16-Month-old Hates Baths

Glad you posted this. I have a few more tricks to try with my daughter! She seems to cycle through a bathtub aversion every couple of months. We have the duck tub and that was GREAT for a while.

Other thing is I noticed that sometimes towards the end of the day, she is too tired to be bothered with a bath. I sometimes try to give her a bath, immediately after dinner where she is energized from the meal (and dirty from it as well!) and have had LOTS of luck with her enjoying her bath time. I've also done the samething after breakfast as well where she has much more energy and re-directs it at Spalshing in the water.

Hope that helps!

I had this problem with a child about the same age. I had a smaller baby tub that I put on a towel on her bedroom floor and then I filled it up with water and let her play with the toys. I would get her undressed and play all she wanted to, then put her in and wash as quick as I could. Gradually she got better, then the next step came. I put the smaller tub in the big tub and started all over again with the water in the small tub and I held her and let her play with the toys then I put her in and did a quick wash. It took a while before she was taking a bath in the tub without the little tub and crying. I want to say it took about two months. Hang in there. Good luck.

Does he or did he have diaper rash? The water can be really painful on a sore bottom, and I went through hte same thing with my son. I jumped in with him and made sure that the water temp was a little cooler than I normally make it, bought him some new tub toys (I replace them every 6 months anyway) and now he's back to loving it.

Hi L.,

I would try getting in the tub with him and play with him in there to ease any kind of anxiety he may have. Who knows what triggered it. He could have seen the water going down the drain one day and decided he was afraid he'd go down the drain too. Any number of things could have freaked him out but if he's in there with Mommy a couple of times having some fun he may realize all is ok and go back to enjoying bath time.

Good luck!

Perhaps try to get HIM to get the bath going? Turn on the water, pour in some bubbles, throw in some toys he likes in there. And my girls like those bath crayons, but they are a pain sometimes since they can leave little crumbly things in the tub. There are also bath paints he can play with. Make it more of a playplace than a bath, you know? Oh, and we blow bubbles for our girls in the tub (we call it a Double Bubble Bath) and then we let them hold the bubbles and try it themselves since if it spills, it just spills in the water (we do of course rewash them since we don't want them sitting in the bubble soap too long). We even put water wings in there and my two year old LOVES to "float" herself by laying on her belly w/ them on. She thinks it's pretty silly.

Wish I had more suggestions for you! :) Good luck!

it happened with my daughter at about the same age. she loves books, so I bought a great waterproof book (found a great one at costco). lured her in with that- and that seemed to do the trick after a few trials. I think its a common stage they grow out of. good luck!

So, have you figured out WHY he hates the bath now? that would be the first thing i would try to do. did he slip once or go under the water or hit his head or did you step out of the room while he was in the bath and he didn't like to be alone? did something happen outside of the bath, somewhere else in the house, that startled him while he was IN the bath? you might try going in to start the bath and having him help do it -- show him how to turn the water on and have him throw the toys in, etc, and see where/when he starts to get scared. and then if he fights it, just soothe him and let him out. wipe him off with a washcloth instead or take him into the shower with you so that you can hold him (or get into the bath with him to show him that it's ok). just work through slowly and calmly, and he'll go back to loving them!

My daughter had diaper rash, and stopped wanting to sit in the tub because of it. The poor thing would be so scared, and would grip me tightly and whimper before I would put her in the tub. Stupid me didn't put two and two together for a couple of days (it was her first bad case of diaper rash), and I thought she was just scared of the bathtub (we were transitioning from baths with Mommy to baths alone). But she even acted terrified when I would get in with her. We started giving her showers, which she really liked, and once we found the right diaper rash cream, her diaper rash cleared up, and she was back to loving bath time.

There are two things I might suggest, in addition to what everyone else has said. 1) can you get in the tub with him? I remember doing that with my daughter when she went through this phase and it helped. 2) have you ever thought of putting him in baby swim lessons? That REALLY helped my daughter overcome her fear of swimming. They used to sing a "Humpty Dumpty" song and the kids would jump into the parents arms (obviously depending on the child's level of comfort). She always thought that was funny. I started lining up her Fisher Price Little People along the tub, sing "Humpty Dumpty," and push them in one by one. She thought it was hilarious. If bathtime becomes a fun game, that might help too. Good luck!

My son is 15 months and he loves showers, not baths. We took him to a splash pad at a park and ever since then he wants to run around in the shower. The only thing is I have to be in there with him, so whenever I take my showers; he comes with. While I shower he plays and then we scrub a dub him... Hope this helps.. God bless.. Cary and Aden

How about trying inflatable bath tub. It looks like a toy,small tub with ducky head. You put it in a tub.You can get it at Target, Wall Mart. My friends did try it and it worked for them. Maybe too much space in a regular tub scares him? Who knows? I'm sure you have lots of accessories to entertain him in a tub but how about bubble maker, it makes bubbles by itself and you don't have to operate it ,(so you can still wash your baby) ,maybe he would concentrate on that. Try to wet and wash his head at the end,usually they hate washing their heads, they don't like too much running water at the time either -too noisy,too scarry. My baby hates water thrown at her face. But fortunatelly it changes and he will love his baths again.

