A few months ago, we noticed that our son, Keyan started being afraid of loud sounds. All of a sudden from one day to the next. It was difficult for us to understand as he had been sleeping with us in the lounge with the TV on for the first few months after he was born and was used to my husband, Gunther playing war games on the Xbox in the background. Noise should not be an issue for him! The hairdryer, vacuum cleaner, lawnmower....
After some research on this topic, we realized that this was normal behavior and nothing strange. A stage, just like the separation anxiety and tantrums we had already started experiencing. So for me this meant that vacuum cleaning was officially a challenge. And who minds that right? Well one has to clean at some stage! The same for my husband mowing the lawn. Each time either of us now does want to do either activity, we have to make a big thing out of it. Introduction of the vacuum cleaner or lawnmower, giving time to get used to it, see it and touch it and slowly switching it on and off. Letting him switch it on and off until we are all finally at a stage where we can go ahead and complete the task.
Then about 3 weeks ago, a new fear developed. The fear of Bath time. Oh NO! Can you imagine what this is like? Each night when I would put Keyan into the bath, he would scream and automatically one leg would come out of the bath and he would grab at me trying to pull himself up. I read into the topic and everywhere I found this is normal behavior and toddlers can develop fears such as this one for no apparent reason. I received advise from numerous sources, friends and family and tried them all. From bathing in a different bathtub, a different room, outside in the garden, new toys and games, to even trying in the sink and so on and so forth and just as I was about to become truly frustrated, I tried one last thing that was apparently recommended by doctors, and it WORKED! The solution was to add an inch of water into the bathtub at a time and slowly increasing this by a single inch each day until back to normal. I started off as instructed by placing him in only shallow water, and each day would increase this a little as he would become more and more comfortable with the idea.
And today, four days in, I struggle to get him out of the bath again from all the play and fun. The joys of Toddlerhood...
“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.”
Photo 1 Attribution: by Kristian Thogersen
Photo 2 Attribution: by Till Westermayer, tillwe
