Am I being lazy? Washing my child

[Daftmum47]

I take my child swimming at least once a week, often twice, and afterwards I shower him and wash his hair. But I’ve let myself slip into lazy ways of not always bathing him at home, without fail, every week. He’s probably not teaching neglected levels of unclean, but equally I’m not teaching him personal hygiene. I have ADHD and come from a slightly chaotic home environment myself. Do other mums sometimes skip bath times if their child is going swimming? Yes = YANBU

Soaked in urine! 😂

Maybe the bath obsessives just need to change nappies a bit more frequently?

I call BS on that teacher. Unless she was overstepping the bounds enough to enquire as to how often these kids are being bathed, all she can tell is who smells fragrant and who doesn't.

I mean wouldn't your kid smell like chlorine though? I would be pretty uncomfortable with that smell but I guess I could forgive it if it was not my kid. Add for myself I couldn't personally tolerate it in my home. My kid is getting a good bath with soap and water after that.

I'm assuming it was a pool. If it's a river, lake, ocean swim then yes you're being very unreasonable. That's seriously gross. I've gotten infections on my body from swimming in natural bodies of water even after a good shower at home. Definitely need to clean up after that!

We only had baths once a week when I was little. 1970s Maybe a midweek bath in the baby bath in front of the fire in the living room. Kids don't need bathing allover everyday as long as hands, face and bums are clean. Mine bathed after school but not everyday if at home.

I have to bath/ shower DD daily, she gets messy/ dirty after pre school. Even on days where we stay home I’d still bath her daily.

If we went swimming and she had a shower/ hair wash I wouldn’t then give her a second bath at home though.

I couldn't not bath my 5 year old daily.

He is a mucky little thing by the end of the day. Dirt from playing outside at school. Sticky hands. Food round his mouth. Definitely doesn't wipe his bottom as thoroughly as needed yet. Dirty fingernails, plahdoh or whatever stuck behind then.

I use baby wipes to do a quick clean up during the day/ after school etc. I couldn't put him to bed in cleans pyjamas with the grubbiness of the day still lingering, then send him to school the next day still unwashed.

I love nothing more than plonking him in a warm bath to wind down with some bath toys and letting him play then putting clean pyjamas on ready for bed.

Honestly OP I think you need to up your game with this. Every other day or around 2-3 times would be the minimum IMO.

While many people were used to weekly baths as kids, it isn't the norm now and hygiene standards are better thankfully.

My kids didn't bath everyday, they don't need to!

2/3 times a week is enough and if that happens at the pool then it still counts if soap and shampoo are involved.

Mine are teenagers now and both pretty much shower daily DD is better than DS but I think that is normal.

I think on weeks when you only go once to the pool, you need to wash him at least one more time, and preferably twice more.

Maybe Sunday night, Wednesday night, and Friday night would be a routine you could stick to? The aim would be not to go more than three days between washes.

If you get your son into the habit of washing regularly, it might be easier to ease him into the necessary daily washing once he gets to 10-11. If he's already that age, then he's not washing enough.

Depends on how old the kids are. Before starting to get BO etc (prob around grade 5 here), we did the same, shower them at the pool only. Ours did lessons twice a week, then afterwards we washed their hair and body there and that was it. They didn’t shower/bath at home unless there was a specific need.

Mine get a shower/bath and hair wash 2-3 times a week, but I count post swimming showers in that. DS swims twice a week so at most he'd have 1 bath at home, though some weeks he doesn't and is fine with just the tow showers plus washes.

Two proper showers or baths per week is fine for an eight year old. It doesn't matter if it is at the pool shower.
Additional to two baths/showers per week, washing face (morning and night) and hands (after toileting and before eating and after patting animals) every day and brushing hair every morning and teeth twice per day is the bare minimum, I think.
If the kid plays sport on Saturday then a shower/bath afterwards I would recommend. If no sport then I would recommend that your child bathes one other time at home - making three times per week.
Bathing when our grandparents were young happened only on Saturdays as water was very scarce. Humans can have hygenic washing routines without showering or bathing every day.
At eight years of age your son should be able to bathe himself, sensibly and safely. My kids had a 4 minute limit for showers when water was low.

Yes.

