9mo screams and cries when I wash her face - any tips

[Santosha]

DD seems to feel that getting her face and hands wiped after a meal is akin to assault. She gets really really upset and writhes around in her chair to avoid the face washer.

Does anyone have any tips as to how I might make this process easier for both of us?

[gypsy79]

I don't have any advice, just wanted to say that my DS is the same and my nephew was too. The good news is that by about 18 months or so my nephew had grown out of it. I'm still waiting...

I think I remember reading another thread about this recently, but I'm not sure where, sorry. Have a look around in the baby section.

[~Kim~]

I make it a game, I sing, or play boo...whatever it take to distract him.

[AnyDream]

I have found approaching from behind, hand on forehead to hold the face still - then quick wipe, try to do it so you don't have the mouth or nose fully covered by the facewasher, which requires holding the facewasher around your fingers and not across your palm, if that makes sense. Sometimes I would use a container, put a bit of warm water and a squirt of bath lotion in it (so that it smells the same as bathtime) and let her splash in it a bit - good for when the hands are really mucky.

[aussienic]

I would either do what Md suggested or give bub a washer to chew and play with and they will do the job themselves

[melsa31]

There was another thread about this very recently and I took advice from it as my DS is the same. I sing 'this is the way we wash your face' to him and have my face quite close to his so I have his attention and he stops thrashing around and listens long enough for me to clean him up!

[Santosha]

Thanks so much girls. Some great suggestions here. Today at lunch I just let her play with the washer for a while and then made a very silly game out of getting the rest off her face and got nothing more than a scowl (that quickly turned into a grin).

I'll try giving her a dish of water sometimes too, though she LOVES to splash so this one's gonna be messy!!