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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what is normal regarding nudity and babies/smallchildren in the UK?

161 replies

honeytea · 11/05/2013 09:44

I am English but I live in my dp's home country (Sweden.)

We have a baby (4.5 months) it has been really lovely and hot the last couple of weeks so I have been taking ds down to the beach or to the park and letting him lie naked in the shade (on a few old towels to catch wee) this seems fairly normal here, I didn't even really think about it. The kids swim in the lakes and some are naked whilst swimming up to 5/6+ here.

I mentioned to a friend who lives in the USA how it was lovely for babyhoney to get fresh air on his bum and she said you would never do that in the USA, she said at baby groups the mums covered their babies genitals with a cloth so the other mums (and babies?)didn't see. At the baby massage group we go to all the babies are naked and I have never seen anyone trying to hide their babies genatals.

We are coming to the UK for a month in July and hopefully it will be warm. What is normal levals of baby nudity? I am from Devon so we will be having days on the beach as well as visiting parks.

thanks!

OP posts:
Smudging · 11/05/2013 17:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IneedAsockamnesty · 11/05/2013 17:11

Well last summer youngest ds would have been about 5 months old it was a really nice day so I sat in the garden with ds sat on a towel he was naked.

Within 30 mins of me going back inside I got a hysterical phone call from ds's dad yelling about how disgusting and inappropriate it is for children to be naked outside I gently told him that the problem was with him not with the situation and not to be so daft.

There is nothing wrong with naked babies at all and its such a normal thing I wouldn't even notice if one was right I front of me.

MrsWinklepicker · 11/05/2013 17:21

DD1,who is 5, always strips off in the shower after her swimming lesson but she is in the minority.
I can understand why people feel uncomfortable about it in public as I used to myself but now I love watching my 2 DDs running around in the altogether as they so obviously love it too!

missuswife · 11/05/2013 17:21

I'm American and we went nude at the beach, pool and in the garden until about 3 years old. Naked in our own garden and pool until we started kindergarten, age 5. No one tutted at us except one parent who wouldn't let her daughter come over to play in our pool unless we wore swimming costumes. Of course, this was about thirty years ago. Also grew up in SF Bay Area, not exactly the most uptight part of the country Wink

I'd let my kids do the same. Naked in the sea and pool until school age. Naked in the outdoors til about 3 I think. They're children, and shouldn't feel ashamed.

EdgeOfSociety · 11/05/2013 17:25

I'm not ashamed of being naked. I am not offended by bare bums or boobs, but when children run around naked (I'm specifying children because adults don't tend to run round naked Grin) it does make me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable.

I don't live by the sea so don't go to the beach a great deal, but when I do, I do feel embarrassed by naked children - I feel embarrassed for them, in a way. If someone took my child out and stripped them off I wouldn't be happy about it, I have to say!

missuswife · 11/05/2013 17:27

lljkk yes exactly. The US is huge. Have just moved to Wisconsin having grown up in CA and it's like a different country. Landscape, food, architecture, people--everything is different.

SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker · 11/05/2013 17:31

I live in California and have to say that the only naked babies (that aren't currently being changed) here are foreign visitors on the most part. Mine were always well covered to protect their delicate skin, we had sun suits/wet suits that fit high on the neck and to the knee and elbow and a broad brimmed sun hat. That way I only needed to do a little sunscreen.

MegBusset · 11/05/2013 17:35

Mine are 4 and 6 and both went naked on the beach last year (impromptu visit without swimming trunks), I don't have any issue with it from a decency POV, although as they are both very fair I don't let them go uncovered for too long because they would burn.

5madthings · 11/05/2013 17:37

Mine were naked last summer in the garden when megs kids visited and we had the paddling pool out, I couldn't be them to keep clothes on... None of the kids seemed bothered!

JustinBiebermakesmevom · 11/05/2013 17:53

On the rare occasion that we have "hot" weather (West Coast of Scotland here) my two would be in swimming costumes/trunks and a light t-shirt.

I wouldn't want them naked on the beach in public. Have no problem with nudity in the house and we will all happily jump into the bath together so they see both DH and I in the buff all the time. I'm ashamed to admit I'm a bit hung up on public nudity and yes I do worry about other people seeing my kids naked (Am ready to be flamed for that comment...) TBH if I saw kids their age (5 and 2) naked on the beach I would probably just be jealous that their mother wasn't so fucking paranoid like me. I know I have issues !

