Ever get to the end of the day and find yourself clockwatching for bath time……? I don’t know about you, but bath times in our household are a chance to take a breather before the onslaught of grizzly bedtime babes! That is, the kids are all contained in one plastic container and the screams that can usually be heard from the various corners of the house are now contained within this one plastic container. Add a comfy chair, a glass of wine and some music (preferably with headphones)…..and….bliss you have – while your darling children scream at each other. So with this in mind, there are a few wee activities that I’ve found extend bathtime out just that little bit longer, without any extra work …yippeeeeeeee!!!
- Coloured water. Turn the water to your child’s favourite colour using standard food colouring, even better, put small drops of a couple colours in and let them do the mixing! (this won’t stain your child’s skin, unless your child’s skin comes into contact with the food dye as it enters the water)
- The “paint in a container”. You know how I said a bath was one big plastic container? – well add to that some finger paints and let the kids go wild painting the inside of the bath. And the best thing; it washes away afterwards with the bathwater!
- The ‘glow worm cave’. If you visit your local $2, you will find glowsticks for dirt cheap. For a treat, put the kids in the bath, snap a whole heap of glow sticks and turn the lights off! Wala!!! You have yourself a light spectacular!
- Bubbles, bubbles. If you have young toddlers that insists on blowing the nasty $2 shop bubbles, but are forever tipping the mixture on the floor, the bath is the perfect place to let em rip uninhibited.
- Get them involved. I’m a big believer in helping children to understand just how hard mum and dad work. Give them a rag each and let them help “clean the bath”. For some reason, when you add a kitchen timer in with this one – they get all in on the time pressure – its ingrained in us all I’m sure!!!
Have fun with your next bath time,
