My 18-month-old screams through every hair wash and I’m this close to just letting her have greasy bangs forever
Last night’s hair wash ended with me sitting on the closed toilet, dripping from the elbow down, one sock soaked through because I’d tried to block the bathroom door with my foot when she tried to scramble out mid-lather. She’s curled up on my chest now, all soaped and rinsed and pajamaed, sucking her thumb and completely over it, but I’m still tight-jawed from the whole ordeal. Her little nails left four pink half-moons on the side of my neck from how hard she clung when I tilted her back, and I keep rubbing them without thinking.
I’ve gone through all the tips the other moms on the playground spit out, okay? The little plastic visors that strap on to keep water out of her eyes? She rips that thing off before I can even get the strap buckled, and last week she threw it straight into the toilet. Had to fish it out and throw it away, obviously. The gentle rinsing cup that’s supposed to be way better than the shower head? She plays with it in the tub for 20 minutes, splashing herself and giggling, but the second I pick it up to rinse the shampoo out? It’s like I pulled out a snake. Cocomelon on my phone propped on the sink? That worked once, then she leaned back too fast to watch the nursery rhyme and bonked her skull on the tub edge, and now she won’t even look at my phone when we’re in the bathroom.
The weirdest part is, it’s not even the water in her eyes half the time. She’ll splash face-first into a puddle at the park, she’ll dump a whole sippy cup of water over her own head when I’m not looking, and cackle like it’s the funniest thing that ever happened. But as soon as I tip her head back to rinse? She goes rigid, then starts screaming like I’m hurting her. I thought maybe it’s the loss of control? That makes sense, she’s at that age where she wants to do everything herself. So I tried letting her wash my hair first, like that one tip I saw scrolling through a parent feed. She loved it! Got shampoo in my eyebrows, poured half a bottle of water down my shirt, thought it was the best game ever invented. When I asked if I could do hers next? She stepped back like I asked to eat her favorite stuffed bunny. Screaming resumed.
My neighbor texted me after the last particularly bad session, asking if everything was okay. I stood there holding a screaming baby, water all over the floor, and just stared at the text. What do I even say? “Sorry, just washing my toddler’s hair, she’s fine” sounds like I’m covering up something way worse. I ended up typing back “All good! Just a toddler tantrum, sorry about the noise!” and hid my phone. It’s so embarrassing. The other mom at playdate told me just to power through it, that it’s just a phase and she’ll get over it. But power through means 10 minutes of screaming that makes my ears ring, and I hate holding her down when she’s that scared. It feels wrong, you know? Even when I know I’m not hurting her, it feels terrible to see her that panicked.
I tried letting her sit up instead of leaning back, that was my own big idea. Big mistake. Water ran down her back, soaked into her diaper, and she hated that even more, plus I still got shampoo in the corner of her eye, so that just made the whole fear worse. My partner tried doing it last weekend to give me a break, and she was so stressed she peed in the tub. We had to drain everything, wipe her down, start over, and by that point she was so hysterical we just wrapped her up and called it, left her hair half soapy. Don’t tell the pediatrician. He swears he’ll never volunteer again, which is fair.
The only trick that’s worked even half the time is giving her a whole big bowl of puffs to hold while I rinse. She’s so busy shoving them in her mouth she forgets to scream, one out of three times. But the downside is she drops half of them in the tub, and they dissolve into this weird cloudy murky gunk that I have to scrub off the tub after, and last time she stuffed so many in her cheeks she choked on one, I had to tip her forward and pat her back, and that was another whole panic attack for both of us. So it’s not exactly a winning solution. I tried letting her hold the shower handle herself, too, so she could feel in control of the water. She turned it all the way up to hot before I could grab it, and that was that. Another fail.
This morning I was brushing her bangs back and there was a whole crumb of peanut butter stuck in there from breakfast, and I just stared at it. I know it’s a small thing. I know all kids go through weird phases, and this one will pass eventually. A lot of people have told me that by the time she’s three she’ll be begging to take long baths and wash her own hair a million times a day. But right now, it’s every three days, and I dread it. I plan my whole evening around when I’m gonna have to do the hair wash, and it makes my shoulders tight before I even turn the tap on.
I know a lot of you have been through this, right? Not the perfect “here’s how I fixed it” version you see on parent blogs, the actual messy version where nothing works for a while. What weird little hacks did you try that actually worked? The kind that don’t sound good on paper, that are a little silly or messy, but got the screaming to stop? I’ll take anything at this point. Even the hacks that only work half the time. I’m tired of leaving the bathroom more drained than the tub.
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