To buy daughter hygiene products?

[Batcrazymum3]

Oldest DD is 10. We went shopping last week for a party she is going to and I took the mother daughter time to have a pit stop, discuss periods and girly issues to get her as prepared as I can ( I was 11 when mine started) we then went on to buy some pads for her and I also picked up things like face wash, moisture, deodorant and some body spays/perfume (cheap super drug numbers). She was really pleased and has been using them all and I think she’s feeling that little bit more gown up.

DH is not overly pleased. He thinks she’s too young for all this. He gets the pads and her being prepared but thinks everything else is too much. He had really REALLY bad skin through his teenage years and I had (and still do) have really good clear skin. He thinks think will irritate her skin and cause issues now rather than later.

I’ve noticed over the last 3-4 months that her hair is getting greasy after 1 day of not washing it so her body is changing, she has also started to develop and wears a AA Bra. Have I started too soon or is DH just grumpy about losing his “baby girl”?

I can’t belueve how horrible some people are being about your DH! He’s not ridiculous at all. He’s allowed to think she’s too young for face wash, moisturiser perfume and spray stuff and given the issues he’s had, his concern is understandable

Then maybe he should rephrase , something along the lines of not thinking shes at that stage yet. "Too young" implies theres some arbitrary cut off point and that's it, regardless of any personal stage of development. Plenty of MN myself included have experience of random age cut offs deemed appropriate ignoring the embarrassment of the child.

You only have to mention crop tops on MN and 100 people will come.along and tell you that they are inappropriate and no one needs them..

It's very important that kids feel they can go to parents for these things.

She doesn't need body spray (as distinct from deodorant) and certainly doesn't need perfume unless that was her unprompted idea, nor does she need moisturiser at 10!

The pads and actual deodorant, assuming it's a mild non aluminium one, were good ideas.

I personally think face wash is a con and does irritate skin - my face always been best washed with water only, but I don't wear makeup and perhaps am simply lucky to have easy skin ... DD (14) is so far the same - water only, good skin.

Daily showers and deodorant and being ready for periods are the wisdom to impart to pre teens, the rest is probably overkill.

@CassianAndor the shop assistant told my parents off because I'd mentioned during my fitting how pleased I was to be finally getting a bra because it hurt so much when I had to do PE at school and how much my back and shoulders ached - I wasn't wearing a vest or any other form of support. A C-cup on a little girl of 10 who's short and not overweight is very much out of proportion.

Anyway OP yanbu - my parents also refused to let me use deodorant until my teens and I was bullied for smelling bad. It's horrible.

@BlingLoving, with shampoo bars, I tried and failed with the Lush ones. They gave me dandruff, which I never had before. I have dry and wavy hair.

FWIW I think the OP is spot on.
My DD is only 8 and loves being in the shower, when I can get her in it. However, it takes a major argument to get her in it.

I've started her on my face wash as an incentive to wash her face as she is already having afes spots and now we 've bought deodorant for when she feels she wants it.
She is usue a sweaty one and I'm conscious of how cruel children can be if you start to smell.

MyHat fair enough. A friend recently took her DD to be measured for her first bra, she was measured completely inaccurately and of course the fitter was trying to sell them bras rather than crop tops. So I'm a bit cynical about fitters and their opinions!

I've heard of refillable shampoo - where you take your own container. But no idea where and suspect my l'oreal and KMS stuff doesn't offer that option! .

I think you have done the right thing.
I had the talk with Dd at 10, she didn't seem to have any of the signs she was changing, but I had a feeling. At 10.5year on the first day of her first sunny holiday abroad she started her period. Bless her she was a trooper and luckily went with it without any problems after I made a dash to the shop for some pads.
All mine seemed to need daily showers and deoderant at about 10. No kid wants to be called out as being smelly by their friends, it's devistating when you are so young.

cass

Presumably the parent felt she needed a bra or she wouldnt have taken her.

She wasnt dragged off the street and told she should come and get one?

The sales person trying to flog an ill fitting bra doesnt negate the fact that kids might need one.

Hence why it's great that people like the op make sure that they use situations to make sure that their kids can say when they need this stuff and not feel embarrassed or that they will be shut down immediately based on some mistakes conception that because shes 10 it's not needed..

YANBU.

Btw the best soap is the Aldi unscented one, it's far better than any facewash and doesn't dry skin out.

Seriously? I chat to my husband about all sorts of things, why not?

And if I chatted to my DH about your skincare and sanpro..?

Why isn’t DD entitled to privacy? Did OP tell her ‘of course I I’ll be relaying all this info to your father’? And if she did you think DD would agree?

If OP wants to tell him that’s up to her, but it’s not really for him to put his oar in, when OP and DD have made choices together.

DS2 is 8 (almost 9) and has reached the point where he needs to shower daily and use deodorant. 10 isn't too young to be chatting and taking care of their bodies. DS1 has been using Liz Earle on his face since puberty started and now 4 years on his skin is oily but still perfectly clear; I put a great deal of it down to a good skincare routine.

Children that age are about to start rocketing into puberty and need to be taught hygiene and how to take care of their skin. A great skincare routine from puberty onwards will make such a difference long-term.

