Bath Time Is Quality Time with My Son

My son and I’ve been taking a bath every night. Since my first son died in November, it’s been important for me to feel my second son more. For me, taking a bath together with my second son has been a way to feel his existence directly. I was hoping that it was good for his grieving also because we can both boost our oxytocin. After we get out of the bath, it was out ritual to drink some water, milk, or juice together.

But, the drawback of that is he sometimes pees during the night. Yesterday too, he peed, and I had to wash his sheets and comforter. My husband sees it and tells me that we should just stop letting him drink anything after he takes a bath. But I know how thirsty you become when you take a bath. Then my husband says just take a shower. But again, bath time has been our important bonding quality time, so I didn’t want to give it up. And most of all, my son himself enjoyed it so much, and he preferred taking a bath over taking a shower.

So, I had to come up with a solution. How can I come up with a win-win-win solution which fulfills everyone’s needs? My husband wants my son not to drink liquids after 8:30pm, but my son wants to drink something after taking a bath, and he doesn’t want to give up the bath time. I enjoyed the quality bath time as well…

In the end, I came up with this solution. We’ll take a bath before dinner, so we can enjoy the bath, and my son can drink whatever how much ever until 8:30pm. That way, we don’t have to worry about the chance of him peeing while he’s asleep. If he doesn’t pee and I don’t have to do wash the sheets and comforter, then my husband will be happy.

I started changing our habit/schedule on that day. It was nice that we truly enjoyed the bath without worrying about time. Then we drank whatever we liked afterwards, and stop taking fluids after 8:30pm. We had more quality time before he goes to bed.

The next morning, which is this morning, we saw that his sheets were clean! He did not pee! I’m thankful my husband suggested the idea, and I’m proud of myself for coming up with the win-win-win solution. I’m happy I get to enjoy taking the a bath together with my son.