to not bathe my toddler every, single night?

[fishnugget]

Some of my friends do this and I just think 'WHY?'

AIBU?

Each to their own but our 2 yo needs a bath or shower every night as she is always active, outside and gets manky. We've recently started the showers on nights she's just needing a quick wash. It takes 5 mins and means she's fresh for bed. I couldn't only bathe her twice a week as she's so active!

Grandson is alternate evenings, but it's always a balancing act between dinner and bed time as he loves his baths and gets properly hyper afterwards. The bathroom also gets a bath so there mopping up afterwards, and changing out of wet clothes. I'm glad I only have to do it once or twice a month.

DS is 7 months loves his nightly bath, we use child's farm products, moisturiser in the morning and coconut oil after bath and no issues with dry skin. He does get hyper but wears himself out. He's also a sweaty little beast and tonight I found something behind his ear that was either avocado or pear mush. We always had a bath or shower daily as children and DH and I shower daily as adults. How often are you washing their bring if you put them to bed grubby for consecutive nights. Surely defeats the injury of bath nights when they have them if they then get into a grubby bed.

*bedding

My two are grown up now, but I bathed them every single night when they were babies and toddlers, and they bathed or showered themselves every night thereafter. I was widowed when they were 11 months and just turned two years, plus I worked as a hospital doctor, so was always tired and grieving, but I would never have put them to bed dirty. We always had bath, teeth, then a cuddle with bedtime stories. It helped them settle and I think the routine was comforting for them.

Sometimes they need one only after 3 days but mostly they could do with one every 3 hours. Mine have been known to be washed twice during the day and still be grubby by bedtime. I do let them feed themselves and do lots of messy play though

Plus that school smell 🤢

I was just thinking 'that school smell' when i read this! It's just so distinct. I think it must be the dinner hall. I wonder if all schools smell the same or whether they are all different? 🤣 His trousers are usually the worse and sometimes even washing doesn't remove it! The only good thing about school hols is you don't have that school smell!

There are apparently a lot of really grubby children on this thread. You all make your kids sound positively feral in their filth!

We do every other night unless we absolutely have to. He's potty trained, and has quite bad eczema on his bum and back so (from experience) I'm not bathing him every night

The school smell!

Gosh, that's why I come on here because I think there are things that nobody Else notices about parenting.
School smell is better than the nursery smell though. Similar only the nursery smell has all those lovely potty training smells mixed in for good measure.

Before DC1 started nursery I thought my children would only ever smell lovely to me and that kids sweat didn't smell. Two weeks later her nursery trainers went in the washing machine distinctly unsweet smelling. After only a half day she could turn the water black. I have no idea what they do to them there but I am still finding glitter around the place that I swear was from her settling in sessions over 4 years ago.

Sorry turn the bath water black that was meant to say!

I used to bath mine every night. It was part of their bedtime routine and they used to enjoy it, plus most of the time they were a pretty mucky and did actually need it.

I bath my 15mo every night. It is part of her bedtime routine. She wears a nappy and gets food/ sweat/ suncream/ mud on her... and I would hate to go without a shower all day. It feels nice to be clean so I wash her.

Mine is 5 now and since he was about 12mo has barely had a day he’s not got dirty. He’s outside every day and if we didn’t bath him we’d have to use a nail brush on him which he would hate. Much easier to soak the dirt out of his nails while he plays.
Also there are a good couple of years when he was wiping his own bum but I wouldn’t trust his wiping 100% 🤢
And he loves it 🤷‍♀️

All those who said your kids get a bath once or twice a week : do they get a quick shower every night then?

Oh ffs - all these people saying it’s grim to only bathe kids once a week - I’m assuming kids are wipes down/washed at other times! Also parents In their 70’s - a bath once a week was apparently completely normal!
Mine bath when dirty, sweaty or they fancy a bath but it doesn’t happen to keep up with germ phobic weirdos!

It varies between every night and every other night here. Hair wash strictly once a week though as DD has very fine curly hair that started to get frazzled from over washing. Since switching to a once a week wash with child’s farm shampoo /Johnson’s green spray it’s much better.

I would prefer to bath every night but sometimes she’s just too tired out from nursery.

I do generally bath every night. Sometimes skip if really not necessary. Just because we are always outdoors and he’s at that age of picking up dirt (trying to eat it). I don’t know what’s stressful about it whole thing takes about 20 minutes.

I did but my DS loved the bath, as others said it was part of his bedtime routine and personally I always have a bath or shower before bed as I just prefer to go to bed ‘clean’ . And I would rather do the bath routine than play more games or watch kid’s tv.

My DS has always loved a bedtime bath, he’s 18 now & still has one every night (obviously I don’t supervise ).

Oh yes and sticky sun lotion 😩 if anyone knows of sun lotion that isn’t super greasy shoot it my way

@Bridget1983 people in their 70s were undoubtedly dirtier as young people then people are now thougH. The whole “family sharing a bath on Sunday evening” is gross

Bath everyday - he's covered in suncream, dirt, food, sand everyday at the moment. Only hair wash when it's needed. I wouldn't say it calms him before bed but it does take up time which is great when you're clock watching till bedtime!

I think the thing is kids are all really different, and so are their levels of mess. I know babies my DS's age who either don't or barely move, who have an active dislike of getting food or other mess on their hands and who don't self feed anyway, etc. I bet their parents don't see the need for a daily bath, and fair enough. I also know babies who hate it, and why would you put them through it more often than you had to in that case? Meanwhile, DS spends all day crawling - an inherently quite grubby activity, even if the floors seem clean, and especially at the moment when he's outside a lot - delights in rubbing food all over himself, and adores the bath, so bathing him daily feels very sensible to me!

To the person upthread who says we make our DC sound feral - he is! My mum thinks it's hilarious that DH and I - two very sedate, bookish people - have this child who never stops moving and knows no fear. Apparently I was nothing like him as a baby/toddler!

@Lana1234 p20. It's fab and one of the only ones DS isn't allergic to

I do because dd still poos in her pull up and I think it would be awful not to give her a chance to have a proper wash, baby wipes aren't great. Plus we still use the baby bath and it takes five mins, and she enjoys it!