Does anyone have a toddler who doesn't like baths?!

[foxessocks]

Talking to friends I feel like all toddlers love their baths. Well mine really doesn't at the moment! She used to. Now she screams and screams and won't sit down. I wonder if I should try getting in with her but don't really want to have to do that every time! She only has one every other day. She's 18 months. Any tips!?

Well done, glad it went well

That's a good step forward fingers crossed you've turned a corner

My DD (now 4) hated baths for a long time. Seemed genuinely scared.

I took to running the bath then washing her with a sponge next to it, just holding her over the bath to rinse her hair. We worked up to having lots of nice toys in an empty bath, then getting sponge washed in an empty bath, then having half a centimetre of water etc. I found that she was particularly scared of our bath, so having shallow baths with her cousins at her grandparents' house also helped.

She had severe excema as a baby, and I think she came to associate the/our bath with pain.

I used to think she would never have a normal bath. Now she loves the bath and cries if I try to skip it.

Just saw your update. Well done!

We had a phase of this and seem to be just coming out of it.

I decided not to force it but let her play with water if I wanted to wash her- she liked sitting and dangling feet in the sink for instance. It was really stressful at times!

We then tried a new tact- she loves blowing bubbles so we'd blow them over an empty bath, she then got in a dry bath and played with bubbles. Then I gave her a little bucket of bubbly water in the bath. We just made it really fun but slowly. Gave her bubbly pots and bottles to play with, let fill the bath herself etc.

It's taken probably 3 months but she now gets in happily and cries when it's time to get out!!