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!