies, and those nights I become both mummy and daddy and that's never caused any problem. But last week DH was away two nights and both of them, DS just refused to sit down in the bath so I ended up washing him standing up. I did wonder whether they'd had a particularly traumatic hair washing episode the night before which had put him off but DH swears not AND as soon as DH came home, DS started sitting down in the bath again without a murmur. I thought this had probably been a one off but DH is away again tonight and exactly the same thing has happened - an otherwise perfectly happy child has refused to sit down.

I'm not hugely worried about it because I am still able to wash him but any ideas why it might be happening? - all I can think is that he might be going through a clingy phase and not want to let me go, though he's happy enough to run away from me once he's out of the bath. Am puzzled....

[Wisteria]

No ideas why it's happened to you too I'm afraid but my eldest dd wouldn't sit in the bath for about 6-12 months when she was 18months - nothing sparked it but we had to wash her standing up too, got used to it in the end and didn't make a fuss about it. As soon as dd2 was born she started sitting again, never got to the bottom of it but although she can swim etc now, she's still not massively enamoured of any water activities.