In this article we will talk about games with the baby while bathing, because every caring father, every loving mother wants her baby to be fun and pleasant while bathing.
Do you play with your baby while bathing? There must be laughter in the bathroom, and the foam flies into the air like miniature soap bubbles. When it's time to finish bathing, you feel guilty. It is reassuring that tomorrow night the baby will again have fun and splash in a warm bath.
First, you simply wipe the child with a damp cloth. Read more about that, written in our other article. A couple of weeks after birth, you need to move on to more intensive procedures. When a small wound remains in place of the umbilical cord, you should bathe the child in the bath. Parents carefully fill it with boiled water. Experts say that such foresight is superfluous. After bathing, you will still treat the wound with brilliant green. When the skin in this place is tightened, you can "relocate" the little one to a large bath. Now bathing is not only a hygiene procedure, but also entertainment. First, the baby should get used to this amount of water. An easy way to show your child that water is supportive is to let him lie down on it. Be sure to help the little one, because he can’t do it on his own! Support it with one palm under the neck, and with the other under the back. Do not rush, “swim” first to one end of the bath, then to the other. After a month, add new sensations. Bring the child closer to the walls of the tub with arms and legs. The baby will push off the surface, strengthening his muscles.
When the little one learns to sit on his own, bathing will turn into real entertainment. He feels much
freer than before. Do not pour too much water into the bath. Place a rubber mat on the bottom of the tub. It will prevent slipping. First, the child learns to make a fountain - hit the water with his palm, and then the storm
- dip the handles up to the elbow in water and move them back and forth. Give your baby rubber toys. Take
rubber duck and hold it at the bottom of the tub. Then abruptly release it, and it will fly out from under the water. The little one will love it!
Bathing a baby from one to two years. Improving coordination
Bathing water should be cold. The child will actively move in it. Too hot water negatively affects
on the heart. It is more difficult to move in the water than in the air, so muscles are strengthened while swimming.
Pour some baby foam into the bath. While the bath is full, the mountain of foam will grow to the size of the Himalayas. Can
imitate a snowball fight. Foam will help you wash your little one's head without any problems. Shampoo on the hair also becomes foam, and without it you would not be able to create so many original hairstyles. Yes, and Santa Claus is very funny!
Give the little one a bucket. Let him draw water into it, and then pour it over himself. A replacement can be a brand-spot. Take
the most ordinary plastic bottle. The baby will lower it under water and watch how air bubbles leave the bottle and are replaced by water. When the bottle is full, you need to point the neck at the wall and squeeze the plastic sides.
Bathing in the bath of a child from two to three years
Toddlers at this age love to experiment. Water is a great opportunity to learn something new. The size of a container can be determined while swimming. Give your baby a cup or bowl made of plastic. Let the child
use the cup to fill the bowl. How many cups of water did he need? Explain to the little one what volume is. Freeze a decoction of chamomile or black tea. When the baby is swimming, give him an ice cube. Invite him to put the cube on the bottom and see what happens. The cube will disappear. Let the baby touch and understand that the water near the cube has changed its color and become cooler.
The play panels that are attached to the edge of the bath help the baby understand that the water has a certain power. pouring out
some water on the blades of a water mill, the little one will see how they rotate. This is the energy of water.
You can introduce the child to such a characteristic as weight. Show the little one how fast the spoon sinks. Is it
do plastic spatulas and wooden scoops sink quickly? Whoever reaches the bottom faster, he weighs more. Experiment with a rubber frog and a small balloon. Tell your child why these items don't sink. Child
looking forward to the next experiment! Thus, bathing for a child with game elements will become not just a hygiene and health procedure, but also an exciting game, and he will look forward to every bath.
delight!
We also highly recommend watching an interesting video on the topic " What games can you come up with during
bathing your child».
