On Bath time and Tantrums

After more than two weeks of my daughter not letting her father give her a bath, she finally allowed him bath time today. She started not letting her father give her a bath after a tantrum breakdown.

She usually takes her bath time after we had our lunch. This way, I won't have to clean her up twice because she creates a lot of mess when eating now that she's learning to eat by herself. While I wash the dishes, her father cleans her up. I set it up this way so she'll have a father-daughter time too. But one afternoon, she had a breakdown because bath time didn't happen as schedule. It was not an all of a sudden kind of tantrum though.

I heard her asking her father for bath time but I'm not sure if he was busy or something, she didn't have a bath as scheduled. I saw that she was already yawning so I know she's feeling sleepy. The weather was also really hot, I know for sure she's not feeling comfortable. Then I heard her ask for a bottle of milk. All these were happening while I was cleaning the kitchen. I calculated that a few minutes more, and she will start crying.

And she did. She's sleepy and feeling really uncomfortable. Now, she's just crying and wouldn't talk to her father anymore. I know he wanted her to calm down first before they head to the bathroom but it was too late. I went to the living room to see what was going on, I saw her laying down on the floor, face down, kicking and punching while crying and growling.

I saw my husband feeling frustrated as well. It turns out he was busy doing some troubleshooting on the computer that's why he wasn't able to act on baby's request for a bath right away. They ended up going to the bathroom literally shouting at each other, while she was crying and growling. I let my husband try to handle the tantrums.

But then after that, my daughter became very firm in saying no when I tell her that her father is going to give her a bath. "Take a bath Tatay. No! No! No!" It was like that for weeks. But now, they have a renewed level of closeness. Now my husband knows that a tantrum should be avoided by paying attention to her even when he is working on something else. You know, like how mothers do when we work around the house. And now, my daughter knows that all she needs to do is to talk so we could understand what she is trying to say.

I wanted to step in to help that time but I thought he should also learn to figure out what to do in situations like this. A kid having tantrums, once it's already escalated at that level, is not that easy to calm down. He should also feel how I feel whenever me and my daughter gets those moments. I have had moments when I needed to step out of the house - literally just outside the house - to catch my breath when I feel flustered.

There were instances that I also shouted at her because I don't know know what else to do. I felt really bad about it, cried about it for some time. But I know now that dealing with tantrums is a normal part of parenthood. There may be instances that we would feel that we are in control. But there are times when we feel helpless against a little person who couldn't express her feelings properly yet.

I think we should not try too hard to make them stop crying right away. Toddlers crying - and throwing a huge tantrum - is their only way to let us know that they are frustrated because they don't understand how they feel. And when they're finally calm down, that's when we should talk to them to let them know what went wrong, what they should've done, what we should've done. Toddlers are surprisingly cognizant of how we react to things. Even to their tantrums. We are a work in progress, and it's alright.

I'm glad my husband and my daughter are now able to fix their differences. I'm happy she's letting him give her a bath again. That's one chore less out of my daily duties. LOL