AIBU to think hand washing too often makes children sick more often?

[StarlightIntheNight]

I never washed my hands growing up - gross I know. I would pretend to or just rinse with water sometimes. I was RARELY ever sick. I had one tummy bug my entire time in school, age 6 and never vomited again until I was 30 (caught it from my dd!!). Anyway, my dc seem to catch the vomiting bug every freaking year. A few parents I see, that don't use wipes or hand gel after school before feeding their kids....seem to miss out on these vomiting bugs. So I am wondering...if always wiping and washing hands might make children more prone to catching these things! As, I have a phobia of vomitting, so always try and wipe my children hands, use gels or wash their hands before they eat. But my friends who do not do this, seem to avoid the bugs more often.

So I am curious...those who are not avid hand washers/ or anti bacterial gel users - do you find your kids avoid the tummy bugs more often?

I don't do the hand wash thing before meals or prepping food either

Here they come to outming each other.... Always happens. Just waiting for the folks to come along who don't wash their hands after changing shitty nappies and I'm set

The Leukaemia link is more to do with overly clean houses than handwashing per se. Children who don't have infections in the first year of life are statistically more prone to Leukaemia. There is a drink in development to give them a dose of bugs that we are all steam cleaning and bleaching away so the immune system can be exposed to them. It's fascinating. I was just about to start mopping...and now I'm not!!

I have a suspicion that when I was young, most mothers stayed at home. If their children vomited, they stayed home. Now, with all the pressure never to miss work (and the pressure schools put on pupils to attend) it seems likely to me that more bugs do the rounds than used to occur.

I suspect general dirt does help the immune system. So rolling round in muck and not worrying too much about hygiene probably helps. BUT I suspect that thorough handwashing after using any public toilet will reduce the incidence of catching norovirus. But some people (blood type o) are more susceptible to norovirus. So it may not just be luck that certain people succumb less frequently.

I don’t know OP a relative of mines DC are always having D&V and aren’t very keen on washing their hands or being clean in general
Whereas my DC have always been hand washers and I can genuinely count the times they’ve had it on one hand.