Sharing bath water…acceptable or grim?

[Kibble19]

Lighthearted of course! What are your thoughts on the sharing of bath water between two people? Not necessarily a mum having a bath with their young child, but someone having a bath then getting out before giving their family member a shout to go in.

Grim and unsanitary? Or totally normal at your house?

It's not grim at all My 3 sons all went in the same bath water. As the first went in, I undressed second and put him in etc
saves Time, effort and money
I've shared showers, but not Baths

It's fine if you don't mind bathing in someone else's sweat, dead skin and body discharges, just put plenty of bubble bath in to make it feel a bit luxurious.

Well we shower and don’t run fresh baths very often . So leg hair is grim but skin, sweat and body fluids are ok?

We used to share bathwater when I was growing up. We grew up in a low income household and my parents couldn't always afford fresh hot water for everyone every day (expensive electric immersion heater), so they washed first and then we got the bathwater afterwards.

DH and I do this all the time. How dirty are people getting that you can even tell?

I think it’s down to necessity we used to use the same bath water when we were children but there was a limited amount of hot water and there was no shower in my house.

I now rarely have a bath but if my shower broke and there was a water shortage I would share the water

It’s a Mumsnet Bingo word: along with “crass”, “LTB”, “log it with 101”, etc. Doing a search “on this page” for the word (whole thread) reveals 33 matches.

Some people think it’s “grim” to sit in one’s own bathwater. My DH and I share baths. And I too like leaving the bathwater in to warm the house - it’s a shame to let all that expensively heated water drain away!

If you bathe your young children daily and they are young enough for you to supervise then nothing wrong in popping them in together.

Personally, even reading the title of this thread made me gag. Big no.

Within a family I think fine!

Grim. I hated it as a kid and never did it to mine.

We had to share as kids in the 60s/early 70s, but as I was the only girl I went first, followed by my three brothers (who would then fight it out for second etc). I had the good end of the bargin, it would have been rank if I was in the bath last.

When DD lived at home, we use to share bath water on occassion (generally winter). Tbh we are/were both relatively clean people who dont work in manual jobs so it didnt bother us.

We're really quite lucky in the uk and take our water supply for granted a bit. I've been to other countries where people time their showers and reuse water in different ways (there's a hierarchy for example you'd use fresh water to wash your hands but then save that water to wash the floor).

Where I'm originally from, I used to take a boat to get to and from school. When I was little some of the smaller ferries had a really limited fresh water tanks. You'd use the toilet, wash your hands with (soap and) clean water from the tap over a bucket, then pour that bucket into the loo to flush it.

Here, we use the same water supply for drinking, washing, and flushing the toilet which is a bit bonkers if you think about it. Literally flushing drinking water down the loo!

Yes, I’ll usually use the bath first as I like a stupidly hot bath. Then DH. But that’s because it’s usually a relax bath where you are fairly clean rather than a rinsing a day of coal dust off because we’ve been down a mine. So more Japanese style than Charles dickens hard times.

We used to do this for the kids, but everyone showers now. Anyway, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water…

Normal in situations where you are also sharing someone’s body. Otherwise no!

Nasty grew up poor in the 60s but we never did this

Not a problem. My DH will sometimes hop in after someone if he's cold and tired. What I find really gross is when I go to clean my holiday cottage and there are at least 3 bath tide rings round the tub. I know you're on holiday but why would you get back into a dirty bath. I provide a cloth, surely you give the bath a quick wipe round after a soak. It's not about me having to clean on changeover, it's about you in bathing in yesterdays filth..

I don’t like cleaning myself with my own bath water let alone someone else’s. We got rid of the bath when we moved in and don’t miss it at all.

A better solution would be for the bloody water companies to consider fixing their pipes. Oh, and for them to stop pumping shit into our rivers.

Normal here. Why waste water and electricity?

We do it occasionally, no problem and keeps water bill down a bit

Totally normal and not at all grim, as long as I get to go first 😉

You sound like my daughter.

Fine for DC under about 10