Mystery

Something has been baffling us since Emma and I both got the flu - she suddenly hates taking bath. It's a battle trying to bathe her because as soon as her feet touches the water, she'll shriek and wail. We've tried many different ways and methods to wash her and we're reluctant to just sponge her because it's not a good enough method to clean her completely, especially in this hot and humid weather. It's a mystery why she would just hate the water so suddenly when just prior to the both of us falling sick, she was enjoying her baths, splishing and splashing in the water. Roy did not even have a chance to put her in the water during the weekend when I was too ill to bathe her (that was two weeks ago) - she'll scream and cry as if she's entering a pot of boiling oil. Sigh...

It wasn't getting any better when I took over last week. I'd tried changing the timings of the bath (from morning to afternoon to evening); we went down to the baby fair to buy some bath toys to place in the tub; I'd tried placing her on my lap and rinsing her with the cup; I'd tried showering her instead of putting her into the bathtub; I'd even tried feeding her while bathing her! Predictably, nothing works. Sigh...

Roy suspects that she might have a nightmare about water or she could have been traumatized by something 2 weeks ago (what did daddy do or not do? hmm... =P). In desperation, I goggled about this and found out that it could be a phase babies go through. I really do hope it's just a phase.

For the past few days, I've been praying before bathing her - for God to remove her anxiousness and her fear of water. Prayer works! This morning, I successfully bathed her without a cry from her even though she still looked slightly frightened when I first lowered her into the bathtub. She stayed in the water for quite a while playing with her toys & she even started to splash the water a bit. It's definitely a major improvement from last week and I'm ecstatic over the change. Let's hope it'll be better tomorrow and that she'll soon start to enjoy her bath again.