bath time

- Sarah 4 Comments

Keeping the kids clean with Baby Dove

Baby Dove Sensitive Fragrance Free Head to Toe Wash

**This post is in sponsorship with Baby Dove

If you read my post the other week about our afternoon bath routine then you know that we usually only bath the boys once or twice a week. This started when Toby was a baby and we realised that bathing him every day was really drying out his skin. He had quite bad eczema until he was about 18 months, and although it’s cleared up now I’m still very cautious about the products I use on both him and Gabe. I’ve always used Dove soap myself and been very happy with it, so I was keen to see what its two new Baby Dove ranges were like. Read more

- Sarah 7 Comments

Afternoon bath time fun with Cuddledry

Gabe in his Cuddleroar towel

We haven’t bathed the boys every day since Toby was a baby and we discovered that it dried his skin too much. For a long time now they have only had a bath once or twice a week. We used to do baths before bed but they seemed to take so long and since Toby has started school and Gabe stopped napping they are both so tired by bedtime that baths were just ending up making everyone grumpy. So for the last few months we’ve had a new routine – weekend afternoon bath time fun! Read more

- Sarah 9 Comments

Siblings // Toby and Gabe in January (2017)

Welcome back to another Siblings update – this is only going to be a short one as it’s not that long since I wrote the last one. I wanted to get back on track with linking up in the middle of the month though so here it is.

Things are much the same with Toby and Gabe they still annoy each other all the time but we are seeing a more and more moments of them actually being affectionate towards each other and getting along. It’s so funny though – Toby has realised that if he gives Gabe a spontaneous cuddle then he will usually get some praise or acknowledgement. We’ll often say something like ‘that’s kind’ or ‘what a lovely cuddle’ – so now if we don’t say something straight away Toby will say ‘look at us mummy’ or ‘I’m cuddling Gabe’ just to make sure we realise he’s being cute! He’s too clever for his own good sometimes.

Toby and Gabe in their Bunting Tree tops

The best moments for me though are the ones that I catch that aren’t just being done for my benefit. Read more

- Sarah 2 Comments

My Wild Ones // First bath together

Our boys only get a bath twice a week and usually I bath Gabe and he’s in and out in five minutes then Barry baths Toby and he gets to have a play while I put Gabe in bed. Yesterday however, the boys were overdue their bath by a couple of days for various reasons including Gabe being ill (again!), Barry getting stuck in traffic on the way home from work for three and a half hours on Tuesday and just a bit of laziness on my part.

Barry and I have both been ill as well with some sort of flu virus thing so yesterday he came home from work at lunch time because I was really struggling with both boys on my own. We decided to make bedtime for ourselves and give Toby and Gabe a bath in the afternoon and thought that maybe it would be a good time to try their first bath together.

Now, Toby has refused to sit down in the bath almost 10 months now. We had a couple of months where he screamed his way through every bath and then he settled down and started to enjoy it again but still refuses to sit down. Up until now Gabe has been bathed lying back on a bath support… so there was always a chance this wasn’t going to go well!

We put the aquapod in the bath (it’s like a bathmat with a built in seat that we used for Toby), and then when I put Gabe in… he cried. And cried. And cried.

Gabe isn't really enjoying this bath

We got Toby in in the hope that he could distract his little brother and he did a little bit by showing him some of the bath toys. But Toby still wouldn’t sit down and Gabe still wasn’t happy. Even our old faithful the bubble machine didn’t help.

Toby shows Gabe a duck

In the end I gave Gabe a quick wash and got him out and then left Toby with his dad to get his hair washed and have a play. Not the most successful first bath together with our boys but hopefully it won’t be like that forever! Maybe I need to try and get Gabe used to sitting first and when he’s happy with that then get Toby in too. And you never know, maybe Toby will even copy his brother and sit down in the bath again.

MyWildOnes
- Sarah 3 Comments

Help! My toddler suddenly hates the bath!

Up until about a month ago Toby was loving the bath. He would happily sit there playing with his toys and we’d have the bubble machine going…in fact the only drama we had was getting him out again!

bath fun
Then one day he suddenly decided he hated the bath. He was screaming and shouting, he refused to sit down and was trying to climb out. We tried tempting him with toys and bubbles and all the things he had previously loved but nothing worked. In the end we just had to do a quick hair wash with him stood there screaming and then get him out.

We thought maybe it was a one off. Toby only usually has a bath twice a week – any more and his skin starts to dry out. So next time he was due a bath we tried again. Same thing. He seemed genuinely upset. It wasn’t just a tantrum but almost as if he was scared of something.

Since then we’ve tried various things; I’ve tried getting in the bath with him, trying to take him in the shower, only putting a little bit of water in the bath, trying in the morning instead of before bed when he’s tired… but nothing is working so far. And so for now we are just giving him a flannel wash most of the time and then once a week standing him in the bath and using the shower to do his hair as quickly as possible and get him out again while he screams the whole time. It’s not ideal but we can’t just not wash him!

The only thing I can think of that might possibly have triggered this is that the last happy bath we had, not long after he got in, Toby started saying ‘a poo, a poo’. He hadn’t done a poo, and he seemed to forget about it and carry on playing happily for the rest of that bath – the problems only came next bath time. I wonder whether he needed a poo, and is now scared of doing one in the bath?

He still loves playing with water (as evidenced by him going through three sets of clothes at nursery quite regularly), it just seems to be the bath that is the problem.

We’ll keep persevering and hope that like most things this is just a phase but if anyone has been through this with their little one and has any ideas we haven’t tried yet then I would love to hear them!

- Sarah 14 Comments

Bath time (The Ordinary Moments #11)

I’m linking up with Katie at Mummy Daddy Me again this week for some more ‘Ordinary Moments’.

Baby bath time

Toby usually gets a bath about three times a week. Bath time is very much daddy’s domain and up until now we’ve been using a lie-back bath support but Toby has started to get very wriggly (both in and out of the bath!) lately. We decided that a bath seat might help and got this one in the Kiddicare sale. It has suckers to stick it to the bottom of the bath but also swivels on its base to make it easy to get your baby in and out. Toby seems to quite like it so far although daddy reckons it’s harder to wash him in it.

Toby doesn’t mind the bath at the moment but I wouldn’t really say he enjoys it. He got some bath toys for Christmas but isn’t too interested in them yet. I’m really looking forward to the days when bath time becomes a fun end to the day…and we can make soap sud mohicans!

mummy daddy me