You have become quite a mover in the bathtub, and thus, bath time has become a bit stressful for us. To date you’ve been in the little baby tub that we’ve used since you were born. But you’re way too long for it, and the little lip on the far end of the tub acts as a perfect handle for you to grab onto and pull yourself up. Baths have become a constant struggle of wrangling you to sit down, and to sit still. You keep ending up sideways in the little tub.

A couple of weeks ago the doctor suggested that we could utilize a laundry basket for baths. She said that when placed in the tub, the water can flow in and out, and it’d provide you with a contained space but still enable you to have some room to move around. We tried this twice. It was not a great success. You are so mobile and antsy and curious, and it is just so slippery, that it was just a stressful mess of you lunging for the sides and trying to pull yourself up and us constantly having to keep our hands on you to attempt to wrangle you back to a sitting position.

So we decided to just buy a bath mat and sit you up in the entire tub. The bath mat helped immensely with limiting the slippery factor, though you still spend a lot of the bath time trying to move yourself to the edge of the tub and stand up. Bathing you is an adventure and an exercise in constant vigilance. I know that in all instances we must be super vigilant while you’re in the tub, and we always are, but this is a whole other level of supervision which includes us constantly hovering over you with our hands always at the ready to catch you when you try to stand. I know many people include baths as part of the daily bedtime routines for their children. There is just absolutely no way we can do this. It is so chaotic and stressful, such a production. Right now we do it a couple of times a week, and that is plenty for us!