.. to NEVER wash DD's hair...

[GoTheFkToSleep]

She's 5. She hates it, I hate it and two days later its looks the same as before. I think I last washed it about 6 months ago. I do bath the child once a month whether she needs it or not every few days, and she goes swimming every now and then but I am not sure that counts as she won't get in the pool showers. There must be a mild disinfectant effect of the chlorine tho??

I'm still baffled by some people's casual attitude to personal hygeine on here.

That's funny, I'm baffled by the hyper-concern on MN over personal cleanliness!!!
We aren't actually adapted, as a species, very well to being superclean. It screws up our good bacteria balance (skin, digestion, etc.), potentially, to wash too much. I'm not saying we should smell, just that maybe, just maybe, it's a good thing to be less than perfectly clean smelling all the time.

I wear cotton ones, potato. I prefer not to get pyjama seams up in my delicate areas (and not to have to change jimjams or sheets every single night). I don't have any problems with sweatiness or moistness in the wrong places.

theres a difference between working with out kids and letting them rule the roost

working with kids = exploring ways of washing hair

not - just not washing hair.

i think your post asserting that little shits turn out fine - is inaccurate and pejorative and actually a personal attack.

whilst my post was not to your liking i didn't specifically call names.

Personal attack custardo how?

Are you one?

YOU used the expression ...you ...you lemon!

I thought sensory disorder as soon as OP mentioned the clothes thing.
That's a very different kettle of fish, OP

But trying to work with your children to get a result you can both live with is one thing Fem, but when you've got to six months down the line and it hasn't been resolved, you have to get tough try other methods.

Why ask if it's OK to not wash six months filty her DDs hair if she not bothered about the hidden effects it might have on her DD interactions with other people in the future?

She can just carry on pretending social norms don't exist and nobody else will ever notice.

"I prefer not to get pyjama seams up in my delicate areas"
Maybe take a leaf out of OP DD's book and try some loose clothing?

"She can just carry on pretending social norms don't exist and nobody else will ever notice."
maybe 'social norms' are not the best things to use to make sound decisions. It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.

"You post smacks of a very small mind!"

is a personal attack.

Sorry custardo it just does (to me)

Do you not agree that the most difficult kids can turn out alright in the end?

Why did you assume that problems/conditions our kids present us with = spoilt shits?

I don't get it.

I apologize for the personal attack.. I'll bet you have a very large mind! :)

My almost 5 year old would quite happily go unwashed for a week but will have a bath every two days whether she likes it or not. She wipes herself after using the toilet and doesn't always do it very well, she's been a wee bit niffy at times. I'm not a hygiene freak in any other ways but kids can be unhygienic smelly wee things!

When you know what it feels like not to fit in as a child Carfully, and it's about something a parent has the ability to change easily (for most), then it has nothing to do with a sick society, it's called reality.

Pretend other people and what they think doesn't matter all you like, but children aren't very good at hiding it when they see another child as 'the smelly odd kid' and will mercilessly exploit it without a thought for the other childs feelings.

Knowing that, how could you ignore how a sizable majority of children can behave and leave your DC unprepared for what the consequences of being treated like that might be for them?

I'd rather have a few tears over getting their hair washed than the torment feeling excluded can bring.

how is she smelly if she's got a clean pair of trousers on everyday? i don't relaly get the big deal here tbh. so long as her hair is being combed for lice on a weekly basis.

i dont agree that letting children do what they want will equal 'turning out alright' no.

and even though you began your post by stating that your stick by your assertion of the personal attack i will take the apology whole heartedly in the spirit in which it was meant - yes siree

I think people wash their and their kids' hair way too often! I think you need to wash it once every two weeks at least though.

How about taking the shampoo to the swimming pool and wash it in that shower? My DS doesn't make a sound in the pool showers, but he screams at home when we wash his hair. It must sound to the neighbours like he's being tortured.

The way you describe her, I now have an image of Pippi Longstocking in my head :o

This actually makes me sad- because I remember the joy of bathnight and being wrapped in warm clean towels and then into clean pyjamas. And there is nothing nicer than sniffing the top of a child's head (if they are clean).

The Op seems to take some delight in her daughter looking scruffy and not wearin socks or knickers. I just think that the poor child is being set up for a childhood of being 'different' for all the wrong reasons.

Plenty of people wean themselves off shampoo and conditioner because it is really bad for your hair, and after some months it can self-regulate apparently. You do need to brush and rinse dust and dirt out though - especially if your child might pass on lice to other children. And chlorine is probably worse for her hair than shampoo.
Have you tried the old trick of sending child to the hairdresser? Making a special occasion out of washing hair and cutting it might get you over the line.

