Current Mood: Happy
I have been meaning to introduce showers to Mia for a long while now, but it was put on the back burner once I got pregnant with our second baby. After recovering from the miscarriage I got pregnant again with her baby brother so showers again were delayed.
She takes baths but I constantly need help from Adrian to lift her in and out of the tub and just recently she started putting up a fight with getting her hair washed. The baths have become more and more difficult and challenging. So Adrian and I both agreed it was time for Mia to meet the shower!!
So how to introduce it? how would she react? We weren't to sure. I asked a few fellow Moms about their experience and they gave me advice, however, all of them said to hold the baby with you as you take a shower to get them used to it. Well picking up Mia and holding her was out of the question and so was showering with Dada... so what to do?!
Well there was only once solution .... just get in with Mia and give her a crash course. So before giving Mia a shower I took one myself, alone. I knew there would be no way I could focus on myself if Mia was in the shower with me. So after my shower, I set her things up, and Adrian helped put her in with me.
She was afraid of the water at first but I acted like I was having lots of fun and soon she wanted to join in the fun too. She liked having the water splash on her and was moving her hands in and out of the stream. I had the nozzle faced down so half of the bathtub was not getting directly hit with water and thats where she stood. After some encouragement I did get her to get alittle wet, but she wouldn't go all the way under the water.
I let her explore and play a bit with the shampoo bottles and I washed her down. Then came the big challenge... her hair! She HATES her hair being washed now and I wasn't sure how she would react to having her hair washed in the shower.
At first she didn't mind me soaping up her hair, but she did put up a little fight when it came time to rinse. Eventually I got her to turn around and back up into the stream of water so I could rinse the back of her head. She didn't seem to mind this too much but when it came time to rinse the front she threw a HUGE fit, but it didn't last long.
Once she was all clean and ready to go, I turned off the water and had Adrian take her out of the tub. This was the only time she blew up Horribly! She refused to get out of the shower and wanted to stay in. She ran all around the tub trying to get away from Adrian who eventually just had to grab her and take her out. She screamed and fussed all the way to the room.
I lotioned her up, put on her jammies all while she screamed and cried for the "Bath". She remained cranky for awhile after it was all over and kept asking for "bath".
Well, overall, the whole shower went better than I could ever expect, however getting her out seemed to be the biggest challenge. So was the hair washing but that is pretty typical. Not sure if I will continue to give her showers over baths but we will see. Only time will tell, but as for now I am proud of her.. my little girl is growing up too fast!!
