hello all this is my first post.
i am temporarily fostering a friend's 2yo due to illness. things were going well with bedtime routine although she wasn't keen on baths. but i was building it up gradually and not insisting on effective washing for the first few days and just trying to make it a bit fun and bearable for her. she wouldn't go anywhere near the (huge, old-fashioned) bath itself, but could deal with being in the (also quite big) sink. then after a week she got nits and i needed to thoroughly wash her hair, this was this morning. it is the first time i have really forced her to do something and she panicked. i really tried to make it as non-dramatic as possible but it was a really bad experience for her.
tonight even going into the bathroom upset her a lot. my plan was to only brush teeth and leave the bath for tonight but she didn't even get through teeth brushing before panicking. i carried her away from the bathroom into the bedroom and she needed a lot of calming to start taking clothes off for bed (and i decided to leave some on rather than force it after what happened). so no bath tonight and i don't want to try in the morning as it was part of mum's nighttime routine so i want to wait til tomorrow night before trying again.
how do i undo this panic? my ideas are: 1) get a baby bath/tub so that we leave the sink (scene of the upset) behind - she will soon be too big for it anyway and we hopefully could gradually move to big bath.
2) try to have a bath together in another house (we visit people a lot) as a fun, daytime activity, with no enforced washing, just to get her to associate water with fun and then to try to bath together at home
i'd really appreciate any advice