My 18-month-old screams so loud during hair washing the neighbors probably think we’re hurting her
It’s not even an overexaggeration. Two months ago, the lady from next door knocked on our door right in the middle of a particularly dramatic hair wash. I opened it with a wet towel slung over my arm, my t-shirt soaked through from a flailing toddler, and a little bit of soap suds on my cheek, and she just stood there shifting her weight and said “I just wanted to make sure everything was alright over here.” I wanted to crawl into the bushes and never come out. I just laughed and said “it’s just hair wash night” and she smiled awkwardly and left, but I still see her glance over a little too quick when we pass each other getting the mail.
This whole thing came out of nowhere, too. For the first year of her life, hair washing was nothing. She’d splash around in the tub, I’d sing that stupid baby shark song while I poured water over her head, she’d grab the cup and try to pour it back on me. No fuss, no nothing. Then back in May we went to the community splash pad, some bigger kid ran past and knocked the overhead shower right into her face. She’d just rubbed sunscreen on her hands, got a bunch of it in her eye, and she sobbed so hard she hiccuped for 20 minutes straight after we got home. And ever since that day? Hair washing is a full blown war.
I’ve tried all the things people have told me to try, don’t get me wrong. The little plastic visor that’s supposed to keep water out of their eyes? I ordered it off Amazon, paid 10 bucks for this neon pink thing that came wrapped in enough plastic to fill a grocery bag. It slips down over her eyes anyway, and she hates the way the plastic feels on her forehead. Last time I tried to put it on her, she pulled it off so hard it flew right into the toilet. Had to fish it out and throw it away. My mom told me to just get it over with fast, like ripping off a band-aid. I tried that once, and she screamed so hard she threw up a little bit of the apple sauce she’d eaten for snack an hour earlier. That was fun, cleaning half-digested apple sauce out of the tub drain.
My partner tried to tell me I was coddling her, that I was making the fear worse by being too gentle. So one night he took over bath time, all confident like he’d figured it out. Ten seconds in, she was screaming so loud I could hear it over the TV in the living room, and by the time I got in there she’d arched her back so far she almost slipped out of his arms. He gave up after that, hasn’t offered to help again. We didn’t fight about it or anything, but we both just stood there wiping soapy water off the floor and I could tell we both felt like garbage. Like we’re both just messing this up, even though we’re trying.
Last week, something weird happened. It was 80 degrees, so I filled up that little plastic duck pool she got for her birthday out on the back patio, let her run around in just her diaper while I watered the tomatoes. She found my old childhood watering can, the chipped blue one my grandma gave me, and was running around watering all the plants. Then she turned it on herself, poured a whole big splash right over her head. I froze, right? I was already standing up to go comfort her, waiting for the scream. And she just blinked, shook her head like a wet dog, and giggled. Then she did it again.
That got me thinking. She’s in that whole “me do it” phase right now, right? Won’t let me put her socks on, has to climb the stairs by herself even if it takes 10 minutes and she trips twice, throws a fit if I try to help her put her blocks in the bucket. What if it’s not even the water in the eyes that scares her? What if it’s that I’m forcing it on her, that she doesn’t have any control over it? It made sense, sort of. But how do you give an 18-month-old control over hair washing when she can barely pour juice into a cup without spilling it all over the table?
I tried it last night anyway, just to see. I didn’t go into bath time with the rigid plan “we are washing hair today, no exceptions.” I just ran the water, put her in, let her splash and play with her ducks for 15 minutes until she was good and loose. I didn’t bring out the strawberry shampoo she liked until she was climbing on my leg to see what I was doing. I put a tiny dot on my hand, held it out for her to smell, and she said “yummy” just like I hoped. Then I said “can I put just a little bit on the ends of your hair? You can hold the cup, okay? You get to say when we stop.”
She held the cup. I rubbed a tiny bit of shampoo into the ends, didn’t go near her scalp yet. Then I asked her to pour some water on my hand first, then her knee, then her shoulder. She did all that. When I asked if I could pour just a tiny little bit to rinse the shampoo out, she nodded. She tensed up so hard her little hand squeezed mine so tight I still have a tiny indent from her nail this morning, but she didn’t scream. When she said “done” two minutes later, I stopped. We didn’t get the whole head washed, there’s still a little crumb of oatmeal stuck in the bangs from breakfast yesterday that I didn’t get out, but it was something. It was better than the 10 minute scream fest that leaves my ears ringing and my shoulders aching from hunching over the tub holding a twisting kid.
But I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still fumbling. I don’t know if I should push a little more next time, or just keep going this slow, one tiny step at a time, until she’s ready. I read somewhere that this can last up to three years old, and that feels like forever. I’m tired of walking on eggshells around bath time, tired of the neighbor’s side-eye, tired of crying in the hallway after bath time some nights when I’m just so overwhelmed.
I know everyone says it’s just a phase, all phases pass, blah blah blah. But right now, it’s just messy and annoying and I’m stuck. If you’ve been here, what did you actually do? Not the fancy hack you saw on Instagram that works for the camera, the messy, half-broken trick that actually got you through. I’ll take anything at this point.
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