A visit to the bathroom can also keep your child entertained and free you up for some time to do chores or just relax. Small children should not be left alone in the bathroom: you will have to watch the baby. But in the bathroom, the child can perfectly occupy himself. And if you provide him with a basin filled with water, he will successfully take up bathing toys, giving his parents the opportunity to go about their business. Bath toys can be stored in the bathroom.
Bath time can be a way for your baby to explore the world. Give your child different things that float and sink, plastic cups of various shapes, unbreakable cups. Let your baby try to drown “unsinkable” toys or leave heavier objects afloat, see that a glass filled with a small amount of water floats quite successfully. All this contributes to the development of the child.
foam patterns
With the help of ordinary shaving foam, a child can paint the walls of the bathroom. Tile launders beautifully. And with shaving foam, your baby will give an outlet for his energy and creativity. To diversify the game, provide the child with a shaving brush or a brush for drawing. You can give your shaving foam other colors by adding a small amount of food coloring to it.
And after the “beauty” in the bathroom has been induced and the child is bored with this activity, invite him to wash off the soap patterns. For this, a water gun or a plastic bottle with a hole made in the lid is useful. Let the kid take aim at the soap targets. This exercise will help in training the eye.
Cleanliness is the key to health
Encourage your child to clean up the bathroom before bathing. Give him an old toothbrush, a sponge, a bowl of water. The kid will enthusiastically take care of cleanliness in the territory allotted to him, giving his mother the opportunity to do her own thing. You can also ask your child to wash his toys.
Floats or sinks
Invite your child to buy some toys in the bathroom. Let the baby divide his toys into floating and sinking. Encourage your child to guess which household items (shampoo bottles and liquid soap, pots and cups, dishwashing sponges and washcloths) will float, and some will sink. In parallel, you can tell your baby that objects that can float on the surface of the water weigh less than water.
Baby pool
Purchase thin foam sponges. Cut out a variety of figures from them - fish and flowers, balls and starfish. Your baby can play with these sponges while sitting in the bath, and then wash himself with their help.
Water transfusion
Invite the child to pour water from one vessel to another. Give your child plastic bottles, jars and cups different sizes and flowers. Through this fun game for toddlers, children begin to develop quantitative ideas. At first, the child will be convinced that there is more water in a tall and narrow bottle than in a low jar of exactly the same volume. But gradually your baby will come to the conclusion that both containers contain the same amount of water.
Being in the water is not only physically pleasant, but also very interesting. Vo-yes - an environment absolutely different from air, which has unique properties that kids will learn with rapture in the game. Adults no longer notice these “miracles” or simply cease to be surprised at them, and if you remember the famous story about the creation of the law of Archimedes, then there is something for adults to think about! Toys are designed to stimulate the learning process and make it fun and exciting. Moreover, they should not at all be expensive or technically complex - in most cases, you can get by with simple household items: a ladle, a mug, a colander. Probably, the first thing that a young bather from one to two years old pays attention to is the temperature of the water. No wonder, because the comfort of his sensations depends on this: someone prefers coolness, and some like it hot. It is quite difficult to experience the action of cold and hot air at the same time (except perhaps with the help of a hair dryer), but with water everything is much simpler: you can collect several containers of water of different temperatures and try to guess where it is, checking with delight and squeal the correctness of your guesses. The same containers of different sizes can be used to learn how to correlate objects not only in size, but also in shape and volume. The child very quickly learns simple truths: for example, he understands that it is impossible to pour all the water from a liter saucepan into a glass.
Simple and great
To play in the bath, the child needs, among others, transparent containers, preferably, in addition, different colors. In such bright vessels, one can observe interesting effects of light refraction: objects change color, shape, as if they become larger or blur. If you have a small mill, you can play "water carrier", which must constantly add water so that the movement of the blades does not stop. And you can put the mill under running water - it will spin by itself. If there is no mill, you can observe the same effect of movement if you substitute a small ball under the jet, which will begin to spin under the pressure of the water.
