AIBU to be suspicious of friends' hand washing skills?

[Mallowmarshmallow]

There seems to be a big going around between school mums and families. So far, touch wood, we have avoided it. My children seem fairly resilient to stomach bugs so far.

In friends' families it seems one child catches it, then another, then a parent, another parent then extended family....

AIBU to think that if anyone has a bug in your family you ensure everyone does extra good hand washing, cleaning, employ dettol spray in every corner of your house?

On the rare occasion either of our children has a bug it doesn't spread any further within the family....

Yes it’s much more about people’s immune systems than handwashing.

I don’t think I own any Dettol spray - overuse of antibacterials just produces resistant bacteria.

Is this a wind up?

Ooh that's a very high horse you're on there OP. Hope you don't all get Norovirus,that would be a very long fall.

What a thing to judge someone for!

OneStep that's possibly why I don't get the bugs, worked in a hospital for a long time
I don't remember getting sickness or cold bugs as a child either.

as other's have said I believe it's the immune system. I was a very sickly child but can't remember the last time I vomited, it's been at least 10 years & I never catch a bug when DSS has one (rare thankfully)

This could be about me. My kids just seem to pick up every bug going from kindergarten and then I get it too. I never know if one gives to the other or they both pick it up from kindergarten. YABU I am pretty due your friend does not enjoy the constant illnesses. I know I certainly don't.

You’re being a wally. I’m kinda assuming you know this and you weren’t seriously eyeing up your friends hand for signs of poor infection control

Sorry I think you are being a bit judgemental and smug. Its not just about washing - its also about people's immune systems. My children can both be vomiting all over me and its clear they have a virus and yet I don't get sick.

My baby has had D&V this week, I'm pretty sure it's from swimming class where he likes to put the toys in his mouth, because no one else we know has had it. I picked him up to change his nappy two days ago, kissed his cheek and he vomited copiously on my face, I now have an upset stomach. How do you suggest Dettol could've stopped this?

Yabvu. All anti-bacterial sprays are banned in my house, and I certainly don't go round wiping door handles etc, and yet we never get bugs. I think both my two have had one once, at separate times and both only vomited once), and DH and I have not had one for as long as we've known each other (not counting the time I went to New Delhi!).

So I don't think that your lack of bugs is entirely down to hand washing technique.

@HomeMadeMadness. Same here. We’re not scrupulous hand washers, although DD does use hand gel at school but it can’t be much as it’s a tiny bottle and is still quite full. And she’s a nail biter and crawls about the floor a lot because of her disability. She’s never had a bug. I think it’s one of those things if you are going to get it, you will get it and most often everyone does.

It’s entirely wrong to suggest that only “dirty” people get bugs.

Someone once pointed out that killing 99.9%of germs could leave the really scary 0.1% to have a bloody field day with no competition. Clean but nothing anti-bacterial anymore.

We are not that buggy as a family, and rarely if ever has everyone had a vomiting bug. Colds do spread as they are harder to contain, plus the person may be contagious for a time beforehand.

I do get the offender to stay in their room, use one bathroom, use their own towel and spray with anti-bac handles etc.

I have been accused as being a bit excessive about this 'containment' but I don't kiss children with colds/streaming noses! Happy to have a hug but no super-close contact if there's bugs about.

I am the main breadwinner and the only parent doing parenting, so need to be fit and well, I do get the colds occasionally but have contained the flu and vomiting bugs so far (or we are just mostly immune to them, difficult to say).

If you read the research, you will see that there are a variety of reasons why some people get more ill / display more symptoms than others, and hand-washing is just one of many factors - YABU to get judgemental and self-righteous about it, and it's rather ignorant to think it's just about hand hygiene.

Differences in response to illnesses have been found to vary across people / families due to genetic variations in how well the body fights off/ reacts to different types of illnesses (e.g. colds vs stomach), not smoking / drinking (obvs your kids won't be doing this! :-), success in managing stress, impacts of diet (affects gut biodome which affects the immune system), getting sufficient sleep, etc. So OP you may have your genetics working in your favour and lifetstyle / diet factors that you are playing right, but hand hygiene is unlikely to the be the key difference between you and your friends.

Please also remember that reduced exposure to germs has been linked to truly awful illnesses such as childhood leukaemia (haven't read up on this lately so I'm not sure how this research is progressing) - it's better to let kids build up a robust immune system through exposure to germs at a young age.

Also, perhaps other people don't mind being ill, or can even see benefits to it? I get my kids' colds and I don't try to stop it. I'm busy cuddling them and wiping their snot, so I'm in close proximity anyway and I wouldn't change this. So, I might get a little inconvenienced by having it, but I'd rather build up their and my immunity now so that they become healthier adults, and when I'm old and my health is properly compromised, my body's immunity has been strengthened at a time when having the illness didn't pose much risk.

Obviously we hand-wash after loo stops and when we're in places where dangerous bacterial / viral diseases are rife, but on the mean streets of southern England, I'm not too worried.

It’s sounds more OCD to me than judgemental. And a bit clueless.

No. Never used dettol or antibacterial gels or extra special hand washing . Never had a bug - and I’m 50. Three DC - teens - and they’ve never had a sickness bug either. They’ve never been sick or had diarrhoea.

I'm not spraying every corner of my house with Dettol. Just no.

However I will make the time to avoid people who are obsessive about hand gel and discussing who has a cold, and who they caught it from, and how they never go to that soft play because little Timmy had a headache after the last time they went there, and how they aren't going to playgroup this week because last week there was a little boy there with a really snotty nose (green, btw), and are you sure little Susan just has allergies? Because little Timmy was rubbing his eyes too after they played together - are you sure she hasn't given him a subtle form of conjunctivitis? Etc.

I think we'll just hang out with the other scuzzers, tbh.

So do you avoid hugging and kissing your child when they're ill?

Mine cuddle up with me in my bed when they're feeling ill, I manage to avoid catching the bugs about half the time, but certainly not all the time with them breathing, sneezing and snuggling into me overnight.

The only way to stop the spread is though isolation (hand washing and dettoling alone won’t help). You have to keep the sick person seperate from everyoneone else andyhe career seperate also. Otherwise the cater catches it as well and passes it on. It’s doable if your children are old enough to understand quarantine, you have at least two adults around full time and you have at least two bethrooms. Otherwise it’s just not going to work.

With bugs it's not just hand washing tho. It an get into your stomach by breathing if you're around a vomiting person or touching something that's been vomited near. Or even cleaning it up if the particles get breathed in

I can wash my hands as much as I like but that will not stop me catching a vomiting bug when I am exposed to the germs while comforting my toddler DD and helping her be sick.

I am extremely prone to vomiting bugs. I am emetophobic. Believe me, if hand washing was the important factor here I wouldn't be catching these bugs.

Apparently there's a gene which makes your more predisposed to these things. Lucky you not having it OP.

@BlueCornishPixie has it...

Ill children need cuddles. Cuddles and co-sleeping are going to spread a bug, but I'll take that over leaving my child in a sterile, anti-bacced room on their own to get over it

YABU, and if anyone in your family had allergies or asthma, you might find spraying round chemicals all the time wasn't very helpful.

By all means, take personal credit for your family not getting ill, but there are a lot of factors involved in how our immune systems work. It's even arguable that removing germs lowers the resistance.

Yes, handwashing is important, but it's not magic. People are still breathing bugs into the air, and touching door handles and other things in public places that you might visit.

Yabu