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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To put my threenager in the bath fully clothed?

61 replies

AveAtqueVale · 02/10/2017 18:58

He was utterly covered in chocolate ice cream, and refusing to get undressed. He did get several warnings. I think he thought his strategy was bulletproof, so was most unimpressed and flummoxed to be plonked in the bath anyway, but within two minutes had asked for help taking his wet clothes off and was happily playing.

DH says it was mean and ott. I think it was preferable to:
A) spending the next half hour negotiating, pleading and wheedling as we all get more tired and overwrought.
B) pinning him down and stripping him while he screamed blue murder and fought me every step of the way.
C) letting him go to bed with chocolate ice cream dried in his hair.

DH is now sitting with him no doubt commiserating about my cruel regime. But AIBU?

OP posts:
Gizmo79 · 02/10/2017 19:26

Excellent idea.
Going to try this with mine!

TabbyMumz · 02/10/2017 19:27

"Threenager"? What does that even mean? I thought you had put a teenager in the bath. I can see a teenager acting like a three year old, but can a three year old act like a teenager?

Sirrah · 02/10/2017 19:28

Haha! I would have done the same.

For those who thought it was a teenager, I put my late teen son in the shower several times, best way to sober the idiot up! One memorable night he proceeded to run around the house naked, waving his willy, then got into bed with his dad! Hmm Thankfully he grew up eventually.

DJBaggySmalls · 02/10/2017 19:31

Sirrah - Good times Grin

IshouldntcareaboutthisbutIdo · 02/10/2017 19:34

good plan - have done the same!

missyB1 · 02/10/2017 19:37

I can see me having to do this with my 8 year old ds, he's the worlds most determined soap dodger Grin

kaytee87 · 02/10/2017 19:40

Brilliant idea op

kaytee87 · 02/10/2017 19:41

Sirrah I don't suppose your son is now a 32yo man married to me Grin

paxillin · 02/10/2017 19:42

Done it before. Worked a treat.

Miserylovescompany2 · 02/10/2017 19:42

Needs must - did the job didn't it? you can wash the clothes at the same time

becotide · 02/10/2017 19:45

It was a warm bath, not hot or cold. It was just a quicker way of getting round his threenager nonsense. Your dh WISHES he was that adept at avoiding the nonsense!

Perigord · 02/10/2017 19:45

DH is now sitting with him no doubt commiserating about my cruel regime
Grin

cheeriosatdawn · 02/10/2017 19:48

Totally fair play.

Starlight2345 · 02/10/2017 19:48

Mine got into my bath with me fully clothes..Saw me in the bath and got excited..

Sirrah · 02/10/2017 19:52

@kaytee87 no, 28 and married to a long-suffering young woman, soon to be a dad! Maybe boys never really grow up!Grin

PurplePillowCase · 02/10/2017 19:52

putting him in the bath into ice cold water wbu.
you did the right thing.

WellThisIsShit · 02/10/2017 19:53

Ha! Love the 'shock and awe' thing, both as an approach to toddler wrangling and as a phrase Grin

The only problem you have now is that DS might have had far too much fun and be diving into the bath fully clothed tomorrow night

As for the other parent in this... your dh needs to get a grip, it's not the same as you grabbing your dh and manhandling him into water... it's really not. It's not the toddler equivalent of water boarding either.

Good thing for them to remember: Toddlers are not mini adults.

They get traumatised by some things a grown adult wouldn't think twice about, and vice versa. I.e. Toddlers need far more physical affection and touch than a grown up. Toddlers can't parent themselves, and need their parents to be strong and loving and in the driving seat when it matters.

Or on a less serious note, they have utter melt downs about the cause & effect of their world. It looks like their worlds are collapsing, and the trauma will stay for a lifetime...

Especially physics. Toddlers hate physics.

Loathe it. Rail against it. Are broken by it... and it's our job to show them it's ok really and it's nothing to be scared off (unless you're studying it at a-level. Then it's ruddy scary and certain people may have dropped it as I someone was clearly going to fail it miserably. Ahem, I digress).

So we comfort them through the utter horror of learning that biscuits stop being whole when you eat them. And cutted up pear can't be made whole again. And my sons worst tantrum ever, which was the utter cruelty of not being able to rewind time to choose an ice lolly not a sweetie. Hideous racking sobs of 'I want to go back, back, baaaaaaack...'

He's rather older now and has accepted the limits of the space-time continuum... mainly.

Beeziekn33ze · 02/10/2017 20:06

Neat solution, OP, very Zen!

PurplePillowCase · 02/10/2017 20:08

my first thought was 'gosh, op is strong. I wouldn't be able to manhandle a teenager'

paxillin · 02/10/2017 20:09

Mind you, I would have loved to bathe the teenager fully clothed on holiday this year, but then some teenage girls joined us and he did it himself Grin.

Bratsandtwats · 02/10/2017 20:44

YANBU

FortunatelyUnfortunately · 02/10/2017 20:48

Threenager?

Italiangreyhound · 02/10/2017 20:50

I read teenager!

I was wondering how you got a teenager in the bath!

Yes, three no worries at all.

Teenager, not so much.

Wink
ipswichwitch · 02/10/2017 20:52

Haha! I would have done the same, although in this example DS2 is more than happy to take his clothes off. Wether he should or not Hmm

He's more than aware from past experience that when I say something will happen, it will indeed happen and that Mam is not to be trifled with. However, DH struggles with this as he'd threaten to do it then not follow though, try to wrestle him out of his clothes, fail miserably, and probably fall in the bath himself Grin

SparklyUnicornPoo · 02/10/2017 21:00

Assuming it was a normal temperature bath and you didn't ruin his favourite clothes then it's fine, it's far less cruel than leaving him til the morning when the ice cream had dried and would hurt to get out his hair, also judging by how much my 2 used to wriggle, wrestling them out of clothes would be far more uncomfortable than wet clothes.

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