How to diaper and bathe your crocodile baby

I love my baby. I truly, truly do. And I want to support him no matter what path in life he chooses to take. Unfortunately, he has currently decided that he wants to take the path of a crocodile (or maybe an alligator? I always forget which is which). Yes, my sweet angel baby has decided that any time I want to change or bathe him, he must grab on to the nearest object and put it into a death roll, crocodile/ alligator style. Gone are the days when we used to play games during our diaper changes. Gone are the nights of E staring peacefully up at me as he lounged in our little plastic tub. Those days and nights have been replaced by E's new thrash and roll routine.

This really irked me for quite some time. Again, I go back to the fact that I am a teacher that has rules and demands respect. I mean, hasn't a former student told this kid not to mess with me yet??? (Note to self- get our neighbor/ former student to talk to E as soon as he can comprehend English.) After too many crazy diaper changes and near death experiences in the bathtub, I decided I needed put the ingraining of the rules aside for now and get creative to solve this problem. I suspect that there are other little crocodile babies out there, so I thought I'd share what has worked for us. As always, if you have any tips or tricks that have worked for you, please let me know!

Crocodile diaper time
Diaper time is serious time in this house. Let's face it- the stakes are pretty high here. If you change your croco-baby on a changing table (the idea of which we have long since abandoned), you run the risk of your little critter hurling himself off the table. Additionally, if your baby decides to go into a full-on croc spin, there is huge potential for bodily fluids making getting all over your baby, your carpet,  and you, which is no fun for anyone.

So, what has worked for us? First, I dug out the good old Boppy. I never really used this thing for its intended purpose, but it has come in handy in many unexpected ways, so I don't feel bad about requesting it as a present. I place it so that it makes an upside-down U shape and recline Sir E so his head rests on the curved part. The sides act to gently sandwich his little body in there, making it a little harder for him to roll. At the very least, the shape slows him down a little and I'll take any help I can get! I also keep a few toys in our diaper bin for him to play with only during diaper changes. He loves making calls on his pretend cell phone as I clean up his cute little bum (probably to Grandma to complain about me).

"Hello, Grandma? Yeah, it's me, E. This lady doesn't know WHAT she's doing!"

Managing the baby croc in its natural habitat- the tub
Wow, as soon as we set E free in the big tub we ran into a mess of problems. He was concurrently learning to crawl and stand, and apparently the slippery, hard tub seemed like the perfect place to do it! What worked for us here was a LOT of persistence on my part. I was really firm about telling him not to stand in the tub and taking him out if he got too crazy. As a result, bathtime only lasted a few minutes for awhile, but it had to happen. What helped break the cycle of crawl-discipline-scream-tub ejection was putting E in the tub before it was filled so he could watch the water come out of the faucet. Our new tub also has a shiny part by the faucet, which plays right into his obsession with the baby in the mirror. "Watering" E with our hair rinsing bucket and surrounding him with lots of toys helped too. Oh, and having his toothbrush ready to bribe him with to avoid hysterics when bathtime is over. Who thought cleaning your baby could be so darn complicated? And why don't babies ever want to be clean, anyway? Ah, the mysteries of life.

So, that's what I've learned! Hopefully this helps someone. Later, gators :)!