My Baby is Afraid of Sand

Does anyone else have this problem? My baby is deathly afraid of sand, which means it is very difficult  to get her to play on the playground and at the beach.

I found out about this strange fear of sand when I let her go down a slide at the park. She slid down and plopped off the edge of the slide into the sand. She screamed bloody murder and scrunched her body into a ball, trying to get away from the sand. I picked her up and sat her in the grass... and like I guessed, she stopped crying instantly. I picked her up and tried to set her in the sand again but she was so afraid. There were other kids around who tried to show her that sand is not scary, but soft and fun to play in. She did not care. She didn't want anything to do with it. 

We, also, went boating this past weekend. We stopped along the Grand Traverse Bay and anchored the boat to swim and play at the beach. I brought Miss A to shore and set her down in the shallow water. She screamed! It was very awkward because there were several other boaters/swimmers around who turned to stare at us. Miss A is NOT afraid of cold water or getting splashed. The sand squished underneath her feet and it scared her. I had to put our skim board down for her to sit on so she could play in the water without touching the sand. 

My mom and sister worked with her on the fear for quite awhile. My mom got her to scoop the sand out of a bucket with a shovel. 

She was having fun until I put a handful of sand by her feet. Then she was done with the sand. She screamed and cried...

We have a long way to go on concurring this fear of sand! We are going to work on it a little bit at a time. I hope it will dissolve in time... Maybe by next summer she will be okay with sand?

Update the following summer: Miss A is no longer afraid of sand! We took her to the playground to test it out. She had no shoes and dipped her toe in the sand and said "EEWW!" I told her, "It's okay!" and she repeated "It's okay!" and overcame her fear just like that. =)