Half the time it’s just a power-struggle and the other half of the time, it’s just fear. But fear is something you have to approach head-on to defeat and bathing is a necessity. Just give lots of positive reinforcement and try to avoid any negative reinforcement such as, “you’re going to go to bed early if you don’t let me wash your hair”. If it’s a fear, the message they’re getting is really that they’re not allowed to have fears or that you have no patience to help them with their fears. It then becomes a trust issue across the board for the rest of their lives. And remember, at 3 it’s washing hair but if they don’t trust you at 17, it might be sex, bullying or drugs they won’t approach you about.

If it’s a power struggle, they just might decide that the high-five, extra fives minutes to play a video game or extra cookie is worth giving up the power. Adding toys or goggles, even their favourite swimsuit, as they progressively improve would work too. (Or at least you could actually take their picture if they had on a swimsuit!) 🙂

If you can make it seem like their idea, or make the alternatives worse while giving them that choice, then that might work too. (“If you don’t want to take a shower, that’s fine but you’re only other option is *fill in the blank with something they’re not used to and would probably hate more”.) If all else fails, sign them up for swim lessons and insist that the instructor dunk them for bobs no matter how much they cry.

Trust me, once they get water in their eyes even just once, they’re fine. It doesn’t take a lot for them to realize that it’s just water. And this will help you with swim lessons or pool time as well. Being able to stand water in your face is life skill, to be honest. The older you are before you acquire it, the harder it is to acquire.

Any other questions about fear of water, feel free to send my way. I’m not qualified to offer parenting advice. The above listed things have been a success with me.

Dry shampoo is quite handy.

You can create a “bird” bath at the kitchen sink. With dry shampoo if needed.

Yay! That’s such a fun idea! So nice to know you like our Ivory experiment too!

Oh. How smart are you? Separating the two is brilliant! Thanks for the great suggestion.

I had the same issue so we did bath with no hair wash to separate the 2. She now realised she doesn’t hate baths, just hair washing. We probably only wash hair once or twice a week but at least the rest of her is clean!

Also getting her to lie back in the bath to wash hair so she’s in control has helped.

Ugh. It’s so stressful! She’ll eventually get over it, I’m sure. Hopefully one of these tips will help. I’d try the doll in the bath – give her a small washcloth and a shampoo bottle filled with soapy water. You might find that she loves bathing her own baby so much that she forgets her anxiety.

I might try to bathe her more frequently but do hair washing less and see if we can get her comfortable with it again.

Thanks for these tips!
xoxo

Then I would try some of the other suggestions in the article, Cody. The doll and the bath crayons are usually very popular.