Her hair will smell if unwashed
Also if you don't shampoo out the chlorine from swimming pools then the condition of the hair will be affected.

At 5 years old i would expect you would check your child regularly for lice - by wet combing her hair with a nit comb and lots of conditioner. Imo allowing your child to have lice is neglectful.

I agree bird

plus...not all kids get them.

none of mine have...wash hair once a week (until teen obviously)

And before any of you decide they have (and I just didn't notice

We still have a nit nurse here :)

None of my (4) kids (oldest now 11) have ever had head lice - I check all of them weekly. It isn't impossible.

DD1 washes her hair 3-4 times a week, she swims a lot & it has started to get greasy (puberty). My 5yo gets his hair washed with shampoo every 6-8 weeks, my youngest two have never had their hair washed with shampoo. Interestingly they receive compliments about their hair on a daily basis (they have long, thick, shiny, curls).

OP I'd look at getting some sensory integration therapy for your dd - it needn't be a big deal, simple body brushing could help. My ds has autism & we have massive issues about clothes with him - he's one of those kids who feature strongly on AIBU - the ones in t-shirts & shorts out in the snow He does not feel cold at all (sleeps naked under one fleece blanket regardless of the temperature) & reacts very strongly to heat. He never wears a coat, hat or gloves but we've had some success with a gillet this year. He has one type of trousers that doesn't cause him pain (so we have 8 of them), one sweatshirt, one style of t-shirt. Baggy clothes annoy him intensely (to the point he scratches is skin raw), as do layers of clothes. We've found for underwear that brands (usually the expensive ones - John Lewis were quite good) with thick elastic are much less irritating. He still takes all his clothes off the second he gets in though (& asked me multiple times if he can 'be naked now')!

I guess he's just 'a spoilt little shit' what with that & his his food phobias. Funny how he's generally regarded as a "sweet compliant little boy" who is dealing with an awful lot of difficult stuff but "still making great progress & is a delight to work with" [that's his last teacher's report].

Not got time to read the whole thread...

But just wanted to reassure you GoTheFkToSleep that you're not the only one out there! We do worse than that in our family, and, do you know what, it's amazing how humans don't actually keel over and die because of lack of washing!

My daughter just turned 7, at 6 she was generally reluctant to bath and have her hair washed. To start with I would decide we should do it once a week, but never decided on a day, so after a while I decided it should be at least once a month. I woke up one day, realised it had been 3 months since any washing at all. I looked (and smelled!) her over closely, and concluded there was nothing wrong with her that I could spot. Her hair tends to look like it might need a wash, if not today then tommorrow - but it never gets any worse, it just stays like that. Occasionally she'll have a foot wash, but I've been surprised how long she can go without her feet smelling at all. She does go swimming regularly, and refuses to go in the shower afterwards. I suspect that with none of the natural hair oils being washed off, the chlorine is likely to bounce off.

Having seen the lack of effect (I'd be surprised if anyone actually noticed without being told) I am now perfectly happy for this state of affairs to go on indefinately (it's been more than a year now). There are people who give up washing their hair - just google "no poo" for example, some of them don't wash hair at all as adults.

And when I think of all the time, energy, money, water, plastic bottles, chemicals and pollutants I'm saving, I feel I can put up with other people's shock and horror perfectly happily - as long as my daughter is happy also.

"She can't bear the sensations of most clothes"

As I said before, she might easily be allergic to wool and nylon. You would be amazed to learn how many "normal" clothes have one of these two. (I will say this repeatedly, until you acknowledge the possibility and stop claiming "sensory issues" without a proper diagnosis )

I clearly remember holding the waists of pants so they wouldn't touch my skin (wool mix), never ever wearing stockings (wool or nylon mix), and instantly stripping off clothes that touched my neck (forget turtle necks, I'm talking about a normal collar).

Fwiw, when I was growing up, we took showers twice a week only. That was because those were the only two days (evenings, really) when our building had hot water. If you missed one of those evenings, you waited until the next one, a couple of days later.

It took me a long time to realize, even many years later when I had hot water on demand 24/7, that I can and probably should wash every day. Such habits are very hard to break, if you can believe it.

I can't believe the filthy habits of some people here, and not even because you don't have access to soap or hot water. Hair's natural oils don't self-clean any better than those of apes or sheep. Your children do smell. Perhaps not to you, and not too offensively just yet, but they will hit puberty at some point and they will be the smelly kids in their classes.

Worse, they will never have acquired the habit of washing their hair and will turn into smelly adults.