23 month old hates baths

My 23 month old daughter has decided she absolutely HATES bathtime.
She used to love it, and would play for as long as we'd let her, but
for about 2 months now will scream and cry. If I get in with her and
hold her it works a little bit better, but as I am nine months pregnant
it just doesn't work that well right now. In general she loves water,
goes swimming in the pool every day, and we rinse her off with a hose
afterwards. Every few days or so I wash her hair (yes, in the backyard
with a hose, she LOVES getting squirted) so getting her clean isn't so
much of an issue. I thought if we just dropped it for a while she
might get over her dislike/fear of bath, but no such luck.
Showers are even worse. We've tried new toys- bathtub paints, and an
Elmo bath doll, but no luck. She gets a big kick out of watching me
give Elmo a bath, but wants no part of it. Any suggestions? She's
pretty resistant to having much of anything "done" to her, such as
toothbrushing, dressing, diapers, nails, hair combing etc, but bath is
by far the worst.


Sooner or later it's going to be winter and the backyard hose bath
won't work so well. My only hope is that she sees the new baby getting
a bath and wants in on the attention, or that she outgrows this phase
before it gets cold.

Thanks
JJ

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