Pumping Work for Hand Washing Independence

In the last month or so, Tyler has spent a good chunk of his days in the bathroom washing his hands, brushing teeth and putting lotion on his skin. He does this routine over and over again! I'm glad I know that toddlers are a bit obsessive compulsive by nature or I'd be a bit concerned! The trickiest part for him through his hygiene routine has been pumping hand soap from the container, especially on the thin ridge of our pedestal sink. To help him with his independence in this area, I designed a work so he could practice this skill.

The tray consisted of a cassorole dish, a recycled soap dispenser with a bit of soap (plus a drop of blue food coloring for fun) and a sponge for wiping spills.

It took a bit, but Ty figured out how to push straight down to pump the water out. The bottle slipped of  quite often as he didn't always want to steady it with his other hand.

I provided a sponge for him to clean-up his spills on the tray which he did well with. This is new, as he simply didn't care to sponge spills in the past. I think he's better with this now because I've been having him help me clean-up his every day spills on the floor quite often.

Squeezing the water from the sponge back into the dish on his own. He remembered our sponge transfer work!

Ty decided it was time to wash his hands, though I don't think he got anything out of the bottle this way.

His hands were already soapy from his successful pumps and cleaning up the water, so he went to work washing.

Then came the silly part. He decided to (carefully) dump the water onto the tray and put the dish on his head. I was contemplating stopping the activity at that point, but he quickly became interested in the soap bubbles dripping down onto the tray and himself. I could see his inner scientist at work and decided to let him experiment. 

Finally, he somehow made a large bubble on the tray! He removed the dish and tried to create more bubbles by moving his hands around. After every little bubble he could find was popped, we ended the work!

Ty showed wonderful focus with this work, which shouldn't be too surprising to me as anything with water is typically a hit for him. I realized shortly after this work that when we try again, I will have him stand instead of sit, as your shoulders are typically over the pump with straighter arms. I think he may be even more successful this way. If pumping the soap still becomes tricky for him and we have a similar sink when we move, I will switch to bar soap so he can be totally independent.

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