Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Reusing bathwater

157 replies

Westside1 · 08/11/2020 22:56

Just read on a money saving post how family of 4 reuse same bathwater each night, saving a fortune in the process.

6 & 3 year old gets bathed first, then mum heats it up for her bath and finally dad (as he is the dirtiest or so they say) adds hot water and has a scrub.

Omg, AIBU or is the the most gross thing ever.

OP posts:
BewareTheBeardedDragon · 08/11/2020 22:58

Depends on dirtiness of dc on the day but I have been known to use their water if I know they haven't peed in it...

Charliecatpaws · 08/11/2020 22:58

It was a very common occurrence years ago, I understand that in this day it may seem unsavoury but you don’t know the circumstances of that family and their finances

KarlKennedysDurianFruit · 08/11/2020 23:00

Can't you get reduced water rates if you're on very low income? DH has a bath with DS tonight, but mainly because DS asked a lot, DH had already had a shower earlier. I wouldn't fancy being 4th in line every day

NiceGerbil · 08/11/2020 23:01

It was the norm not so long ago. Heating water was expensive.

I was born in the 70s and it wasn't unusual then.

No harm came to anyone from it!

Maybe before declaring it the most 'gross thing ever' you might want to reflect on the fact loads of people around the world don't even have clean drinking water!

And in fact here in London in that hot summer a couple years back the advice to help conserve water was to not flush wees, and to share bathwater!

Have you seriously never heard of this before? I'm a bit surprised now I'm thinking about it!

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 08/11/2020 23:01

Hmm we sometimes share bath water. Ill go in after the kids, or they go in after me. No one goes in after dp. He is definitely the dirtiest because of his job, and he plays football. None of us are dirty, we have a bath or shower every night, so its just a freshen up 🤷‍♀️. I don't think all 4 of us have went in the same bath though. I don't even do jt to save money, just because the shower is shit and no one wants to use it, and I can't be bothered running bath after bath.

flaviaritt · 08/11/2020 23:01

I occasionally allow my child to use my bath water if it is hot and vice versa.

mynameiscalypso · 08/11/2020 23:01

How do you heat up water in a bath? Not that I would want to do it but I've always wondered.

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 08/11/2020 23:03

The most gross thing ever is a bit OTT!

Dddaddy · 08/11/2020 23:04

Gross. Sorry.

Original poster
Westside1 · 08/11/2020 23:04

Add boiled kettle or top up with really hot water

OP posts:
pincertoe · 08/11/2020 23:04

In our old house we didn't have a shower so I regularly had the bath after DH.
Both kids would jump in my bath with me or after me too. Non of us had dirty jobs and we bathed daily so it didn't feel gross.

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 08/11/2020 23:04

@mynameiscalypso

How do you heat up water in a bath? Not that I would want to do it but I've always wondered.
You run the hot tap Confused
nestisflown · 08/11/2020 23:05

I’d rather not bathe than bathe in the same water as my kids and husband (I wouldn’t mind bathing at the same time but bathing afterwards and reheating just makes it seem so much worse).

When we were younger and poor we had what we called bucket baths. Each of us had a bucket of warm water with which to bathe and used a scoop to splash it on ourselves and rinse the soap off. That was less than a bath full of water for the whole family and it was clean water for each person.

Original poster
Westside1 · 08/11/2020 23:08

Now that I think about it I have heard about it before, years ago. I just think it's a bit yuk but as someone pointed out I dont know that families circumstances so it's a fair point. I personally would prefer a quick shower but maybe they dont have a shower.

OP posts:
DramaAlpaca · 08/11/2020 23:12

It wasn't considered in the least bit gross when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s and it was a regular, normal thing for lots of families.

Nowadays my family wouldn't dream of it and it does sound a bit grim.

NiceGerbil · 08/11/2020 23:15

4x quick shower is still a lot of water.

And kids love playing together in the bath! One of my happy memories as a kid at be the DDs enjoyed it as well :D

I know it's a bit po faced to say we're lucky to be able to have these luxuries- and they are relatively modern luxuries -plentiful hot water literally on tap in homes.

So op fair play to say oh yeah that's a point! Unusual in aibu!

Lowkeevslucille · 08/11/2020 23:16

I seriously doubt you "save a fortune" by doing this.

We don't share anything, and we are not spending a fortune on bills.

And whatever "saving" would be wiped out by the cost of boiling a kettle.

Basically, it's ridiculous.

NiceGerbil · 08/11/2020 23:17

Other point.

Hot tubs are v popular. That seems way more manky to me, at least!

Anyone see that daily mash sex pond thing about it Grin

theconstantinoplegardener · 08/11/2020 23:21

Gosh, this was how bathtime worked when I was a child - and we didn't bathe every day, either!

I love my daily shower now, but I don't think I'd mind going back to shared bathwater if necessary. I would still have to have some sort of a wash every day though, either shared bathwater or a wash at the basin.

Grenlei · 08/11/2020 23:21

When DC were small I would often get in the bath after them, or my then partner would. Partly for reasons of economic, but also because our boiler took ages to heat up...once I'd run DCs bath (they always shared up to about 6-7) there was only enough hot to top up the bath, not to run a new bath or even a shower. Although for a long time we also didn't have a shower anyway ( no separate shower and style of bath tap meant we couldn't buy one of the push on one's as a temp measure) so it was bath or nothing.

MrsMoastyToasty · 08/11/2020 23:27

I'm old enough to remember the drought of 1976. Sharing bathwater was common. In our family we would share a bath and then DF would siphon it off

to water the garden (I'll never forget his face the time when he sucked on the hosepipe to pull the water through and didn't remember to move his mouth out of the way soon enough!)

JayDot500 · 08/11/2020 23:28

I will jump in DC's baths with no issue. They bathe everyday, and are very clean. They're >5 and not grubby at all. I've no financial reason to do it. But reaching down to unplug the bath that's filled with warm soapy clean water, just to draw a new bath... just seems very wasteful. So I often just save time and jump in. DH does it sometimes too if it's not a work day (he showers). Funny, we've never actually spoken to each other about it, just makes sense at the time.

However, I don't do it vice versa. DC's always have fresh water. If they were grimy/smelly kids, no way. I suspect I'll stop this once they get older and start perspiring.

JayDot500 · 08/11/2020 23:29
DaddysGirlForLife · 08/11/2020 23:32

My dad was born in the 60s and it went like this...
His dad, his older brother, him & then his younger brother. So the dad (my grandad) got the water first ha!

nildesparandum · 08/11/2020 23:36

I spent all of my childhood in the 50s.The only means of heating the water was the open coal fire.Once a week it was blazed up for bath night usually a Friday, even in summer.
There were five of us children and we all shared the bath water before going to bed.My mother would then blaze up the fire again for my father and her to get bathed.
We thought nothing of it, it washout everyone did except rich people who had central heating.
Now I look back on those times and think how gross.But we all survived.