bath time - washing hair

[LynnC]

DD is 20 months old and loves her baths until it is time to wash her hair - she hates it to say the least and I find it is getting harder to control her. Anyone with any tips would be very much welcomed, or is this just a phase I will have to put up with?

I have seen shampoo shields in mothercare but they are tiny - can you buy bigger sizes?

let her fill up a beaker and rinse her hair herself

my Dd hates it too, screaming crying the whole shabang!

All we do is talk through it while we are washing it, "you are so good, clever, amazing"etc!

We also bought some shampoo that is a mousse, it comes in a pump bottle so she can put it on herself, and it only takes a couple of cups of water to rinse off, making the whole thing very quick.

She still hates it, but we are very fast now!

Hi. I've had this problem with DS1 who is nearly 3 (only 10 days to go!) up until recently we just had to have him screaming as he was too young to understand or want to listen to any compromise i.e "I've got a towel to wipe your eyes", or "tip your head back" etc.
He has suddenley changed his tune, it started with DH just using a flannel to wipe his hair, and that was proof enough that water didn't get in his eyes. The second thing was when I said tip your head back, look for the stars in the sky (or birds / planes / sunshine) and I held the flannel folded in to 3 (like a long A4 letter fold) over his eyes. I used the shower head and he let me do it! It was the looking up at the stars that really clenched the deal for us. We now have no problems. I guess it was just part of growing up that helped us the most as he understood more.
Sorry I haven't got a miracle cure, it must be harder with DD's who have long hair. (I'm in a house full of boys)
Could maybe sombody else do bathtime? Is this more of a tantrum for mum rather than actually having her hair washed?

DS is 2.8 and has been doing the screaming throughout the hairwash for about a year. He is getting better - now he understands and can be bribed with stickers we rarely have tears.

Re the shampoo shields: Ds hated them even more, couldn't even get one on him so we gave up on that.

One other tip. don't do what we did and only do it occasionally because we couldn't face the battle. It made it 100 times worse and in retrospect we should have just done it every bath time.

The other thing that helped a bit was putting a mirror on the side of the bath and letting him make funny hairstyles with the suds in. It calmed him down between the original wetting and the rinse. (he also had a severe hatred of the hair dressers so he had quite long haor for a while!!)

Wash her hair first and then play, going with the good girl, well done etc scenario.

thanks everyone - I do the praising on how clever she is and sing songs, this is the way we wash our hair on a cold and frosty morning etc....even got bathtime doll so DD can do her hair.

you have given me a good few ideas to try anyway thanks again.