Getting toddler dry and dressed after bath is like trying to squeeze bucking bronco into a leotard - help!

[Rinkidink]

DS (2.5) likes to squirm, thrash his legs, run away, flop, lie face down on floor, twist etc as soon as I get him out of the bath...

How do other parents manage to get their toddlers properly dry and in their pyjamas in under 30 mins and without feeling knackered from battling with what feels like a rampaging boar???

Practised on a bucking bronco. Hth

On a more helpful note, what happens if you put something in his hands like a toy/book?

Sorted then! That was easy...

Yes I hadn't though of that tactic...

...sigh, one more thing to forget to prepare before bath...I always forget something!

Don't toddlers drip dry if they run enough?

I wrestle mine into a nappy, then leave them to run riot for a bit while I drink a coffee. Eventually they get cold and come get their pyjamas on.
Occasionally, I have been known to bribe them with a song on YouTube but it doesn't work until they're ready for bed...

Yes I did wonder if most people let their kids drip dry (I mostly just drip dry myself after a shower...I find drying myself so boring)

But my mum has led me to believe that DS will catch pneumonia if I don't dry him properly...she is shocked that I don't dry properly between his toes even

Dd likes being wrapped in a towel like a mummy but with her arms out. I then plonk her in my bed under the covers to keep warm while I read her a story. By then she is dry and just needs wrestling into pjs.

I discovered I should have been drying between ds's toes when he was about two. He's ten now and still has them all as far as I know :o

Pick them up in the towel and roll them round in it.
Let them run around to dry off
Wrestle nappy on.
Give them the clothes and tell them they can do it themselves. Place top on while they wrestle with bottoms.

It's like dressing a teflon octopus

My DS is only 18 months but he drips dry. I mean I wrap a towel round him when he comes out the bath to soak up most of the water, but he then runs off and all around the upstairs until he's dry. Then I chase him around wrestling him into PJs and finally get him into his room for milk and stories. Unless your house has no central heating he will be absolutely fine wandering around starkers until he's dry

In my world this is what the toys off the front of magazines are for. Pass them some cheap tat with iggle piggle on and dry and dress them as quickly as possible before they get bored.

Circulate the toys around so they only see them once a fortnight or so. It also works well with hairbrushes, alarm clocks, spare sets of keys, screwed up wrapping paper.

Baby toys that they've long since grown out of and haven't seen for ages work well too.

I make mine put her own pyjamas on. It's a race, and she is thankfully always up for the competition

I wreak DD in a massive towel as she gets out the bath and then sit her on my lap and sing a song she can join in with (and then use the duration of the song to dry her body/towel dry her hair.)
She's usually fine with getting into nightclothes so I don't have a strategy for that.

*wrap. :p

I have never dried between DS's toes

DH does it. Simple. I do everything else including poo monitoring for our child's mild gut issue and yes I boob fed her 2 years and she still has poop that's ever quite right grrr

wrapped up like a mummy.
or curled up on the bathmat with the towel on top like a 'big boulder

dc also like me follow

arrgh frozen screen...

dc also like me following the stripes on the towel to tickle.

I wrestle on a nappy then lie down and wait for DH to get home.

I discovered that dgd who is a bit older, will get dressed if I give her clothes a voice - hold up Jama top, in a funny voice say ' I'm a lonely pair of jimjams with nobody inside me boo hoo hoo...' etc

Mine likes to run off too and wee everywhere before I get the chance to get her nappy on. Tonight she pee'd all over my bed

Erm, it utilise "in the night garden" for DD who is 16m . I get a recorded episode prepped ready to go, alongside pj's and a little supper (yoghurt). Then post bath I wrap her up in towel mummy-style then sit her on my lap in front of the majestic upsy daisy. I can then dry her and get her in pjs (and even clip nails!!!) while she is in a hypnotic state.

Probably not going to win any parenting awards but it bloody works.