To not bath my kids every day?

[Roxetta]

I have a 2 year old and an almost 5 year old. DH works away a lot and I'm finding the whole daily schedule so tough on my own. I bath them both every day at the moment, but I'm wondering, would it be wrong of me to skip the odd bath now & then? DD1 is an exceptionally clean kid, DD2 not so much. But DD2 gets baby wiped within an inch of her life after every meal because of all the mess she makes.

How often do you bath your kids? Would not bathing them daily be wrong of me?

Kids do not need baths everyday

helacells no, human beings do not "need" to have a bath every day. It depends entirely on context.

Is the child dirty, playing and sweating outside, or had a dozy day of naps and storytime?
Is the child in a hot country like Brazil or in damp Ireland?
Is the child settled more easily to bed or is it a screaming hair tangling nightmare for everyone?
Is the household one where it's a 5 minutes combi boiler on demand bath, or a 1 bathroom takes-an-hour-to-heat family house?
What is the care arrangements - two parents working full-time who need to make priority calls between getting home and children's bedtime, or a SAHP who can be a bit more flexible?

Apart from anything, the desire to not irritate skin or scalp conditions is an excellent reason (medically) to avoid a fullsoak every day!

We should all try and shower/bath less both for our skin and the environment .. and bills too!

Every day in the hot sweating summer but every other day this time of year unless he's exceptionally mucky.

DSs are 6 and 8, they had daily baths when babies (or several times a day with messy nappies), but now it's a shower every other or every third day. I still shower DS1 myself as he wouldn't use soap or shampoo if left to it. They wash their hands properly after using the toilet and before eating, use wipes and wash their bottom after a number 2.

Routine in our house has always been a bath once a week, and more frequently if needed. I didn't realise the idea of daily bathing when DS1 was born, so didn't do it. A nurse once commented on how fabulous DSs skin was, and asked me how little I washed him. She said you could tell from his skin, that he wasn't over-washed.

When the kids go swimming, they have a shower to get the chlorine off. If they don't go swimming, then no shower needed.

DS1 is now 12, so the showering as needed means he showers every day. Our younger kids don't.

I was a child in the 60's and we had a bath once a week, probably because parents couldn't afford to heat up the water more often. This was normal for my friends in the area we lived in.

Funnily enough we are grew up without catching any major diseases and without any allergies.

I am 51 and had a daily bath growing up late 60s and 70s, I always bathed my dc daily when they were little which they continue now grown up.

Always a surprise to see the amount of supposedly well educated, middle class mingers with minging kids on here.

My 4 (age 21 downwards) have always been bathed/showered daily. Even the one with eczema, and the baby twins, whether I worked full time and or was a SAHM.

It's the same as brushing teeth as part of a hygiene routine IMO.

Dribbly wees, messy poos, sweat, sticky stuff, snot - wipes don't cut it.

The 'old days' are long gone and we are supposed to have higher standards nowadays.

DH worked away from home starting when DS2 was a toddler and I bathed mine every day. But I had two boys 4.5 years apart so I could plop them in the tub together and scrub them down. DS1 was quite capable of drying and getting his pjs on by himself whilst I was tending to DS2. Then teeth brushed, story, and to bed.

Can you put your DDs in the same bath?

MadMum101 Congratulations love, you win the parent of the decade award.

MadMum101 unless you're a qualified dermatologist etc then established medical wisdom disagrees with your stance for the average human (barring any specific medical reasons why a full wash is necessary every day). Your view is based on what works best in your opinion, but that doesn't make it the right one for everyone. Or most people.

Surely it takes longer to clean a kid all over with wet wipes than it does to shove them under the shower for 3 minutes to rinse off?

And as for the poster who said it's a new PFB thing, you'll find that in some cultures people have been washing their kids every day for generations.

Mine never come home from nursery in a state in which I can get away with not bathing them!

I bathe mine every day. Lots of my friends bathe theirs every two days or so.

Nobody cares. Nobody can tell. Why does anyone on here give a shit what anyone else chooses to do with their kids? I’m glad my friends don’t judge me, nor I them, for such utter shite.

Once a year whether they need it or not!

No really, once a week & then ad-hoc when they smell or get dirty. They don't get filthy daily so imo uneccesary extra stress after work to do tea, homework, next day prep etc in the space of an hour

A daily bath is just to help kids with their bedtime routine. If anything it's probably better for their skin not to bath every night.

Really the odd day here and there won’t make much difference at all. I only bathed DD on average 5 times a week (Fridays we skipped pretty much always and she’d get in with me on a Saturday morning a lot so never got another that night). Sunday nights were a must though for some reason.

Is the child dirty, playing and sweating outside, or had a dozy day of naps and storytime?
Is the child in a hot country like Brazil or in damp Ireland?
Is the child settled more easily to bed or is it a screaming hair tangling nightmare for everyone?
Is the household one where it's a 5 minutes combi boiler on demand bath, or a 1 bathroom takes-an-hour-to-heat family house?
What is the care arrangements - two parents working full-time who need to make priority calls between getting home and children's bedtime, or a SAHP who can be a bit more flexible*

This sums it up for me really, When DS was small he had a bath everyday just as routine, when DD arrived it became every other day or so and now with long hair to wash and dry it would be a mammoth task everyday. In the summer when they've been dirty/suncremed they bath every night, otherwise its usually every other unless they've got dirty, been particularly active etc.

Mine all bath every day. The youngest likes a good long play with all of her bath toys.

We don’t lead an interesting life tho. I’m quite happy for them to do anything after school that doesn’t involve Netflix.

I bathed my DS’s daily, part of the bed time routine.

Youngest sometimes bathes to get washed, sometimes bathes to relax, sometimes bathes because they want to do water play. Surely there's no right or wrong way?
Washes at the sink in the morning for older kids - face and armpits and usually a shower before bed.

It used to be Sunday night = bath night when I was little, with a strip wash (no shower) the rest of the week.

Mine are done 4/5 days out of 7.

Same aged kids here. Twice a week.

I do as they are either in a nappy over night or freshly toilet trained. My youngest are 3 and 5. A quick dip every night means they go to bed clean. Finger nails, hands and bottoms!! When I’ve been in various schools and preschools you can tell the kids who aren’t washed daily. I’d hate my kids to have the staff commenting. One preschool my ds was at they actually recording that sort of thing as ‘observations’. ‘Smelly hair’ and ‘a bit smelly today’ which really shocked me but made me stick even more to the daily bath. It’s as quick to dip as flannel wash faces, finger nails, bottoms etc and it’s peace of mind. The morning wouldn’t work for us.