Bathtime

How do you make your toddler’s bathttime safe and fun?

Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: My daughter loves to take a bath. At this age, she’s so small, it’s practically like swimming. When I tell my daughter that it’s time for her bath, she goes running up to the bathroom. I have to watch her very carefully because she wouldn’t hesitate to hop right into the tub.

I know the exact spot between the hot and cold marks to set the faucet handle so that the water temperature is safe. I check it anyway with my hand before I let my daughter get in the bathtub. I fill the tub with water only up to my daughter’s belly button. I sit right there next to the tub, of course, the entire time she’s taking her bath. I bring my phone into the bathroom with me in case it rings.

We have a bunch of bathtub toys, but I only let my daughter play with a few of them at a time. I like to rotate them so she can have a variety, and I want to make sure there is enough room for her in the tub.

My daughter loves to take a bath. I think she’d stay in the tub forever if she could.

—Rachel S. Rohde, MD, a mom of a one-year-old daughter, an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, and an orthopaedic upper extremity surgeon with Michigan Orthopaedic Institute, P.C., in Southfield, MI