Toddler won’t have a bath

My 2 year old has been refusing to get in the bath for the last week. Crying and screaming so I have to force him in. He won’t sit down and will just stand whilst I wash him but he’ll just cry or scream intermittently. Tried to see if he’ll have a shower instead but same reaction.

Any suggestions on why he’s suddenly stopped wanting a bath or what I can do? He used to love sitting in the bath and playing - just makes me so upset seeing him like that.

Read more on Peanut

The views expressed in community are solely the opinions of participants, and do not reflect those of Peanut.

Learn more about our guidelines.

Add a comment

It’s an age thing. My daughter is doing the same thing. Try doing washcloth baths for a bit and have him play with toys near to the tub to get him more comfortable

Thanks for your response hadn’t thought about the wash cloth. He wants to stand outside the bath and pour the water in so it might be a good way to get him slowly back in. Thank you !

My son started doing this too the other day. I was kinda shocked. I can normally say bath and he runs ready to get in lol. We added bubbles and i get him to pour in his bucket of toys (he feels proud) lol. So far that has helped 🤞❤️

I won’t say the washcloth is easy either but it has at least enabled me to get our daughter clean. She’s 16 months now and doing this since 12.5 🙄.

yes to this one! Funny thing was he did it with dad and I came in real quick saying nope bath time. Lol fight over 😂🤦‍♀️ my husbands quite the pushover when it comes to my son haha ❤️

My daughter ,who has just turned 2, is doing the same. I think it’s a control thing and not exactly a bath thing for her as she’s pushing the boundaries in other elements of life too. I’ve tried bath crayons as a way to encourage her to get in which she liked but the tricky thing is getting her out again!

Can it be at one time they had nappy rash and they are expecting it to hurt ? My daughter does this when she's had a sore bum and even when it's healed she's expecting it to sting

When my daughter did this we did 2 things that helped us.
1. I let her pick out her own scrubby. It stays in hanging in the tub and I let her play with it till the end and then wash her. I got a silicone one so it's easy to clean and disinfectant if needed.
2. To help with the transition we set a 5 min. timer. I do it on my phone and let her push the button to start and stop it. Once it's started I tell her in 5min. we are going to take a bath. This has helped with bath time, nap time and leaving the park or play dates. There is some whining but way less tantrums.

We switched to taking showers in “mommy’s shower” when my little girl started fighting bath-time. Absolute game changer, less clean up and a lot quicker now.

I had wondered whether it was this also

in our community

Wdy think of this for a toddler to learn word construction?

I'm open to anything else to start teaching him to read and write. He's 3!

Do men really enjoy fellatio?

Been together more than 10 years, but it's been a while since he even seemed remotely interested in me getting on my knees, or vice versa so to speak. I think it was once last year. Must be something I am doing wrong 🤔. Generally everything else in that department is great and we have two young kids with no extra support, so it's quite surprising we can't keep our hands off each other but may need to try new things. It's basically 2 positions each time with some foreplay.

I think Motherhood has made me more bitter than I realized…

This is such a ramble but I don’t know where else to put it all.

I’m four months in and I don’t really have hobbies right now. I don’t do anything for myself except maybe doomscrolling or listening to a podcast while I breastfeed my baby. I used to craft and have game nights with friends. Activities that usually are at least 2 hour stretches. Now if I have an hour free my mind immediately goes to baby, or doing something in the house for baby.

And I thought I didn’t mind. Like I knew postpartum could be very mentally consuming. But I think it’s altering how I view people around me and it’s prodding at my relationship with my husband.

He spends most of his time making food for us, looking after our dogs, playing with the baby, ect. But he still has time for his hobby. Spends maybe an hour a night on it. Even adapted to using a bot for shopping for his hobby after a certain incident where we had to have a heart to heart after he left me home alone with the baby for hours during a busy workday (I work from home) to shop for his hobby.

And yet there’s like this little green eyed monster in me that rages every time I know he’s running off to start up the bot. Even though I’m the reason he does it this way.

We took a family trip last weekend to see his best friend and their kids and let them meet the baby. He brought the laptop. He’s always brought a laptop on trips and it’s never been a problem to me before. But one night we both woke up while the baby was still asleep, and he wandered out of the room. I tried to fall back asleep but couldn’t. So I went to the kitchen to try having something warm to drink to settle me. And he was there at the table running the bot from his laptop. I flipped out at him. But there really wasn’t reason to. It’s not like I needed help with the baby and he was ignoring me. He wasn’t avoiding our friends. He was just awake and unable to sleep and found something to do with his time. Yet my snap reaction was “why the hell would you do this on a family trip?”

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the less complete sleep from baby’s middle of the night feed? My brain being just consumed by baby? Maybe I’m not as over that shopping incident as I thought? But I’m just so annoyed at his hobby right now. The green eyed monster thinks “you could be using that time differently” but realistically to do what exactly??? Stare at our baby in the dark???

I spent probably an hour apologizing to him after I snapped. And he’s of course hurt and frustrated because I said some very mean things in the moment.

I don’t want to be this jealous, angry person. But I also don’t know how to find time for myself in this right now outside of basic hygiene. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be myself, even if just for an hour.

Maybe I need a therapist.

Vaccination advice

I’m really looking for advice and opinions on vaccines for my baby. I’m not against getting them but also just don’t feel like I know enough about them to make a decision just yet as I’ve had people say to me they don’t agree with them and they can cause issues etc… so I just want as much info as possible. What are everyone’s thoughts and experiences of vaccinating your child? I’m just interested to see everybody’s views (no judgement as I just want to know I’m doing the right thing) thank you x

Naps

How is everyone doing for naps?

Little one is 9 months old and will have 2 half hour naps and one solid 1 hour - 2 hour nap a day

Then settles for night around 9pm. Wakes for a feed around 3:30 then sleeps until 6-7

Stroller

Hey,

Baby is getting slightly too heavy for his travel system now.

I was just wondering want strollers people recommended. Thank you