YANBU. I did similar with my dd this summer. Definitely encouraging the daily use of deodorant! She did eye roll at me suggesting buying her pads ‘just in case’ though as apparently ‘in year six there is a pile in the classroom cupboard.’

Thank you so much everyone I've some really lovely comments and some if the information I've been given I didnt know and has given me cause to maybe re-think the body spray. It was something DD seen and got excited about because it smelled like marshmallows and I was just so happy she was engaged with what we were doing I didnt give it another thought.

To clear a few things up. DD came home very excited to show dad everything she bought with me even the pads (so no privacy violation, alothough I can't say I wouldn't have discussed it with him). We are not a hand holding camp fire hippy loveydovey family but my DD knows she can talk to mum and dad about anything. She isn't embarrassed by periods or that shes changing and I love that. DH has every right to come to me if he thinks I've not done the right thing by our child as do I if I feel he has done the same.

Again thatlnks for the lovely comments and the eye opener on a few things

Your DH doesn't understand the first thing about female puberty does he?

Everything you've done was absolutely fine, and you are clearly a lovely thoughtful mum.

@ rubbinghim

Doesn’t dry your skin out.

Any kind of bar soap is a nightmare on my skin, feels great, and super clean for the first few days, but within a few days my skin is super parched, overproducing oil to make up for it, and then I’m covered in spots in no time at all.

It’s a bloody mine field.

Body spray was de rigueur at my school for we communal shower-dodgers.

My ds is only 5 but hes got his own aftershave (!) Dh got a new one so he let ds have it on a shelf in his room and he'll occasionally have a spray to feel grown up like is dad.I think grooming and hygiene is important at any age and I certainly will be getting him his own age appropriate products when the time comes.

It's now normal to shower/bathe and wash, etc, daily - even in the 1980s, a lot of people had parents who believed one bath a week was all that was needed, most didn't even have a shower, things such as you shouldn't wash your hair during a period were still commonly said and the only skincare products were monstrously stingy chemicals that would practically burn the skin around any spots.

Pretty much every teenager had greasy hair and a lot of spots. And they stunk.

When I was a teenager, there were a few of my friends who only had a couple of spots throughout their teens - even then, I could see that they had a more comfortable lifestyle, complete with daily showers/hair washing and always had clean, ironed clothes.

In the years since that I've been working in secondary education, I've noticed that teenagers take far more care of their hygiene - and they rarely get more than a couple of smallish spots around the age of 14, just as my friends did. And the few kids who don't quite grasp the importance (or their parents still don't believe in it) and smell bad are almost wholly the ones who also have greasy, dirty hair and a large number of spots and boils.

I believe that the change in expectations and facilities at home led to this massive reduction in acne, (as it's certainly not due to any improvement in diet or exercise or changes in average hormone levels).

They just don't leave staphylococcal bacteria on their skin for long enough for it to find its way into hair follicles. They aren't coated in excessive sebum or sweat for long enough for bacteria to cause odour.

There will always be some who are unlucky and have an entirely separate medical condition (cystic acne) - but the majority of youngsters are not getting the same level of skin problems because their hygiene habits have changed - and by starting those habits slightly younger, this means that they don't experience the issues a lot of us did.

Your DD's dad doesn't want her to be the 12 year old at school that smells bad, the 13 year old covered in avoidable boils and the 17 year old plastering on foundation to try and hide scarring. Explain this to him - that the stuff about 'spots are nothing to do with cleanliness' isn't true - that whilst she might get some, they will be fewer in number and severity, as long as she continues doing the things that she is enjoying now.

She needs to keep clean. It's not sexualising her to allow her to enjoy keeping clean. She's not doing it to attract boys, it's hygiene.

(so he can bugger off with complaining she is growing up too fast)

Using deodorant isn't bad of course, but it's not a sign of good hygiene! You can be just as clean (but smellier perhaps) without it. Actually, without deodorant you are cleaner as you have not put chemicals on your skin.

Spots aren't caused by bad hygiene, or a lack of a good "skincare routine"!

I'd just be careful about giving the message that we need all the products that shops try to sell us.

Mitzi I was thinking about your post on the way home. A couple of things - I wonder how much of what you say is down to healthier diets. You say not, and of course some children are very unhealthy, but many of the young people I know are far far healthier than I was at their age.

The other thing, of course, is that these things are seen as ‘bad’ - someone upthread used the phrase ‘better safe than smelly’ as though having any kind of natural odour was dangerous for a child.

I’m also honestly not sure about your comments about bacteria. Surely washing your face morning and evening are what’s needed, not an endless array of expensive and packaged in plastic face washes, moisturisers and all the rest of it.

Ponoka Yes, that’s it. Everyone is trying to sell our kids something.

I agree with him. Deoderant and pads fine (though I suggest looking in to period pants and CSP... She has a whole life time ahead of periods so why introduce to disposables? But I don't see the need for face wash and body sprays. It's pointless, bad for skin and bad for the environment.

I think all you've bought is fine except for the body spray and perfume.

He’s being silly. I wish someone had told me to double cleanse with gentle cleansers, rather than attacking my face with all that paint stripper crap targeted at spotty teens!

At 10 years old, she could get her period at any point now. She is not too young.