All of a sudden hates baths?

smilee

I don;t know what is going on- granted, D has been under the weather, but for the past week- he has screamed bloody murder when we out him in the bath.  I know that it is not too hot.

This is a kid who has always LOVED his bath- seriously, loved bath time.  He would get so excited when he realized that we were starting the nighttime  routine and would want to play forever when he was actually in the tub.

What gives?  This seems like such a drastic change.  Any insight?

Man, toddlers certainly can be inscrutable at times... 

sasa625

DD went through a bath-hating phase around that age. She randomly started screaming every time we put her in the tub. We ended up having to quickly wash her standing up. It didn't last too long though. What helped us was either putting some of her soap in the water or blowing bubbles and having her sit down and pop the bubbles. Also new bath toys helped... any distraction from the fact that it was bath time. But like I said, it was probably one of her shorter-lived phases, so hopefully D is back to loving his bath very soon!

lolalillie

My son went through a phase like that and it was because he was too cold.  The cooler weather made the overall bathroom colder and even in the warm water it was not enough He eventually adjusted.  On particularly cold days, we put a space heater right outside of the door and warm the bathroom up before bath time.  Good luck!

Temp893722312503334

If it is the air, maybe steam up the bathroom by running the shower for awhile before getting him in it.  

I obviously have no toddler experience but that helped us a lot last winter.  My only other thought is because he knows bedtime is next and maybe he's trying to fight that?

...I'm not looking forward to some of these toddler phases! 

gringa78

M has gone through this twice...and like D, she LOVES the bath.  In Touchpoints, Dr. Brazelton says that toddlers go through phases where they feel unsteady (develop fears of falling, etc) and don't like how the bath feels because they don't have the same balance they have elsewhere (he actually has a section on fear of baths).  We also discovered that she was afraid of the showerhead for some reason (even though we never use it to wash her hair), so that was the reason for bath freakout round 2.  Like in your situation, this came out of nowhere.

You know what worked for us?  New bath toys.  I got her those sticky foam letters and numbers and she was back in the tub in no time.

LisaandBryan

Weird. Mine are the same way. All of sudden hate baths after always loving it. I mean screaming bloody murder , have to hold them down hate it. I don't know what prompted it and I cdan't stand it. I hope its a phase that ends quickly. Unfortunaly the new bath toys they got for xmas didn't really help. 

AvaLikeLava

No insight, but have you tried doing showers instead? We shower with both kids and it's so convenient and easy. And they love it!

kme930

Will did the same thing about a month ago - went from complete and total love of baths to bathtime=bloody murder. It was so bizarre! It went on for a week or two and then just went away. He likes bathtime again now. Phew!

I hope this is just a quick phase for D also!