Kids in the bath whilst the hot tap is running?!

[BenniD]

My DH loves to give our kids (1 and 3) a bath in the evening, and the kids seem to love it too - not to mention it gives me 5 minutes peace! Tonight he was not feeling great so I came up with him to bath them and found out that he makes a habit of running the bath whilst they are in it, including having the hot tap on. I was not happy at all, but he said that he did it all the time and was in complete control of the situation. I don't want to take away the fun time they all seem to have during bath time, but am really not happy with him doing this. Advice please!

So he sits them in an empty bath & runs it?

Surely that can´t work without a mixer tap?

Shoulda Haha that last comment from you was hilarious -even made me do a daft snort laugh thing.

If it was me I'd rather he run the bath and then put them in, if he's just topping up I would be ok with it but not running the whole bath.

I often run the hot tap while I'm in the bath with DS who is 18 months (he LOVES bath time, we spend a good half an hour in it every night, and I hate tepid water.) I move him to the other end while I'm running it, but equally he understands the word 'hot' so isn't going to stick his hand in the running water. I understand your concern, but as long as your DH has got an eye on what's going on, I can't see that it is a huge danger.

How hot is the hot water?
Our boiler is capped at around 60 degrees so makes small children go 'ouch' but not be scalded, so wouldn't be an issue at all. Except that I'm impressed at children willing to sit naked in an ampty bath!

If it's near-boiling, I certainly wouldn't do it with squirmy dn who would certainly put a hand in it, though ds tends to stay put when put in the bath and refuses to move.

I don't want to bang on about this but the average domestic hot water supply is 70 degrees celsius.

A child can sustain a 3rd degree scald in one second at 60 degrees whereas at 50 degrees (the regulation valves should have a max delivery temp of 48 degrees) it takes 5 minutes to sustain 3rd degree damage.

This is a serious problem. Staff from Paediatric burns units all over the UK will tell you that scalding from bathwater is common.

Take it seriously and protect your children.

Why do you want to micro manage his parenting like this?

Assuming you haven't had children with a complete moron, he is an adult, he is their parent, he knows that hot water burns and has decided with all of that information that it is OK to top the water up while the kids are in the bath.

If he can't be trusted to bathe them without your input surely he can't be trusted to do anything at all.

Who says you get to take away their fun time?

I think it's fine. I top up DS's (2.2 yrs) bath all the time as he spends around an hour in there each time. I don't think our water is scalding hot though as I can sometimes have a bath without adding any cold whatsoever, but I'd still top it up for him even if it was.

If he runs hot and cold together, then it's ok. The accidents happen when the hot water is run first and alone.

I honestly don't see why it's worth even the smallest of risks for what? Making them wait a couple of minutes before putting them in?

Big deal. The minute he starts putting bleach in there, say something. YADBU, chill out.

I agree with gasman, not because I'm a control freak, but because I know that it's easy for a child to get scalded in a bath. Like notcitrus, we set our boiler so that it couldn't go above a certain temperature when DD was small. (Not sure what it was as DP did it.)

You could BU but you could be being reasonable. Its hard to say.

I think it might not be a great idea. Even as an adult, if I ran a 'warm bath', got in and then added hot water, I'd have the bath a lot hotter than I would normally make it because I got acclimatised to the hot termperature.

Obviously, if he's watching them, checking the temperature and the bath isn't 'hot', then it's not a concern.