Sea stories
lovely story games in the water you can arrange with the help of figurines of people or animals. You can play the classic story about a fisherman and a fish with any small human figure and a rubber fish, and if the child is already addicted to watching cartoons, then he can easily reproduce in detail the story of the brave Nemo fish. The ships provide an opportunity to play sailors - and the complexity of the design of the ship does not really matter, it is more important that its “team” be selected taking into account the interests of the child and his knowledge in the field of fairy tales and other stories. You can just play the journey of your favorite toy across the seas or oceans or repeat the adventures of your favorite heroes of adventure stories - Captain Vrungel or the pirate Flint. If the kit includes not only a ship, but also human figures, such a toy has additional advantages. It not only provides an opportunity for thematic "sea" games (with the help of characters: captain, sailor, pirate), but can often combine the properties of a constructor game (for example, each figure corresponds in shape with a special recess in the deck of the ship) or to fit in size and shape as pupae for the finger theater.
Types of bathing toys
The simplest toys for playing in the bath for children from one to two are various rubber animals: ducks, fish, dolphins, frogs and other cute waterfowl. Games with them depend only on your imagination. When choosing, you need to be guided by your own preferences, not disregarding quality issues, especially if the child is very small and he is still interested in toys as objects for biting and licking. "Rubber" toys are made mainly of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) with the addition of an ingredient such as phenol. The name is scary, but this substance is actually found in everyday items quite often. Phenol is dangerous only in very high concentrations, however, if the toy is of high quality, it should indicate that it was made with a minimum percentage of this ingredient.
The duck, still loved and relevant, is far from the only waterfowl friend for kids. The toy industry, in an effort to keep pace with technological progress, is constantly creating more and more complex designs - even for the smallest. When choosing water friends for a child, you can find, for example, a hungry pelican, which with its huge beak can scoop up water along with small fish swimming in it. Or, for example, a game for young gardeners, which includes a special " flower pot”, which is attached to the wall of the bathroom with suction cups, and a watering can. When, after “watering”, the water level in the pot rises, bright plastic flowers “grow” out of it to everyone’s joy. A variety of rubber toys - "sprinklers" - are not only a great opportunity to fool around, but also an excellent tool for training hand muscles and coordination of movements. If you do not spare the walls of the bathroom and install a target on one of them, you can arrange real competitions in the accuracy of shooting with water.
We create miracles
Air and water are a magical combination. It is very simple to see how air and water interact: just take a few plastic tubes of different caliber and, blowing into them, watch the fountains of bubbles that invariably delight the child's soul. You can dilute a little shampoo or shower gel in a bucket (provided that a child from one to two years old does not taste the mixture) and get a cloud of foam made “on your own” with the help of all that or tubules.
The greatest craftsmen can arrange “pipe games” contests by blowing some simple rhythms into the water. You can start with simple tasks, like: now we are blowing two long ones, three short ones, etc. Such fun activities develop not only the respiratory apparatus, but also imagination and discipline, since the baby needs to constantly monitor himself so as not to swallow water . Children who do not like to wash too much, and even more so do not experience any enthusiasm for soap suds or washing their hair, should be taught all these miracles. And you can also buy multi-colored sponges in the form of animals. With such a gentle friend, the process of gaining purity will be much more fun!
These simple bath games will help you have more fun with your baby. Time flies very fast and soon you will remember how great you spent time with your child in the bathroom and helped him make interesting discoveries!
Water is a magical medicine. It has a beneficial effect on both adults and children. While adults associate swimming with resorts, sun loungers and sports equipment, children get by with a bucket, two or three cups and bottles. Bathing is a great opportunity for entertainment, and therefore it seems unfair that time for it is often set aside at the end of the day, when children and parents are already tired. Troubles begin at a time when children still want to play, and adults dream of quickly sending them to bed, so that they can then wash the dishes, discuss some business among themselves, or just go to bed. Make bathing an enjoyable experience, not an annoyance. Treat it not as an annoying duty, but as joyful moments of fun. If your bathroom is spacious enough, bring a chair in there, and if not, put a rug in so you can kneel and lean towards the baby.