pigletmania · 11/05/2013 18:10

Babies fine, IMHO anything over 5 covered up

pigletmania · 11/05/2013 18:11

In a public place

DottyboutDots · 11/05/2013 19:27

I went on holiday to Bohemia in the Czech republic a couple of years ago. It was hot and I was taking my two oldest for a paddle in a manmade lake in the middle of a forest. It's a very popular area for cyclists and every now and then a bunch would come up and cool off with a swim. After about half an hour I realised they were all stripping NAKED first. It initially shocked me but after 5 minutes or so I gave myself a stern talking to and enjoyed how unabashed everyone was and i settled in for an hour of sunny voyeurism.

unlucky83 · 11/05/2013 20:13

Happy memories of my DD2 (aka 'nudey rudey girl') loving being naked...
At 3 we took her to the beach and she had stripped off and was naked running down the beach as soon as we hit the sand! (grabbed her later and put a swimming costume on her) ...but she still often stripped off - and DD1 at 8 in her pants in the sea (just think you go to some countries and the women are topless -why is it so bad for a child??? Only time I have been shocked was in Eygpt at Sharm - I saw two women topless in G strings walking down the beach -but that was seeing as it is a Muslim country and IIRC it is illegal to go topless....)

Last summer (5) she was in the paddling pol at the house we are renovating (garden is a jungle so v. private) and she was running all around it naked -biggest worry I had was nettles!
But Sad just recently she has taken to hiding getting changed for ballet ..don't know why -she doesn't want anyone to see her pants! Maybe cos of DD1 - 12, hitting puberty and does cover up in public -but she still dances around in the house naked - and Dp and I walk around naked at home...

janey223 · 11/05/2013 20:25

DS always has long sleeved tops and shorts on as he's fair skinned, I'd never have thought about letting him run around naked to be honest. i would put a nappy on him though, not because of modesty but so he doesn't pee on anyone!

Kundry · 11/05/2013 20:28

In much of Europe - definitely Scandinavia, Germany and Austria - our attitudes to nudity would be seen as v odd.

There it is much more a 'the human body is a natural thing - why would you be uncomfortable?' attitude. So in spas in Germany there will be mixed sex nude bathing, on German and Danish beaches nudity is very common, Danish women expect to be able to sunbathe topless in the park and not be perved at...

It's a really healthy attitude. I find it depressing that we should all be going around paranoid.

Summerblaze · 11/05/2013 20:33

They wouldn't take pictures of him with mickey mouse either even with me in the pic obviously giving consent and at the time we were sat in the shade. It wasn't summer either. We went mid Oct. I definitely think it was the nudity by the way she said it.

Jan49 · 11/05/2013 20:56

I don't understand the people who say they let their kids go naked outdoors and on beaches. Do you not think the advice about covering your children up in the sun to keep them safe applies to your kids?Confused

catgirl1976 · 11/05/2013 20:57

You can put suncream on them Jan

Haberdashery · 11/05/2013 20:57

Do you think all kids are pale-skinned?

IfNotNowThenWhen · 11/05/2013 21:03

Becoming "modest" is not learned really Gubbins. My ds, 7, is very worried that someone might see his bum, and wouldn't have been nekkid in public from 4 or so onwards.
This is not due to me, it's just him.
My family was very "let it all hang out" and I found a pic in a family album of my sis, aged about 9, swimming naked in a river.
I say, let them be naked until they don't want to anymore. It's lovely to be able to be naked in the sun.

blondefriend · 11/05/2013 21:56

My dd will get naked at the drop of a hat. I have a lovely series of photos from last year (when she was 3) of me chasing her around Swanage beach with a bottle of sunblock. We weren't expecting the beautiful weather and didn't bring swimming costumes. I took of her trousers so that she could paddle (but left on her t-shirt and knickers) but 5 minutes later she was starkers. She had a wonderful time and, despite being very fair skinned, didn't get burnt as I literally slathered her in spf50. I am dreading the day she is too worried to go naked - it is the first step towards losing that childhood innocence.

iliketea · 11/05/2013 22:12

I wouldn't ler DD run around naked on the beach because

  1. she has even more sun sensitive skin than me and a sunburned bottom would be a bad thing (she even wears a uv suit for running around the garden in the summer)
  2. I hate the beach and where sand ends up.

So I'm not horrified by naked children running around in the warm, but I do worry about sun damage - not sun block is particularly kind to genitals.

chandellina · 11/05/2013 22:12

I think nudity is fine until the child is uncomfortable. I grew up in the US and never wore a top on the beach until maybe 6 or 7. Last week I saw a boy of about five with no bottoms in a paddling river in Kent. No one seemed particularly bothered, the place was teeming with half nudity (it was cold.)

greeneyed · 11/05/2013 22:39

Gosh interesting thread - my ds will be just 4 when we go on holiday (UK) it would not cross my mind that people might disapprove of him being naked. I always though naked kids playing was very sweet