What to Do When a Child Poops or Pees in the Bathtub

Bath time may not always go exactly according to plan, but it should still be a relaxing time for you and your kid. Sometimes it’s too relaxing for the kid. Even potty-trained children can get distracted and poop or pee in a nice warm bath. When that happens, the immediate question is how to handle a very gross situation quickly. The next question is whether pee or poop in the tub is dangerous. After all, can’t a baby get pink eye from poop? (The final question, of course, is whether it might not be best to just burn the house down and use the insurance money to buy a new one.) Fortunately, we have expert answers to those questions.

READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Poop, Diapers, and Potty Training

Babies Peeing in the Bathtub is No Big Deal

First, the good news. A little pee never killed anyone. According to Stephanie Bosche, a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Tri-County Pediatrics in Philadelphia, if it’s yellow, parents can keep it mellow because urine is a pretty clean bodily fluid, at least bacteria-wise. “A little pee in the tub? Not too worried about it,” Bosche explains. “Maybe if you just started filling the tub, we could empty it out and start over. But if you already have the bathtub full and you’re in full bath mode, there’s no need to empty out the bathtub because your child pees a little bit.”

How to Deal With Poop or Pee in the Bath

• Keep the reaction even and easygoing. Yelling or obvious disgust can make a kid hesitant to use the tub again.
• There’s no need to end a bath due to a little urine, it’s a relatively clean bodily fluid in terms of bacteria.
• If a child poops in the tub, drain the water, remove the stool, and clean with soap and water. Rinse and start the bath over.
• If the issue continues, look at the comfort of the toilet or the child’s schedule and make appropriate changes.

However, Poop in the Tub IS a Big Deal

Poop is a different story. It’s much worse than pee, which isn’t much of a surprise, considering that poop of every kind harbors some pretty nasty things. The bacteria that live in the human stool is pathogenic and while there may be anecdotal evidence of kids eating poop with no ill effects, parents shouldn’t count on that kind of phenomenal luck. Pathogens in poop cause diarrhea and pink eye, both of which represent more serious threats to children than to adults. The bottom line is: If a kid poops in the bathtub, it’s time to get them out of the water. “I would say empty the whole tub, rather than just fishing it out and continuing on,” suggests Bosche. “Restart.”

The key to managing an incidence like this is to stay calm. Don’t overreact; this isn’t the first time a parent has had to deal with unexpected poop, and it won’t be the last. Many times these are purely accidental. Getting worked up makes the child feel guilty, or frightened of their parents. This becomes a generally negative association with bath time.

What to do When Your Baby Poops in the Tub

So what’s the best post-poop protocol? Depending on the consistency and volume of the poop, tossing the turd and giving the tub a quick rinse might be good enough, but don’t stop there. A pass with a kid-skin safe cleaner and then a thorough rinse isn’t going to delay the new bath much. Even some soap and water is better than nothing. And if it’s too late to start again, well, parents can always try again the next day; bathing every day isn’t necessarily a problem for skin integrity.

“I’ve had parents tell me that their kids are scared to go back in the tub, because Grandma was bathing them and she screamed when he pooped,” says Bosche. “So first and foremost, stay calm.”

And really, there’s nothing to get too upset about, according to Bosche. This is a common occurrence. Bathing and warm water can be very relaxing. Sometimes those muscles (which kids either haven’t fully controlled or are still pretty new to controlling) relax too much. If a kid pees in the bathtub deliberately, instead of using the toilet, or regularly has accidents because they are holding it in, that’s a different issue. There’s obviously something that makes them reluctant to use the toilet. Parents should check to see how comfortable their toilet arrangement is. An uncomfortable toilet set up can complicate all manner of bathroom habits, even in potty-trained kids. If the kid craps on schedule, delaying the bath until after their daily deuce can reduce these kinds of problems.