Does/did anybody else have a 5yo who is STILL scared of having their hair washed?

[BerstieSpotts]

Because mine is, and it's not only a pain to try and wash his hair, it's causing arguments between DP and I about how is best to solve it.

Currently I leave it as long as possible between hair washes, and when I do wash his hair, I try to use a minimum of shampoo so it doesn't take long to wash out, and then I rinse it out very very gently with a flannel. The idea being he will get used to this and as he gets older he will be able to rationalise either that the water on his face isn't ACTUALLY drowning him, or that if he closes his eyes/looks up he'll be okay. At the moment it doesn't matter if we use a special cup with a flexible part, one of those face-guard things that looks like a baseball cap peak, or let him hold a flannel over his face he is still terrified. He is too scared to lie back in the bath. Won't have a shower either. We almost got him to wear goggles, but then he decided that they hurt his hair so he doesn't want those either

DP's approach was, initially, to get him into a splashy game in the bath and get him used to getting his hair/face wet without it being bucketfuls of water tipped on your head. This was working really well and we started going swimming as well and all of it was helping his confidence in the water. However it's only making progress very very slowly and often it can feel like when you start the games, or when we go swimming etc, it takes him ages to warm up to it again.

What usually happens now when we wash his hair is that I will do it with the flannel and it takes about 30 minutes. Not very efficient, everyone gets cold, and you have to use a miniscule amount of shampoo otherwise it's impossible to wash out, so sometimes I don't use enough and his hair still smells "fusty" when he is dry again.

Sometimes he starts getting worked up about something halfway through, for example tonight he decided I was pulling his hair, and gets so upset/uncooperative that it seems quicker and kinder to just get it over with in 5 seconds by using the shower attachment. But he is SO upset, crying and choking and screaming and trying to climb out of the bath when we do this (and it takes 2 :() that it breaks my heart. I can't see that this is helping.

DP thinks that it's got to such a ridiculous level that we should just tackle it head on, wash his hair every day for a week using the shower method and he will get used to it. I want to continue with the gentle flannel method and the general trying to get him used to being in water and hope that he grows out of it. But DP's argument is that it's so unusual at his age that we should be worried about it, and also that I (because it's only me who DS will let do it, not because DP makes me!) don't wash his hair as often as it should be washed, because frankly I don't often have the energy or patience to sit there for half an hour teasing bits of soap off individual strands of hair and having the hair be just as dirty afterwards. Which is true. So maybe it would save a lot of upset just to try and tackle it, I'm just concerned/afraid that it will make things MUCH worse, although this has been my argument for the last 3 years and honestly, there's only been a very slight improvement in that time so perhaps it can't get any worse, but if it's not going to work then I don't want to put DS through that.

Help! WWMND?

[ThatsYouThatIs]

No real new ideas to add but just wanted to say that DS1 was like this. He would let me wash the back of his head but even a drop of water near his eyes and the screaming would start.

We built his tolerance up slowly to the point where he would tolerate me washing his hair using a jug to rinse while he had the shampoo shield on and flannel over his eyes. If the flannel got wet it would be quickly swapped for a clean one.

It wasn't until he was 10 that I tackled the issue of him doing it himself. Again, we slowly got him used to having a shower, and then moved on to wetting his hair. I showed him how to edge back under the shower gently so he could control how wet he was getting. Amazingly, he got used to doing this within two weeks and a year later he showers and washes his hair everyday!

I know you're not at that stage yet but with hindsight, I'd have got DS1 to shower and wash his own hair a couple of years earlier as it was nowhere near as bad an experience as either of us thought it would be. Giving him some control of the situation was what took the edge off his panic.

[ThatsYouThatIs]

I know what you mean, DoTheStrand, DS1 hates the barbers too. I'm just thankful that's only once every 6 weeks.

[NotCitrus]

Ds is 5 and quite similar. I wash his hair every 10 days or so, as quickly as possible, but putting new dry flannels on his face every few seconds. Five flannels does it and keeps the reaction down to noisy whinging rather than hysteria.