My kids have 3 different bath states. Well, at least the big kid does. Either she gets a quick soap down and has to hurry up and get out, this happens minus the hair washing, or she enjoys a long bath with bubbles and etc. The quick baths are almost always met with defiance. How DARE we deny her bubbles?
2nd day hair
Because of the way my blog is set up at times I forget what I’ve mentioned and what I haven’t, so if this is a repeat, I apologize. This is Keeley’s ‘2nd day hair’.. on the days I don’t wash her hair, it’s on purpose. I generally put her hair in 2 ponytails, then braid the ponytails and let her wear them/sleep on them. Then she’ll get a bath and I’ll take the braids out, brush her hair and put ponytails back in. It gives her hair a really fluffy appearance and has gotten some good comments, so I do it maybe once a week or so. It also keeps it a lot cleaner because it stays out of her face (food avoidance). In general, it’s better for your hair not to be washed every day anyway. Mine needs it, but her doesn’t at least for now, so I’m taking advantage of it!
Okay, back to the baths–the quick baths seem to be the worst, it makes her so mad to not get bubbles. Sometimes I try and forestall the screaming by promising her time to play after she gets cleaned up. I tried allowing her to play for a few minutes and she always threw a fit about having to stop playing to get washed up. This is her mad face.. she’s trying NOT to smile for the camera.
Grr
So the other day, I was completely inspired, this is where the fist pump comes in! I said, “why Princess Keeley, you must wash your royal visage!” She was so shocked that she didn’t complain when I washed her face… so I plunged on ” princesses always have beautiful hair, so let’s get it all washed up”…and “your royal toes need scrubbed”…”let’s wash your princess hands” and so on. It worked wonderfully! I’m positive this would work for dinosaurs, trains, or whatever else your kid loves! It helped with hair brushing, too “princesses brush their hair 100 times, let’s see how many it takes to brush yours!”
water reflection
Great trick! My big time for doing that is when I cut Jacob’s hair. “Welcome back, Mr. Wolfmeyer! How much are we cutting off today? How are the kids? How many kids do you have now? ” and so on. he LOVES to play the “game.” Whatever works, right? Have you learned how to french braid yet? K may not be able to sit still enough for you to practice often if you haven’t yet. But if you like the fluffy, wavy hair from the ponytail braids, you’ll love it when french braided. And then you don’t HAVE to put it back up again, because it doesn’t have the ponytail bump.
We bathe the kids every other day, unless they got really gross. We’ll probably do it more this summer. But we now just have too many kids for every day bathing! We have also done “half showers” if they have had an accident in their pants. I don’t want them to be unclean, but we may have already had a shower that day and they don’t feel like they are being put upon so much if we do that half. And lately, I’ve been showering Rachel with me. I never did that with the other two. It’s SO much faster and easy now that she’ll sit on the shower floor. As long as Mark is available to get her out.
Keeley has such pretty hair!
I used to put a few drops of food coloring in the bath water. Didn’t stain her skin and she always got to choose one of three colors. (I did not offer yellow.. haha)
She learned color mixing, too, when we started mixing this and that ‘just to see’.
When did she decide to hate baths? G loves them and I’m hoping it continues. Forever.