Reusing bathwater

[Westside1]

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.

Me and DB used to do this in the 80s - well our DM made us do it! These days, I'm a fan of the 'Navy Shower' for saving water. Get in shower and wet all of body. Turn shower off and scrub up. Turn shower back on and rinse. Don't like wasting water.

I quite regularly use my dd’s bath water - she likes lots of hot water, so it seems like a waste not to use it! But we both shower or bath daily so the water is pretty clean.

We still share bath water in my house, my sister does with her family too, we grew up with it and we can't get out of the habit! We were only wondering the other day if other families still do this.....

Theres been afew of these recently....

Here you go OP: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a4055139-do-you-share-bath-water-not-together

You might also enjoy this one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a4063391-Is-it-gross-to-pee-in-the-bath

We do this all the time? It's not because we are short of money either. My DS generally bags the first bath, he soaks for a while empty's some and tops up the hot for me, I go and have a longer soak and top up with fresh bubble bath and water.

Then just before I empty I shout my DH and he will sometimes just dip in and have a scrub.

We all shower in the mornings so we aren't dirty dirty just all like a relax.

It's not even a family thing my parents don't use a bath? So god knows where it came from just habit I guess when I used to bath with the DS.

Disgusting!

I hope those of you who find this intolerably disgusting are all donating to water aid or similar

That is fucking disgusting

Good good.

That's at least 3 posters who will be starting regular donations to charities around clean water then. Nice one!

@NiceGerbil. I said something similar to my DD
( who was mainly responsible for having the long showers). She claims to be environmentally aware so she should be conserving as much water as she can!

She acknowledged the point. We don’t “need” to use as much water for hygiene as we do, we just like to.

@NiceGerbil you weirdo 😂

If it's all they can afford then fair enough, but personally I'd feel dirty. I know someone who pours their bath water down the loo instead of flushing which is a more savoury way to conserve water.

Ugh. Showers are cleaner in any case and use less water.

It's debatable whether 4x long showers would use less water than 1 bath.

Also not everyone has a shower! Nor does everyone have a combi boiler for unlimited hot water.

I shave my legs and underarms in the bath and by the time I am done the water is a really gross mess of scummy soap water and hair. I wash myself and shampoo my hair first, when the water is still clean. I drain the scummy water whilst I'm rinsing my hair with the shower attachment and then scummy hairy soap line around where the top of the water was gets blasted with the shower too. So essentially, I won't even wash myself in my own bath water, so no way am I sharing it or having anyone else's gross seconds.

I think if money is tight and no shower it gets the job done. I doubt anyone would do this otherwise, even if focused on just you didn’t like to waste water, you’d have the navy shower described above.

I feel a bit sorry for the father though, to always be washing in fourth hand water. But sometimes needs must.

It's debatable whether 4x long showers would use less water than 1 bath

Well yes, but they don’t need to be long. Four quick showers would get the job done and sill be less than a bath. Particularly if you switched the water off whilst soaping yourself. Unless of course you just use a tiny amount of water in a bath. Which really does make it a bit disgusting.

@BeaMends

During a hot dry spell in the summer months I have been known to use the bathwater on the garden.

why wouldn't you! Plants love it, soap kills the bugs, plants to thrive with bath water.

Way back when in the 90s, there were 4 dcs in first, followed by mum then dad! All in the same water. Never did us any harm but not sure I'd do it now...but then I don't have a 6 person family to support!

My older three DC share bath water, I don’t think it’s gross at all. I won’t expect them to do it when they’re teens or anything but right now (8, 9 and 10) it just makes sense to. They always used to share a bath tbh but they’re obviously too big and old for that now. It’s better for the planet 🤷🏻‍♀️.

OMG that is horrible. It must be a wind up

Me and DP do this occasionally- we have showers at both ends of the day so a morning bath is clean enough for him to get in after me when i haven't washed my hair or shaved my legs obviously- I think it's fine

Perfectly common when I was a kid in the 70s. Maybe just for us kids. Parents did it separately.