If you know you'll be busy for the rest of the day, try to bathe your baby before dinner. Two types of bathing can be introduced. Explain to the child that sometimes in the evenings, when there is no time, bathing will be only for “washing”. These days he should wash himself as quickly as possible. In this case, it would be nice to notice the time to find out how quickly your child can handle this case; or use an hourglass and let the bathing be over before the sand has run out. But on other days, you must find time to turn bathing into a game. You can use colorful bath mats to let your child know what kind of bath he will have today.
The bathing game is a pleasant way to end the day. Most children love to play with water and splash it around. Keep a hanger, net, or toy basket in your bathroom at all times.
Use some of the water games in this book and let your child create their own. But do not leave small children alone in the bath, even for a few minutes, until you are sure that they know how to handle water and know the safety rules. Never let toddlers get in and out of a slippery bathtub without the help of an older one.
Soap foam game
Your child can have a great time picking up shaving cream and painting bathroom walls with their finger. This is a great way to release energy, and who knows, maybe you will discover a young Picasso. It's also good to work with a shaving brush. It can be used while entertaining the baby while shampooing. And children who do not like having their hair washed are easy to keep busy collecting foam from their hair and painting walls with it.
While washing your hair, stop for a moment and try to "sculpt" a sculpture out of soapy hair. Bring a mirror so the child can see this "work of art" on their head.
Aquarium in the bathroom
Cut out fish-shaped pieces from inexpensive terrycloths or towels in different colors. They should not be too small, otherwise they will be unrecognizable, and too large, they will become heavy when wet. While bathing, let the child wash his feet with a red fish, and his nose with a green one. You can wash your hands and feet with a yellow fish, and other parts of the body with a green one.
How to cut
The shape of the fish is, as a rule, a horizontal oval, connected by a "sharp" side to the top of a small triangle.
Whistling screech
For fun, add some "sci-fi" elements to the bathing process. Break off a small piece of an Alka Seltzer tablet and place in a film box. You can also use a small plastic medicine box. Fill it up to the brim with water and close the lid tightly. Then give it to the child in your hands and let him feel the water bubbling inside. After a few minutes, the solution, breaking out, will produce a mini-explosion right in the bathroom. The lid will pop off and bubbles will crawl down the side of the box. Although the liquid is harmless and not dangerous to the eyes, it is still best to keep the box away from the child's face.
Magic water games
Here are a few more fun games in the bathroom. Have the child fill a plastic cup with water, then cover it with a piece of paper. Pressing it with his hand, he must turn the cup upside down. Now, carefully sliding over the paper, you can take your hand away. The trick is that the water does not spill out. (If you're having trouble, use a wider-mouthed, shallower container.) Your child may not realize that the air pressure on the bottom of the paper keeps the water from escaping, but he'll certainly enjoy some kind of "science experiment." Explain to him that the same laws that keep water in check help airplanes fly.
Such magical "scientific experiments" develop curiosity. Try another amazing experiment. Have your child crumple up a paper handkerchief or napkin and place the wad in the bottom of a plastic cup. Then he must turn it upside down, making sure that the paper remains inside. After that, you need to put the inverted cup on the surface of the water strictly horizontally. When the child picks it up, he will be amazed to see that the paper has remained dry. (But crumple the paper lightly and carefully. If you squeeze it too hard, it will fall out of the cup before the experiment begins.) Later, the child will learn that the air in the cup resists, creating an air bubble that prevents liquid from entering the cup.
Basketball
While swimming, you can even play basketball. All you need is a small foam ball and a large plastic bowl floating in the tub. Encourage your child to hit the "basket" three times in a row, or do it in six throws. But remind him not to get up in the bathroom.
