End of bath time is end of the world!

[babybouncer]

My son loves his bath, and and cries when we take him out. He usually then cries continuously while we get him dried, dressed, teeth brushed, into sleeping bag and stops only when we give him his bottle before bed. He's 14months now and I'd really like to be able to have a calm bedtime and read him a story before putting him down for the night - any ideas how I can get him to cope better with the end of the bath?

My ds is the same, though younger (just about 7 months). Would doing the bath earlier help? I think my ds is tired. He loves the bath, so that distracts him from feeling tired, but after that he just wants the milk and the sleep.

Try pulling the plug out and emptying the bath before you remove him (also remove toys gradually). A cold empty bath is not such a happy place.

Have you thought about doing bath in the morning instead? There's no law that says baths have to be in the evening!

Was going to suggest the same as Lionstar. The water emptying will also give him a countdown till the end of bathtime, so he knows it's coming. This works quite well for my ds (13 months).

bribe him with stories

we just dried and put ours in pj's, so that they could have a story asap. Sometimes we make the 'drying' bit into a silly game with the "tumble dryer" which involves the ds making silly brumming noises whilst you dry him, bouncing him up and down on your knee and turn round occasionally if i'm feeling really energetic the dc get spun round which they find hysterically funny. We then chill straight away and put pjs on and get down to the milk-and-story business If it's a real issue then I'd start doing rhymes when he's getting his sleepsuit on, count when the poppers are being fastened or whatever - anything for distraction!
I'd bin the tooth brushing after bath and put it after tea instead

Aww. Totally know about the End Of The World thing. It happens here several times a day.

I wonder if he is getting over tired? It took me ages to realise that my babies were screaming because I hadn't put them to bed early enough. My kids needed to sleep earlier than other kids I knew and it made life a lot more pleasant to bring their naps/sleep earlier. Kind of anticipating tiredness rather than waiting for yawns/crying etc.

oh crikey yes.

similar to gigglewitch, we have a before bath game and an after bath game. So before bath you bribe them up the stairs with a "who wants to play blah blah blah", then you say "well if you want to play after the bath you better get in quick!" then once they're in the bath and they don't want to get out we say, "well you can either stay in the bath and play but then there will be no time for playing blah blah blah"

kind of making them look forward to each 'stage' of bath time. Maybe your DS is a wee bit young for the promise of games int the future IYSWIM, but there might be stuff to bribe him with.

I did the water emptying thing. It did make the End of the World a bit less tragic.

Yes the emptying the water thing normally works, I do that too. Also if you sing some songs with them in the bath or anything you can do something like zoom zoom zoom or ne song where you lift them up, then able to kind of distract by zooming them out of the bath?

I do the emptying the water thing too; I also try to dry her hair a bit before getting out - DD has a massive mop of the stuff and I think it makes her quite cold. "She'll be coming round the mountain" is the only song that works for us.

I'm only just starting to do evening baths - until now I've always done them in the morning due to the anything-but-relaxing drying time afterwards. The more she gets used to the routine the easier it's getting so hopefully we'll manage them all in the evening before long.

My 22 month old has always been a bath fanatic too, and we have this battle.

We do counting down from three, but also I really talk up how much fun it's going to be after the bath. Usually both parents congregate in the nursery, which I've warmed, and then she gets nudey running around time (or just snuggles if she's tired), and stories. So when she's refusing to come out of the bath I talk up how much her teddies want her to come and tuck them in for the night, and how she can choose a book, and Mummy will sing her Old McDonald, etc.

Basically make sure that bathtime isn't the last fun bit of the day.

Thanks everyone.

I tried letting the water out first last night and starting bath time a little earlier, and although leaving the bath was still not something that made him happy, he had stopped crying before we went into the nursery so I could read a book to him.

Am hoping this will work tonight too!