Is it realistic to never allow a toddler to put 'dirty' hands to their mouth?
17mo DD was playing in the garden and inevitably had dirty hands - I don't mean covered in soil, I mean she had been splashing in a bucket with garden tap water and a touch of soil in it, and splashing the water in her face.
She put them to her mouth and DH quickly said No xx, don't put dirty hands in your mouth.
Then a short discussion about whether we should always stop her doing it.
DH thinks the bucket is filthy, the water is dirty, the soil is full of germs, etc etc
My opinion is that it'd be near impossible to always stop her putting germy hands to her mouth, and a bit of garden dirt isn't too bad. I think she'll be eating sand, soil, worms etc before she's grown up and unless there is something very dirty like bird poo, dog mess etc then I wouldn't make her wash her hands every time she touched something, just on the off chance she went on to touch her mouth.
Moreover, from experience, if I say to DD 'don't put your hands in your mouth' she'll do it even more as a game. I'm kind of hoping she'll eat some soil and it'll taste rank and gritty and she won't do it again.
Am I being unhygienic and unreasonable?
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AIBU?
Toddler and dirt. WIBU?
28 replies
DontBuyANewMumCuntingDailyMail · 09/05/2016 09:39
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