Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Works-For-Me-Wednesday: Easy Hand Washing For Little Ones

My child is a clean freak. I realize the irony of having a 2 year-old BOY who doesn’t like to be dirty. And asks to use napkins when he eats because he doesn’t like to have anything on his hands. He is his Father’s son. (Not that I like dirt or anything. It just doesn’t bother me like it does them.)

So you can imagine that there’s a lot of hand washing going on around our house. Mostly I grab a rag in the kitchen and just clean the boy up. (The Husband takes care of himself most of the time.) But sometimes he wants to wash his hands at the sink. In fact, I think he wants to try a potty trip just so he can wash his hands.

And as much as I want to promote proper cleanliness and hygiene, it’s really a pain to let Caedmon wash his hands at the sink. He’s short for his age, so even with a stool, he still can’t reach the water in the bathroom sink.

One day after a successful try on the potty (his), it dawned on me. The bathtub is the perfect height. He’s always supervised when he washes his hands, so using the tub is not a problem. It’s much easier for him to lean over the side of the tub and stick his hands in the water than it is to move the stool, climb up to the sink, wash one hand at a time, then put the stool away. I can keep the soap on the bathroom counter and just pull it over to the tub when he needs his hands washed. Because it takes so long for the water in the tub to get hot, there's not really a danger of it getting too hot, especially since I'm right there with him.

It works for me. For more Works For Me Wednesday tips, head on over to We Are THAT Family.

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3 comments:

  1. Great idea! I might try that. I'll have to check the hotness of our water.

    Kristen

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  2. Good idea! Isabella is also too short to reach the water. However, if I show Charles this trick it might be a bad thing. So I'll just keep it a secret between me and Isabella. :-) Thanks for the tip!

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  3. Oh, I'd never thought of that, what a great idea!

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