Music in the bathroom
Bathing can also be aesthetically pleasing when accompanied by symphonic music or a choir from My Fair Lady, Elvis Presley or Elton John. Bring a battery-powered cassette recorder into the bathroom and your child will bathe every night while enjoying music as well. Classical music will calm an overly excited baby, rock music will support wild fun, but if you also want to sing, then turn on music from musicals. Music while bathing will be especially helpful if you feel tired and want to relax.
Dancing with a towel
If you have a tape recorder or radio playing in your bathroom, you can invite your child to dry off and dance to the music.
Lullaby in the bathroom
If the baby is too excited, do not turn on invigorating music during the bath, such as marches or country music. Instead, bring lullaby tapes to the bathroom and make the bath quiet and relaxing so that the baby can rest under these melodies caressing the ear.
shower time
As your child gets older, you can allow him to shower occasionally. In order for children to love the shower, at first it is necessary that they wash only under the supervision of their parents, and after a while they will no longer be afraid of water pouring into their faces. And then choose optimal time for swimming - morning or evening.
wash the bathroom
Let the child prepare the bathroom and wall tile cleaning supplies. For this, an old toothbrush, nail brush, scraper brush and sponge, as well as a thoroughly washed shampoo bottle, can come in handy. The kid will have fun filling it and pouring water onto a brush or sponge. Maybe the child will want dolls and other toys to be bathed too. When he diligently washed the bath, walls and toys, he would rub his little body with pleasure at the same time.
Bath for toys
Adults like to take a bath alone, but children are happy when someone keeps them company. Keep a small bucket in the bathroom with various plastic people or animals. Let the child decide which of them is better placed on the corners of the bath, and which ones will dive into the soapy foam this evening, while saying: "It seems we were told that it's time to soap and bathe."
Wash your nose, wash your feet
Sometimes it can be difficult to stop a merry child and get him to wash. Try to draw his attention to something: let the child wash each part of the body in turn. As you do this, quickly name individual parts of the body, especially those that are far apart (for example, the nose, and then the knees). This will add dynamism to the game and reduce the bath time, making the child wash faster. For a change, you can sing some kind of calm song * or while the child is washing, let him try to compose a rhyme about each part of the body.
Like this one:
We are not bored with a washcloth,
I rub my hands with soap
I rub my feet with soap -
This is me erasing myself.
Bubble
If you didn't know how much fun children get from playing with a plastic straw, now you have the opportunity. Bring some plastic cups or bowls and some straws into the bathroom. Let the child pour different amounts of water into them and try to blow bubbles in each of them. In what volume of water is it easier to blow soap bubbles - in small or large? Have him blow a huge bubble right in the tub, or as many bubbles as possible, or a hundred small bubbles, or just two bubbles. He will amuse himself by conducting a "scientific experiment".
Warning
Blowing bubbles is not safe for the breath of the youngest children. Wait until they are old enough to keep their eyes, ears, and mouths free of soap.
Shot at the target
By decorating the bath and walls with shaving cream or shampoo, your child has a great opportunity to wash them off. Using a water pistol or a plastic bottle, he aims at a soap target to hit it. Watch how long it takes. To test accuracy, invite your child to arrange light plastic toys - cubes, small animals or paper cups on the edge of the bath against the wall. The point of shooting is to drop the first object and move the rest from one corner of the tub to another or simply drop them into the water. Stack a few toys on top of each other to form a pyramid and let the child knock it over into the water with a shot - this will cause great delight, and besides, it will help in training accuracy.
Sinking or floating
Have your baby bathe a few toys in the tub (after making sure they won't get damaged by the water first). Have him dip each toy into the water and separate them into floating and sinking ones. If your toddler enjoys playing with floating toys, let him choose a few items in the kitchen to take into the bath and sort them out. Advise him to guess which of them will swim and which will not; then this, of course, needs to be checked.
