Reclaiming Bathtime...

I've written about how much Mabel always loved her bath time...I mean she LOVED her tubby. She seemed to look forward to it since about 3 months, the toys, the water, the splashing...her toothbrush! It has taken some time, but I feel bath time is ours again, new and not so improved but ours just the same.

Loosing "Tubby Time" has been just as hard for us as it has been for her. It was probably one of the funnest daily routine we had. The smiles and giggles were always priceless. I will never forget our first bath after the cast. It was the day we got home from the hospital, we went up to Mabel's room as we always did, undressed her and cried seeing her laying there on the floor in that cast. She wouldn't fit on her changing table anymore and at the time she wasn't even trying to move. She just laid on the floor looking for us to take the cast off because she knew it was time for her Tubby. We groped around trying to figure out the best way to bath her, we hadn't done a sponge bath since she was newborn! We tried distracting her with toys and books as I wiped her down with water in a basin, she cried in confused as to what we were doing...didn't we know that she sat in her warm tub when we washed her? We washed her hair by holding her over the basin and using a cup to pour the water on her head...she hated that! I gave her her tooth brush, she threw it in frustration...she looked at us like we didn't know what we were doing, she thought it was so simple it seemed like she was crying "put me in my tub"...then I had an idea. We wrapped her in a towel and put her tub toys in the basin and sat her on my lap and let her splash in the basin. She was so excited to touch the water she was laughing and smiling at us...we just sat there and cried.

Bath time came to be one of the saddest and least fun routine of the day after the cast. After a couple of days Mabel just didn't want to "splash" anymore. She was angry as we sponge bathed her and she almost seemed depressed that we weren't having tubby...I might add that we also always let her have some time playing diaperless before her tub and she was missing that too.

How did I reclaim bathtime? Simple, I started doing everything the exact same way as we did before the cast - everything right down to the letter pretending there was not cast. I would spread out the blanket and toys in her room for her to play and pretend that she was diaperless. I do clean her diaper area with warm water and re-diaper her in her bedroom before we "jump into the tub" and sometimes I use the hairdryer on cool to keep her cast dry...but she doesn't mind those new changes anymore. I would "draw her tubby" in the bathroom like always and then I got the idea to use her old infant bouncy seat in the bathroom in the spot we always put her tub. Then we would bring her into the bathroom (she was sooooo excited the first time we did this) and put her in the bouncy seat and sing our bath songs and play with our toys. I sponge bathe her in her seat, using extra towels under her I wring water using her face cloth over her hair to wash her hair as I did when she would sit in her tub. She brushes her teeth like she always did and we pretend we are in a warm tubby. After our tub she gets wrapped in her soft towel and carried to her bedroom to get her PJs on just like before and just like before there are lots of giggles and smiles...Mabel is happy...we are happy...bathtime is our time again!

Now, don't think I'm not counting the days until I can give my baby a proper bath...until then we have our pretend tubby!