Last week, the kid floated some poos in the tub, and it kind of freaked her out. At the time, she was just a little agitated, giving a bit of breathless narration as I tried to calmly scoop them out and into the toilet.
But since then, she's really been afraid of the tub. She won't stay in for more than 20-30 seconds at a time, and my wife--who's usually on bedtime bath duty--finally coaxed her to explain that, in fact, she was afraid of poo in the tub, and that she wanted to get toweled off and into a diaper ASAP.
What gives? Anyone who's encountered some tub, poo, or tub-poo anxiety and figured out how to clear it up?
Wow, only once? My daughter poops in the tub frequently, (I think the soothing warm water relaxes them and then nature just takes its course.) but she has never been scared afterwards. Although yesterday my husband called me and said "What do you do when the baby poops in the tub?" Uh, I don't know honey. Let her play around in it for a while?
So, if you get any tips on what to do to cure bathtup-poop phobia, I may have to use them on the husband.
I think you need to separate the two for her--ie. the bath, and the poo. She's obviously more scared of the poo. I know this is going to sound gross, and maybe you already do this, but when she does go in her diaper, let her see it, and just calmly explain what it is. As she gets used to the idea that its just a part of her bodily functions the fear should go away (did for us) and for us it even started us down the dreaded path of toilet training (since she was now aware of what she had done, and wanted to do something about it). Also have you seen that Taro Gomi book Everybody Poops? Might be worth getting.
Wow! I thought we were the only ones with this problem. Our 18mo old daughter just floated a couple the other day and became HYSTERICAL trying to vault herself out to the tub and screaming at the top of her lungs. It was a little disturbing to me, not because I was afraid of the poo but because she is normal the most chill happy baby. Daddy came and held her while I did the disenfect and we put her back in the tub after it was all clean again but she instantly wanted out. She has been a little wary of the bath ever since so we gave her a break of about 3 days with no bath and now she seems ok.
I am glad to know we aren't the only ones who had this problem!
I can't resist the opportunity to share my boy's experience and then draw a probably totally incorrect conclusion about boys vs girls.
The other night, my 20 month old son was playing with the various bathtub toys. He then stood into a sumo-like stance, which I didn't think much of until he pooped like you wouldn't believe. I thought his head would explode from the effort. He then sat back down and continued playing amidst the floating chunks. He couldn't have cared less. I imposed my somewhat higher standards upon him and cleaned up the mess (and him). There was a momentary quandary as I couldn't decide if it mattered if poop went down the bath drain (thus saving me a cross-bathroom trip).
This totally happened to me as a kid.
I was in the tub (must have been 3- 4 or so to remember it) with my sister (1 1/2 older than me) and a poop appeared in the tub. It freaked me out for quite a while.
I swear I did not do it, but since I was the youngest I was blamed ...