Ds (4) hates the bath, need some help!

[jofeb04]

Hiya,

My ds is 4, and hates the bath. He cries as soon as he walks into the bathroom, let alone in the bath.

He loves the swimming pool though, and water play.

How can we help him get over it?

Thanks

Put some cars in the bath and ask him if he wants to help you clean them. Tell him it's more fun if he gets in the bath, then he can drive them around the bath.

I'm sure it'll pass but if you're keen to do something.

Possible ideas:

Have a shower instead -not being funny just that if your shower is over the bath, he's spending time in the bath and getting wet.

Put food dye in the bath to change the colour of the water. (you can get natural food dyes from supermarkets now)

Bath paints.

Bubble machine in the bathroom and bubble bath in the bath. Great feeling of bubbles all around (be careful bubble machines make floors very slippy)

Bathing with unusual toys (use opportunity to wash fave power-ranger/teddy/whatever etc)

Have you tried bathing with him?

Thanks.... I lol at the food dye (for a second I had a really odd though )

He won't come in the bath with me or shower.
May try the washing toys. He does it now in a water toy we have outside, so hopefully it will still happen inside.

The cars haven't worked. Ds's view is that a car cannot get wet (and he hates it when we wash our own car)!

May also try the bubbles.

hi we had this until about a month ago with ds who's 17 months old....we were at wits end, then spotted a macka packa bath toy and even though we've not succumbed to ANY merchandising from things he likes did think it might work and hey presto we now have tantrums getting him OUT of the bath. We'd tried EVERYTHING before that. So maybe if he has an all time favourite superhero or wotnot that could work.

PS we never allow said macka packa out of the bath, it's a bath treat only

DS has been like this for months and months. We took the view that with topping and tailing for basic hygiene, it was an excellent incentive for us to take him swimming often.

He's now decided that showers are acceptable (previously caused the same screaming) and we reckon he's just going to forget that he was scared of it one day and we'll be back to bathing.

had this problem with both ds and dd, dd had a major fear of plugholes and drains, thought she was gonna get sucked down them. We had a spare plastic storage container (large) and bathed them in this in the kitchen for a while until they got more confident, then would get in the bath with me or dh. DS didnt like sitting on the surface of the bath. We were having a sort out the other day and emptied a storage container and ds insisted he had his bath in it that night! Good luck