Nightmare at bath - hair washing

[doadeer]

My son is 18 months. He has never really loved bath time... Always quite nervy but recently it's got so much worse, he is terrified.

We do a bath every few days as it's not a relaxing affair and I usually end up in with him. We have fun toys and everything you'd expect.

He has thick curly hair (he is mixed British Carribean) and washing his hair is just a nightmare. As his hair is thick, the shampoo takes more than a couple rinses to come out by this time he is hysterical clinging to us in fear 😢

Has anyone got any advice? It's so upsetting

My youngest son has always been like this because he despises getting his hair wet, even now at five. Unfortunately, like face washing and swimming lessons, it was just something he had to endure because it had to be done. It's never fun though, but he doesn't scream and cry any more.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B089SDR6DX/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExNVpJRk43UDRHMVpBJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTY1MjQyMzQxWDZPUU9LRjAyNiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjIyODY4MkVOR0hSWTM4VkhUWCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdA==&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

We got this and LO loves it!!!

One thing that worked for us, is having a baby doll with her own mini bath - my daughter likes to wash the doll's hair at the same time as we do hers, and she repeats our assurances it's not scary and will be over soon!

I got a gold your own shower attachment thingy that fits on the bah taps and my DS washed his own hair (kind of ....as I might have added a splosh or two from a cup) I think there are designed for older people, but if you dont mind ducking and then wiping the whole bathroom down after you are done, they are a godsend

*hold not gold

* bath not bah

My DS likes pouring water from a jug over himself - if we let him start with that, he seems happier if I borrow it and do a few tips over his head to wash out the shampoo. If I go straight into the shampooing, he screams like I'm murdering him.

swimming google's works a treat on both my boys

Bath toys here

We had a variety for DD. She hated baths since the pethidine wore off. She would scream & struggle, you'd swear we were trying to boil her alive. In the end it was a factor in letting her have long hair (also, she was afraid of the scissors). Eventually, by the time her hair got past her knees, we persuaded her it would be nice to donate a couple of feet of it... hurrah! Like @ActuallyItsEugene's DC, my DD's hair is thick & curly, so we mostly just co-wash unless it's really grubby.

She 8 now & has actually started voluntarily getting in the bath & showed this year. But, we had the floating octopus, the fishing net, the squirty set, & some bath crayons. And a magnetic fishing rod which I can't see on there, maybe a different brand / discontinued. And a soft hair rinsing cup.

This is the fishing toy. Now less available than it was, but you can still get it on Amazon. It is expensive for a bath toy, but it's very durable IME. We had black mould at our old house, & it didn't fall victim to it in nearly four years in a bathroom riddled with it.

Thank you to everyone for all of the suggestions, I think he might be too young for some of them, I can see that goggles would be great when he is a bit older, but I think he would hate to have something of his eyes at the moment he is only 18 months old. We had a bath tonight with no tears at all, I didn't wash his hair with shampoo but I wet it to try and get him used to that. I'm still having to get in the bath with him at the moment, but I think I'm okay with that as long as we don't have lots of upset, I can gradually try and phase this out