10 Real Reasons Kids Fight Taking a Bath

February 1, 2012

Do you have a child that hates taking a bath? What do you think the reason is? Sometimes adults feel like kids are just being difficult when they refuse to take a bath and that there isn’t a real reason behind why they don’t want to take a bath. However, sometimes there are real reasons why they resist. Check out 10 real reasons kids fight taking a bath.

Fear of water: Some kids could have a fear of water. It does happen and when kids get older their ability to voice their fears improves. Maybe they choked on some water in a baby pool once or they knew someone who drowned. That could have caused them to fear water and wonder if the same thing could happen to them.
Painful rash: Kids can get a nasty case of diaper rash or variations on diaper rash that are extremely painful when they hit warm water. Even older kids could get a rash brought on by an allergy to laundry detergent. If parents always send them in to shower by themselves then there is no way that they would know what is going on. Older kids might be embarrassed to say something about a rash. Rashes are sometimes brought on by medications and it could be serious so look deeper into why your child doesn’t want to take a bath.
Fear of going to bed: Some kids suffer from night terrors or nightmares and have a fear of going to bed. Many bedtime routines include taking a bath so it’s not unusual for a child to think that if they can prolong the bath that they will prolong having to go to bed. Getting to the bottom of their fears is important so you can give them the help they need.
Get too cold afterwards: It’s not fun to get out of a nice warm bath and get really cold. It’s possible that your child is really sensitive to temperature changes and just dreads getting into hot water only to get out and be really cold. Helping kids by bringing a heater into the bathroom or drying them off quickly afterwards may help them not dislike the experience so much.
Don’t like getting hair pulled afterwards: My daughter has long hair that tends to get really tangled when she washes it. She has actually told me that she hates taking a shower because she doesn’t want to get her hair pulled. While we try our best not to pull her hair we have added a spray-in detangler to her routine so she doesn’t hate it quite so much.
Hate cleaning the bathroom up: Both my kids hate that they have to pick up towels and wipe up any water on the floor when they get done with a shower. They also have to pick up their clothes and take them back to their room. For some reason they hate doing this and this will cause them to fight taking a bath.
Hate the blow dryer: Some girls hate the blow dryer. The sound is loud and it blows their hair in their face which they don’t like. Going to bed with wet hair or going out in the cold with wet hair isn’t a good option so sometimes blow drying is a necessary evil. To avoid this fight you might move the bath time from bedtime to maybe the morning or after school when there’s more time to let it dry naturally.
Don’t want to miss out: If you have particularly social kids or you are doing something really fun as a family it can be hard for a child to leave the fun to go take a shower or bath. Try to let your child know that you will pause the movie or the game until they get back. To avoid this you might change bath time to after school when there isn’t so much family fun going on.
Afraid of falling in the shower: Children can get a little careless in the bathtub and maybe they have slipped or fallen in the past. Having a fear of falling or getting hurt is actually pretty common. To help with this you might put rubber grips on the bottom of the bathtub to give them better traction.
Hate getting sprayed in the eyes: Once a child reaches a certain age they are better off taking a shower versus a bath. Girls with long hair have a hard time washing their hair by themselves in a bath so a shower works out better. However, they are still pretty short and may hate having the spray get in their eyes. A solution for this is a shower head that attaches over the faucet and can be suction cupped to the wall at whatever is an appropriate height for your child.

← 10 Ways to Tell a Child You are Sorry | 10 Tips for Disciplining Kids in Front of their Friends →

8 Responses to 10 Real Reasons Kids Fight Taking a Bath

Leave a Reply to Georgina Cancel reply

Lisa @ Two Bears Farm says:

February 7, 2012 at 11:19 am

We went through a stage where my oldest was frightened, after the shower curtain made a loud noise once when I pulled it back too fast. Thankfully, he got over it

admin says:

February 7, 2012 at 1:24 pm

Haha, too funny!! Glad he recovered from the experience!

Georgina says:

April 30, 2012 at 6:38 am

We got lucky when our son was a newborn because he LOVED taking a bath – even as young as 6 weeks old. Now we have a routine – bath, PJs, bottle, bedtime. Bathtime signals that it’s time to start winding down for the night and then the three of us hang out as a family while our son takes his last bottle before bed – it’s a special time for us!

Emma Jones says:

September 10, 2012 at 4:04 pm

Our 10 yr old LOVES to take baths and HATES to take showers. The water spraying down on her really freaks her out!

Mary says:

February 3, 2014 at 6:01 am

I’ve started using a product called DryBath “the world’s first bath-substituting gel”, first invented by some high school student 5 years ago. It took some time to get used to the idea when my husband suggested it, but the product works better than I thought. It works wonders on those days when my kid throws a tantrum about bathing, I use it as a great treat for him during some weekdays. You can see it at http://goo.gl/18jnbP, and make sure to watch the inventor’s funny TED Talk about it on http://goo.gl/Et1Boj . Haha I’ve actually started using it on lazy days, and the company also has a funny campaign where they’re trying to get people to skip showers for a whole weekend.
Hope you find it as useful as I did :-).