Practical Knowledge
You can tell your child that objects that float on the surface of water are less dense, that is, they weigh less than water enclosed in the same volume. If the body sinks, then it is denser and weighs much more than the corresponding "water body". Don't explain too much. The ability to think abstractly in children comes later. Now your child is just experimenting. When his brain develops and is ready to perceive the theory, the experience will help him in his studies. This applies to many children's games. V preschool age it is not important that children absorb any knowledge, but that they accumulate practical experience, which they later use in the learning process. If your child asks “why?”, keep your answers simple and clear so that this question will benefit him, and not serve as an introduction to tedious ranting.
cute sponge
Buy large, thin foam rubber sponges from the store. Cut out different figures from them - it can be fish, flowers or a soccer ball. The child can play in the water with these fun sponges and then wash with them. You will see how much more interesting it is to wash with a yellow soccer ball than with a colorless old washcloth.
Cruise
It is not necessary to buy a whole fleet of ships for your little sailor. He will get no less pleasure by making simple boats with his own hands to play with them while swimming. Making a raft or boat is easy. If you want to build a raft, you must first eat the popsicle with pleasure, and keep the stick from it. Once you've eaten twelve pieces, you're good to go. Glue eight sticks side by side with four sticks, placing them across on one side of the raft and on the other - and you get a wonderful toy raft. To make a boat, you need to cut a sail triangle out of paper and glue it to a toothpick. Then fasten the toothpick mast inside a plastic box or paper cup and the ship is ready to sail.
Even though your kids are getting older, they still love to play boats in the bathtub. Stick a plastic-covered map on your bathroom wall and dream of a trip to Spain, Kathmandu or Zanzibar. See if you can get there by ship. So you will not only play with the child, but also be able to teach him a small lesson in geography.
From empty to empty
Children love to play with water, endlessly pouring it from one vessel to another, back and forth. Give your baby plastic jugs and bottles in different colors and sizes. From time to time, replace one vessel with another, changing their shape and size.
Piaget, a well-known child psychologist, believes that quantitative representations develop very slowly in children. This means that they will claim that a tall, narrow half-liter bottle contains more water than a half-liter jar, even if they pour the water from the bottle into the jar several times. Quantitative representations develop with age, and this process cannot be accelerated. But in children who have a lot of practical experience in playing with different volumes of water, these ideas are absorbed faster. Plus, the kids get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
Bath for a doll
Give the baby in the tub a big rubber doll and a sponge. Let him carefully wash every part of her body, commenting in detail on each of his actions. At the same time, you gently rub the same parts of his body.
Children's Corner
Have a few plastic frogs, fish, or little dolls host a festive tea party in the bathroom. Give your child toy cups, saucers, and glasses so that he can give them a decent treat.
Linen bath
Over the years, it is easy to forget how pleasant it is sometimes to stretch out in a warm bath, drowning in the foam caressing the body, and even remembering some nice scene from a movie of the forties. Children can do a great job of helping us remember this. Choose an evening when you need to relax. Reward each other with a bubble bath. You can do it together or send your baby to bed and enjoy it alone. If you catch yourself thinking: “I don’t have time for such nonsense,” repeat after us: “How bad it would be if life consisted only of work and there would be no pleasure in it at all.” This advice, by the way, is useful for both very busy and tired dads and moms who are always in a hurry somewhere.
anatomy lesson
Not everyone can conduct it, because knowledge of anatomy is required for this. But if your understanding of body structure goes a little further than understanding the difference between an elbow and a knee, you can safely use bathing to teach your child a fun anatomy lesson. One evening you can tell him where the solar plexus is located, barely. next time you explain where the esophagus is. Ask if your little one would like to wash their heels today. Let him have fun discovering new words for himself.
Here are some more bath games:
1. When you wash your child's hair with shampoo, you can make horns or a hedgehog, or a mohawk out of soapy hair. Let your child look at themselves in the mirror. Maybe after that he will begin to come up with other forms that you have not seen before.
2. And you can make a charming hat out of foam for a child. Let love. Then he will come up with models himself and thereby develop his imagination. It's great, right?
3.Foam can be drawn on the wall of cards
