Sharing bath water

[TheseDaysGoBy]

When I was a child and growing up (1990s) to save money my mum would bathe first, then my brother or I would use the water to bathe when she finished whilst it was still warm. We didn't have a shower. I know this is something families used to do years ago when people hadn't much money and there was no central heating so it took more to fill a bath with hot water. This was normal to me.

I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are on shared bath water these days, especially for those on low income, and if any of you still do it or have done to save money, especially with the current energy situation? My partner enjoys his baths and I prefer showers but with the current situation, I would like to keep an eye on our energy and water usage and don't see anything wrong with using his water after he's bathed but he would probably think the idea is gross so I haven't. He's clean and doesn't have a job which makes him dirty.

YANBU - it's fine to share bath water with my kids/partner, as long as it's still warm and not filthy
YABU - no, I wouldn't share bath water with my kids/partner

Husband and I share bath water. I only have baths in the winter, neither of us are really doing it to get clean and it's more of a relaxing thing in the evening. Considering all the other things we share as a married couple I'm not sure I can get too worked up about sharing bath water.

My DC share bath water and always have done. Well, when they were all small they’d just share the actual bath. Eldest is 12 now and they still share bath water. No issue with it really, they wash every other day so not filthy and eldest hasn’t started getting really stinky just yet. When he does he’ll likely shower daily instead. I rarely have a bath, shower daily instead.

Crikey people are hysterical. It Utis from sharing bathwater 🤣?

If you live in a hard water area, you can end up with a lot of soapy scum in the bath, once you've washed - that is part of what made me dislike using my sister's bathwater after she had. Even if you know that it is just soap + limescale, it still doesn't feel properly clean - or it didn't to me, anyway.

Plus it was not hot (and I wasn't allowed to add extra hot water, because of the useless immersion tank we had - if I'd used more hot water, there wouldn't have been enough for mum and dad).

We always shared bath water in the 80s and probably into the 90s too. The immersion heater was expensive to run so me and my siblings shared the water on Sunday night and then my mum and dad shared it on Monday and that was it. Stand up wash in the bathroom for the rest of the week.

I often jump into my kids bath water now, doesn't bother me and it saves on gas for the boiler.

Oh and I bathed my DC together when they were small.

We often do it, I'll have a scalding bath and by the time I get out it's perfect temperature for the kids or my partner. It really doesn't bother any of us as we aren't MN-obsessive about germs & it saves on water/heating it. It's just habit now to ask, 'Does anyone want my water?' when we get out.

@Baconandmaplesyrup "You don’t seem that old if you’ve young kids? I’m in my fifties and I bathed more than that as a child. Surely you were washed in between time? We had a bath every night growing up. In my experience washing or bathing daily was normal"

It might have been normal for you but it certainly wasn't for us - I don't recall any of my friends bathing every single night during my childhood.

My mum was raised in a house with an old tin bath in front of the fire on a Sunday night - both parents and then all 7 kids in one after the other so I doubt she though it was disgusting to bathe once a week - and when I was growing up she was the one paying the gas bill so if she said one bath on a Sunday night was sufficient then that's what we had. I really doubt it would have gone down well for us to have demanded more. We had a very old cast iron bath that took an age to fill and went cold almost immediately so it was literally a quick 2 minute dip in for each of us.

I would point out though that not bathing is NOT the same as not washing - of course we washed regularly at the sink - even if it was just the "important" bits.

Growing up in a draughty old farmhouse with no central heating and only one open fire meant that removal of clothing was minimised as much as humanly possible