Parenting duties. That sounds rather excessive. I certainly couldn’t have done this with dd. I have chronic fatigue. Ensuring I had the energy to collect her from school and could stand long enough to feed her were my main priorities. Twice a week was all I could manage. Dd hated hair washing so it was a real struggle energy wise for me.

She’s a teen and showers all the time and is meticulous with teeth brushing, has a cleansing routine etc. I don’t think bathing small children daily has an impact on their long term health or personal hygiene as an adult.

As for the teacher smelling my dd. Well she had terrible anxiety about going to school. The teachers also knew I was a chronically unwell woman and doing my best. Getting dd to school was also very difficult and I had special dispensation to park on school grounds.

As long as he’s getting a hair shampoo and soap to get the chlorine off, a shower at swimming is still a shower. I think 3 times a week is reasonable. As he gets older as well he is going to need to watch his personal hygiene so getting him into a good habit now is important, teeth especially and clean clothes. As long as his teeth are clean he washes his hands face etc

DD has a shower/bath everyday, partly we live in a hot dusty place partly religious/cultural thing. Also she’s permanently got yoghurt in her hair so it’s easier just to hose hose her down at the end of the day 🙄.

My nine year old has a shower once or twice a week, maybe a bath some weeks too if he feels like he wants to relax (but I don't count that as washing)

He's not into puberty yet, he has hair and skin that couldn't stand being washed every day (and it's not good for it - I'm not going to go around stripping his skin with soap until it's dried out, then covering him with moisturiser to combat it when I could just let his skin look after itself by washing less).

My elder does a lot of sport, and washes every day, but still sometimes needs to be sent back to do a better job on his hair.

I think you need to take a flexible approach and base frequency on the child's needs at the time.

Me too but we had strip washes every night too, we didn’t simply only wash once a week! 🙄

Mine shower every night, hair once a week with shampoo but it gets wet anyway during the week.

If he’s only washing once a week then YABU. If you mean you don’t bath him after showering at the pool then YANBU. Everyone needs to bathe more than once a week but a shower is sufficient so you don’t need to also have a bath after showering.

Ds only baths at weekends on school weeks due to resistance to showering/bathing early or late in the day - he is severely autistic. He has cloth washes on the other days. He is clean and social care who are involved because of his disability don't consider him neglected.

Do you have any support OP? Is his dad involved?

A shower isn't enough twice a week no. Kids do PE at school, they don't keep clean. You need to be bathing your child after school more often.

Guess what op. I only bathe my 5 year old and 1 year old once a week in winter.
In summer it can be daily cause of sun cream and sweat etc.
But in winter? Meh.
They get a quick flannel wash before bed time.
They can flame me. I don’t care.

Youre taking your kid swimming twice a week. That’s not lazy so ignore those comments. God swimming and all the stress it involves.

But guess what? What will your kid remember when he’s older? Wow my mum bathed me every day now I have skin problems. Or wow my mum took me swimming and now I have a healthy skill and hobby for life.

I think it depends on the age, really. By 7yo, I think it’s good to be introducing a morning shower, esp. if you have adhd as it a good to get in that routine and equally your child is more likely to have adhd too. I find my ds with probable adhd takes longer to adjust to routines and tends to be very defiant, so it takes time to work out how to crack that. We used a positive reinforcer that on the last morning he gets television for a short time if he showers with no complaints (works for us though some children might need an on the day reward eg. Token). My aim is long term to have it be something he just does every day without thinking by secondary school, when children are famous for skipping showers and becoming more resistant to personal hygiene.

Otherwise though, twice a week is ok, I’d probably think it would be better if body was washed a little more often (if no eczema etc) but it’s not neglect. I do think you’ll struggle in the future if you don’t introduce a daily wash once the years creep closer to secondary - both you making sure it’s done and your child in actually doing it.

Mine was every day unless they've been swimming op. It's fine.

A bath a day does not cause skin problems.

My 5yo has a bath every other day, but we'll swap out the bath for a shower at the swimming pool (with shower gel and shampoo) if bath night coincides with the swimming lesson. The baby has a bath whenever the 5yo has one at home (in a baby bath next to the main bath and I bathe the baby while supervising the older one). Otherwise everyone gets a wipe down.