by Lindsay Small
Bath time is the perfect opportunity for parents and children to
really get to know each other and spend quality time together.
How you view "bath time" is up to you. Many parents choose to
treat it as a chore and dread the evenings - as do their
children. In many homes, bath time is about as boring as
brushing teeth. You, however, can choose to turn bath time into
something special, which both you and your child will look
forward to every day. For a child, bath time should be a
transition between the noisy, busy world of day and the
peaceful, cosy world of bed. With very little effort on your
part you can make it a magic time for both of you.
How do you inject some magic into bath time? Firstly, by
prioritizing it. Fix a time for baths that works around meals,
cooking, welcoming home your spouse, making evening telephone
calls and relaxing - and establish that time for both you and
your child. If the phone rings, leave the answer machine to pick
it up. Try to do a quick tidy-up with your child before bath
time, so that you aren't faced with a horrible mess afterwards -
that way it becomes a transition between day and evening for you
too. Make sure that you set aside enough time so that you aren't
rushing and nagging your child to hurry.
Now, to make bath time fun! Here are some suggestions for adding
magic.
Bubbles: Have an assortment of bubble baths suitable for your
child. As long as you don't choose anything too harsh, you don't
have to stick to children's products, which can have very
unnatural scents and colors. Include basic baby bubble bath and
some therapeutic bath salts for energetic, sporty days. Display
your different bottles and make a show of choosing which bubbles
you will use each night. Perhaps if your child has been helpful
tidying up, they can choose?
Essential Oils: Two drops of lavender or chamomile essential oil
(no more!) added to the bath and stirred in well will soothe and
calm a fractious child after a long day. For variation, and to
be sure that the oil disperses well, you can also add the drops
to a cup of milk before adding to the bath. We sometimes use an
unscented mild bubble bath with the essential oil.
Candle light for special occasions: This is obviously only
suitable for well-supervised bath times - but kids really do
love the atmosphere of a candle lit bath. We would suggest that
candles are lit only when the children are in the bath, and are
extinguished before they climb out to be completely safe.
Warm towels and pyjamas: Especially pampering in the winter
months, children love to get out of the bath into a warmed towel
and pyjamas! Little touches make all the difference.
Poetry night: In our household, every Friday night bath time was
poetry night. We chose Friday night because we often had other
children round to play on a Friday afternoon and that meant that
our kids were often over-tired and irritable when it came to
bath time. We found suitable poetry in the library and on the
internet, stored any printed pages in plastic file folders to
keep them splash proof, and tried to introduce an interesting
variety of poems to the kids. In reality, we read the same
favorite poems over and over again!
Bath toys: Rotate bath toys ruthlessly so that there is always
something interesting to play with! Every so often you can raid
the kitchen for suitable implements too - children love playing
with sieves, whisks, measuring cups and jugs. Our kids would
play endlessly with a plastic funnel, plastic bottles (some with
holes punched in them) and a couple of plastic jugs. If you
don't want to use your own kitchen equipment, you can find these
things very cheaply at garage sales and dollar stores. A plastic
colander doubles as an excellent storage basket.
Fun foam toys: You can buy fun foam shapes in buckets, or you
can buy the foam at the craft store and cut your own shapes.
Perhaps you could change your shapes to match holidays and
seasons - flowers for spring and summer, Christmas trees at
Christmas, bunnies and eggs at Easter? There are many possible
learning activities too: cut pieces to teach colours, shapes,
numbers or the alphabet, and practice matching, grouping,
sorting, ordering and so on.
Shaving foam sculpture: Squirt a few large blobs of shaving foam
onto the side of bath or into your child's hands (warn him to
keep it away from his eyes) and let his imagination take over!
Music and story tapes: Bath time is a good opportunity to
introduce music of all kinds or to listen to a special story on
tape or CD.
Blowing bubbles: For a special treat, bring some bubble blowing
mixture into the bathroom. Make sure that it doesn't get into
anyone's eyes!
Colorful baths: A few drops of food coloring will transform the
bath into something exotic! Try orange or green at Halloween,
red or green at Christmas, red for Valentine's Day and so on.
Keep the bottle well out of children's reach!
Language night: A friend used bath time once a week as "language
night", teaching her kids French by listening to French tapes
and singing French songs. She decorated the room with small
colorful posters, made by cutting up old exercise books or
printing pages off the net and laminating them, which she stuck
around the bath with sticky-tack. Any bath toys used that night
were objects that could be named in French (plastic vegetables
from her child's shop, plastic boy and girl dolls, and so on).
Finally, remember that in a few short years the whole ritual of
bath time will be long gone and your children will be old enough
to shower or bath on their own - resisting any attempt from you
to interfere! Have you noticed how eagerly a grandmother runs
her grandchild's bath and splashes and plays for much longer
than necessary? If you asked her she would tell you to make the
most of bath time while you can. Whatever you do now to make
bath times magic will be repaid a thousand times in memories for
you and your children in the future!
About the author:
Lindsay Small is the owner of Activity Village, packed full of
fun and educational activities for kids. Do you have children
aged 2-10? Visit
http://ww.ActivityVillage.co.uk to find free
kids crafts, printables, educational resources, worksheets,
coloring pages and puzzles, jigsaws, Sudoku for kids and much
more!
