Ramifications of 5yo having a bath when adults are sleeping?

[Zazzlez]

I am lost! One of my worst fears has happened this morning, my DD 5 has made herself a bath while we were sleeping, it's literally a nightmare come to life for me as DD loves water and I've repeatedly asked dh to put the plug away after baths, my question is though, how do we punish her for this? I've suggested no baths (just showers). I am so upset, I'm usually awake at 6am, stirring and aware at 5am.

U need to remove bath plug, and ensure u get up before they do.

You cannot punish a child by locking and denying access to necessary facilities like a toilet ffs. That is a far worse punishment and abusive.

Baths are not a legal requirement and showers are perfectly acceptable however toilet access for a 5 year old toilet trained child IS a requirement.

I sometimes think MN is a parallel universe where schoolage children are treated like toddlers.You teach your kids how to do things safely, You have a non slip mat in the bath, you use thermostatic mixer valves on the shower/ bath and so on.
Hiding a plug from a 5 year old is absurd!

Ok I don't get the hysteria.. she's 5 not 2?!

You don't punish your child for this.

A child showing independence is in some ways to be encouraged so it's unfortunate that this particular activity carried danger and voila have resulted in a number of harmful incidents.

You speak with her gently and if you fear she will do it again, put a child lock on the door of the bathroom. Not on her door as that could be disastrous in the even of a fire.

I understand that stress. I once caught my four year old trying to leave the house at 5am. She had her shoes on and the door unlocked. Just by sheer chance I woke up and heard a little noise. She wanted to go to her gran’s, apparently. I immediately went out and bought a childlock for the front door, and didn’t sleep properly for ages after it.

we had many conversations about it. How dangerous it was etc. I didn’t punish her though. She wasn’t being naughty. She just wanted to see her gran 😬

shes 8 now and begs me to remove the childlock from the door 😂😂 she never attempted it again.

2 weeks of punishment is so OTT. You're being harsh and cruel to your child. Are you also going to punish your husband for not putting the plug away?

Honestly I cannot believe that I am reading.

It’s sweet that she wanted a bath so did it herself!

What is your fear? What are you afraid might happen? You’ve not said why you are so panicked.

Instead of punishing and taking away baths I would be running her a nice bubble bath and teaching her that we only do this when mummy and daddy are awake.

You think a five year old having a bath unsupervised means she doesn't have 'basic survival instincts'?!

That's the anxiety talking.

Would she run into a busy road? Jump out of a window? Jump off a bridge? No. Because her survival instincts are fine.

What she tried to do was a normal household activity. If you've already told her that she shouldn't do that then I think telling her she can't have a bath tonight is fine. A two week ban is unnecessarily harsh.

Teaching her how to do these things safely will have better long term outcomes than banning her, punishing her and hiding things.

This is over the top Op. Your reaction and the perceived risk she occurred. She's five not 2.

Worry if your child doesn't do as she is told and you can't trust her do as you say.
If she is 5 and has no special needs she is perfectly capable of understanding what you tell her. You should worry if even after telling her that you don't want her to do something she will deliberately go ahead and do it anyway.

However, remember this. By removing all risk you are also removing the chance to grow up. When is she going to be allowed to make herself a snack? Breakfast? Eat by herself?

She needs to understand danger rather than be punished for the bath . Punishing her for it feels very wrong she wasn't trying to be bold she just wanted something she loves don't ruin baths for her sit down and talk to her and explain why she isn't allowed do that on her own

5 years old.. and ran a bath? managed to get the temperature right and everything? does she watch you prepare the bath normally? did the noise not wake you? how did you find out? was she in the bath merryly singing away and playing with her bath toys?

Sounds like you have a very clever little girl, and will need to be on your toes in the future.. she'll me making breakffast next

We had a lock at the very top of the outside on the bathroom door to stop them for getting up to mischief

Guessing you had a toilet available in a separate room?

No baths for DH for a month

How are her writing and drawing skills for her age?

I'd get a big piece of paper and sit down with her and design and draw a poster showing hazards in your house (hob, oven, toaster, stairs, sink taps, bath, unlocked front door etc.) and write how they could be dangerous and how everyone needs to be careful in child-friendly phrases - i.e. "we might burn our hands so only grown-ups touch the oven".

Then tape it to the fridge.

oh my, really? she's five she's taken a bath, the water didn't overflow...check that she did a good job of her hair and didn't use the shampoo for bubbles and that's that she can now do her own bath till the cows come home. kind of handy come 7pm "go now sweety time to take your bath". she's ready to do this on her own support her don't punish her and don't pass on your batshit anxiety to her.

This is totally projecting serious anxiety on a (very young) child!

So after the session the child will think there's danger in every corner in HER OWN HOME which is meant to be a safe haven. 🙄

How did you not hear this?

What time was your DD running a bath @Zazzlez?

Showers for a week or two is perfectly fine as a consequence. Obviously you as her parents will take some responsibility but I do think a neurotypical 5 year old should be able to be trusted to not run themselves a bath while everyone else is asleep!

It isn't necessary to use punishment to reinforce a message, or a lesson.

They do this at my DC's school in Y1. It's fine honestly 🙄. No serious anxiety here.

Update: if anyone cares at this point! DD has had baths since, we also went out to a family fun day, that day had fun on inflatables, and enjoyed pizza for dinner!

I was freaked out in the morning, but she did know it was wrong as she has previously flooded her schools bathrooms! We have reinforced the reasons and moved on, and plug is now high up cat carrier!! (Cat carriers are in our bathroom cupboard)

Don't punish her just sit and explain to her how dangerous it is.
Then remove the plug and keep it in with you over night from now on. Obviously there's still a danger even without the plug. But it makes it a bit safer.
And at 5 she should be able to understand if you have a serious talk with her. And don't pussy foot around it, you tell her she may drown and die if she has not let anyone know she's having a bath.
I have 3 kids and I've always kept the bathroom light on and the door open during the night so they can go to the loo when they like. I've never had the problem of them trying to run a bath because I scared the living daylights out of them about the dangers and I went over and over it
I did have an incident with my son trying to cook a meal at 3am when he was 3!!! He managed to get downstairs without waking anyone up and get loads of stuff out of the fridge and open the oven.. thankfully it was one that could be switched off at the wall with a high up switch so he didn't manage to turn the oven on.. but in other houses we've lived in the oven hasn't been like that so it was just lucky it happened in that one.
After that we put a bolt on the kitchen door really high up which we kept locked at night.
So I understand how these things happen and it's really scary.
Unfortunately won't work to lock the bathroom from outside as kids might need to use the loo during the night.. so you are just going to have to get her to u derstabd the danger and also remove the plug during the night.. and all plugs in case she tries to put the sink plug in it or something

The only person who needs punishing is your idiot dh who couldn't be bothered to hide the plug like you'd asked him to. Thankfully she didn't come to any harm this time. It sounds like you've got a really independent and determined child there op, she is destined for great things, please don't punish her for this.