My two year old adopted nephew must have had some bad experience while playing in the bubble bath because for two months straight he fought and resisted and cried whenever trying to convince him to get a bubble bath. His Grammy has been giving farmers baths with baby wipes this whole time.
Well today I (his favorite uncle) decided to try to convince him to once again get in the tub.
“Ooh stinky Ricky needs a bath, do you want to get one”
“No.”
"Awwh don’t you want to play with bubbles and draw on tub with crayons? What about TOYS? Do you want to play with uncle SmokeyDope while you take a baaath? Huuh?
His little mind takes a second to process the query
“mhm…”
“Oooh wooow! Alright let’s go play, let’s go PLAAY!”
incomprehensible shrieks of transcendent happiness “bye bye, bye bye, bye bye!”
He gets up and starts running to the stairs towards bathroom while gesturing me to follow. At this point Grammy and I are like “okay this is happening” so we got his little butt to finally willingly go for a bubble bath. I spent over half an hour playing with him like drawing on the tub, splashing him with water, making goofy noises that kind of thing.
This kind of thing is not really in my comfort zone I never gave him a bath before but im willing to try if it helps the situation. So today was a success but now were unsure whether he’s back on the regular grammy time bath routine or if playtime with uncle SmokeyDope is now a non-negotiable update in the terms and service agreements.
I don’t feel very good about myself most of the time so when I’m able to make change for the better in someone elses life or add even a little bit of positivity to a situation it makes me feel like im not wasting space. Today was a good day as uncle SmokeyDope :)
Nice work. You managed to drill down right to he core of how to get a child to do something: make them want to.
Children at that age can’t reason, everything is an emotional response. In you case the child hadn’t reasoned his way into refusing to bathe, so he couldn’t be reasoned out of that position.
You replaced the ‘bad’ emotional response to bathing with a positive one about play.
You cracked a code that a vast number of parents never do. Well done.
Given my experiences with kids, be prepared to be non-negotiable for awhile, but that’s not a bad thing. Says that the time with you makes the kid feel safe enough that whatever the problem might be aren’t bad enough to say no.
And if it is a trauma, you’re helping work through it, in a way. Maybe not the core experience, but at least helping disconnect part of the experience, reframe it as something not traumatic.
Dude helping little kids move past things like this is so rewarding. Good job dude, you’re a great uncle.
Convincing a child to do something they don’t want to but need to is a skill to be proud of. One mine hit 6-10 months they started to have their own opinions. I’m super proud to be the master of putting them to sleep, as difficult as they can be.
Nice job! Super smart to make bath time fun time
Rad! Enjoy the success high, but you’re going to want to keep chasing that dragon. Don’t be bummed if it fails to work a second time. They adapt, and sometimes they are having a bad day and even the coolest uncle will hit a wall.
Helpful things for bath:
- toys that squirt water
- bath bombs with toys inside
- the drawing / painting stuff you mentioned
- hand mirrors for seeing themselves covered in suds
- cups and buckets for moving water around
- suction cup toys for the walls (water spout things, marble race courses, etc)
Also, if you’re new to working with kids, timers that visually count down (not digital, ones that have a colored wheel of how much time is left) are helpful for starting / ending tasks. Also tricks like betting them they cant wash their own hair, or you can finish a bath before the end of the timer can work well. And on nice days with a rain shower, go soap up out side. do it with them. clean off from the hose, they love it.
you’re doing great! keep it up!
Also, a can of cheap shaving cream to spray on the tub wall. It’s a fun, soothing distraction for a little one. I used to sometimes defuse my kid’s tantrums like that.
Heck yeah, awesome uncling.
Grammy has been giving farmers baths
What’s a farmer bath?
Aka a whore bath, a sink/basin bath, a wash-up, hittin the high spots, wiping up, etc.
There’s all kinds of variants on it. I spent twenty years bathing, or helping bathe, people. You’d be amazed at the variety of ways folks will build up terms for such minor tasks that are regular and repeated that “need” a distinction from a more common thing
Once the default form of bathing turned into tubs, it was inevitable that bathing via a basin or other container develop its own nomenclature. Same as it became inevitable that once showers became ubiquitous that you’d run into distinctions between that and a tub bath.
Since the oldest form of bathing inside a house or structure was the one that lingered most in rural areas where indoor running water was last to appear, farmers were one of the last groups to take that kind of bath daily. So that’s the terminology that stuck in places where that was a factor.
However, the term “whore bath” preceded it by a good margin, going back to somewhere in the 1800s iirc. Since prostitutes got sweaty and sticky multiple times a day, the need for a quick bath of the “important” parts was a bit of a meme. When the daily bath for everyone started switching to tubs post piped water, the term got expanded into the fuller basin bathing methods that were used daily.
Mind you, daily bathing practices varied a lot everywhere. Some places and times, people might default to the bare minimum of hands, face, crotch, and ass. Sometimes not even all of that. I can’t recall the sect, but there was a religious group back in the 1700s that considered washing anything but the face, feet, and hands sinful.
The typical actual bath by farmers was fairly complete though. The more common farmer’s bath was often referring to the quick wash up they’d do while coming to a meal or otherwise taking a break. Hands, face, sometimes some water poured over the head, and more rarely an extra scrub at the pits. Again, the exact methods would vary a lot.
Talking to older folks from before running water was a thing was always interesting. We tend to forget how damn amazing it is that we can just turn a knob and get water. It’s something that has never been common everywhere. And, it hasn’t been so widespread before the last half of the last century. There’s still places all around the world where it isn’t even reliable in some cities, and many rural places don’t have it at all.
So you still run into a lot of farmers worldwide where a daily bath is a rag and a container of water.
I like to refer to using the bidet as cleaning my undercarriage.
Kids don’t know what the fuck is going on much less what’s good for them. Step the fuck up and do some parenting. Like it is you’re letting the kid raise themselves.
E: this is directed more at the kids parents, I understand you as an uncle have little to do with it. Sorry I misunderstood the POV of the post initially.
The thing with toddlers is that you dont ask their permission for anything. You force them to do the right things in life so they can be self sufficient. Awesome work but next time just put him in the bath its a toddler.
