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When Thomas was 6 months old, I put him in the bathtub for the first time.  After sitting in the bath for a little while, he fell over and panicked.  I took him out of the bath, dried him off and got him dressed.  Since that time, he has hated the bath.  As soon as I would put him in, he’d start grabbing my clothes, crying, and pulling himself up.  I would quickly wash his hair and body, rinse him and take him out.  For months I have worried that he would always hate baths and swimming and I have fretted that each panicked crying bath just reinforced his hatred of baths.

He has recently discovered the dishwasher and one of his favorite activities is splashing in the small amounts of water that collect on the lid after the dishes are washed.  I decided that I was going to try to break him of his bath fears by using his interest in splashing in small amounts of water.  So I put a very small amount of water in the sink and put him in.  He started to panic, but I redirected him to the water and gave him a drink from his sippy cup (he loves his sippy cup).  He started to play just a little and gradually, he started to relax.  By the end of the sink bath, he was actually enjoying it:

I wanted to reinforce our success, so the next day I gave him a bath in the tub.  He took to it quickly and enjoyed the water.   He did panic a little when he slipped and got his face and head all wet, but instead of pulling him out and ending his bath with a negative experience, I was able to calm him down while he was still in the water.  He started leaning forward and drinking the water straight from the bath.  He slipped multiple times and got his head and face wet, he stood up, walked along the inside of the bath, splashed, and played with toys. I was greatly relieved to finally have him happy in the bath.(I wrote the above portion about a month ago)

Now he has had many more baths and he mostly likes them. He does panic if I put him in a bath with just Nicole, but he loves to bathe with Ila.