Hi - this same exact thing happened to me when my son was 16 months old (he's almost 20 months now). He adored being in the bath for the longest time, then all of a sudden he wanted me to pick him up the second I put him in the bath. I called our pediatrician who suggested that maybe something happened in the bath one time to scare him. Apparently this can be a common thing if they slip in the bath once, or in our case, I thought it might be because our drain makes a funny gurgling sound sometimes when the water starts to drain out and it startled him once.

Anyway it was suggested to me to take it very slowly with the bath, not to force it at all. They said to sponge bathe him for awhile (about a week), and then to slowly reintroduce the bath. What we did to start was for a few days, we filled up the tub like normal, and he would stand outside of the tub and throw his toys in (but didn't get in). Then a few days after that, we filled up the tub and I got in, and he still stood outside of the tub. He watched me play with the bath toys and have fun. I would ask him if he wanted to get in, and the first few times he didn't, then one day he did. The second he wanted to get out, I let him get out.

After that he wanted to get in when we filled up the tub, and after a few weeks of "standing-only" baths, he's now back to his bath-loving self, staying in for a long time, splashing around, the works. I think the key is to definitely take it slowly, and if he doesn't have a bath one night, oh well. Also be sure that if your tub doesn't have a non-slip grip on the bottom, to invest in lots of fun little slip guards to put in the tub.

Hope that helps!

Hi L.!

Sorry to hear that bath time has become less than fun! Most toddlers go through this stage and WILL outgrow the fear of bath. Your child may have gotten water in his face at one time and has not forgotten it, it is only a matter of time and he/she will be back to enjoying bath again. We just went through this with our son who is now two and can't wait to jump back into the tub. You might want to try some new and fun tub toys. We bought the water crayons that he could write on the side of the tub with and he was thrilled. He stood at first and then slowly began to sit in the water again, it took a while and we remained patient as he came to terms with bath. Good Luck and know, this too shall pass!

get in with him a few times. that's all it's taken the few times that has happened with mine, it was about the same age too.

It seems that only one person has mentioned "shower" so let me reemphasize it. Our kids hated it, but I know many who love it. We still did it once in a while just for speed. It's fast and easy and then, over.

Will he still fit in a smaller tub? The kind that fits inside your tub?

My daughter went thru the same thing. I just got in the bath with her and she was fine. It took about a month before she would get back in by herself. She is now 24 months and starting the same thing ver again. Good Luck!

Don't worry. It's just a phase - an annoying one, but one that will pass. My daughter went through the same thing. I thought I was going nuts because she used to love baths, too. Kids go through a strange phase where they suddenly realize what's going on around them. It took my daughter about a month to get over. She loves baths again. In order to get over it, though. We started putting her back in her old baby tub. To transition, I would have to get into the big tub with her. Then, voila, all was fine with the world.

Try getting in w/him, but if you don't want to deal w/that.

I have done popcicles in the tub, less mess and the kids love it. It may get him back in!

Hi there - my son just went through this - and it was right at 16 months! It was short-lived though. I'd put him in the bath and he'd have a death-grip on me when he had always had fun in the bath before. I chalked it up to a weird phase, but while he was going through it I sometimes would get in the bath with him and that seemed to make him feel better. He's no longer screaming, but it does take him a little while before he'll sit down in the tub. Good luck!

L.,

my son did this too... after about 3 weeks of sponge baths and washing his hair in the sink while he laid on the counter, i knew we had to do something.

I absolutely can respect and understand that they have fears, and sometimes the fears they have aren't rational (like fear of going down the drain like the water - this is very real to them... but we know it's not possible).

I have to admit, i pushed my son.....slowly, but i still pushed him. he too seemed genuinely frightened... he would actually tremble and try to climb me to get away from the water... he wrapped his legs tightly around me and squeezed me so hard with his hands that he left bruises on my upper arms.

We started out with him sitting on the edge of the tub, and i was holding him. we would splash his feet - he cried... i kept doing it, telling him it's ok... mommy won't let you be hurt (they understand far more than they can verbalize).

Then once he was ok with that, it took about 3 days for him to actually enjoy his feet being splashed. we moved on to splashing other parts. Eventually i placed him in his bath seat, even though he was fighting me a little... i kept reassuring him that he was ok, and mommy wouldn't let him get hurt. We didn't focus too much on actually getting 'clean', we played... i put lots of baby bath in the running water so there was a ton of bubbles... gave him some cups to play with... we worked it up to the point where we were able to dump water on him up to his shoulders... he was constantly reassured, and i honestly dont believe he's suffered any emotional damage from working past his fears. Now he hears the word bath and he goes running upstairs and wants to get in the tub.

we did discover though that his fear developed while I was in the hospital having #4. I was there for 3 days recovering from a c-section and during that time my husband gave him a bath. Now by no means do i think he did anything 'wrong', but he isn't as seasoned as I am, and does things differently than I... so maybe my son just simply didn't like the experience...