AIBU to think that bathing your kids once a week is not 'neglect'.

[ThisWillBeInteresting01]

This is spurred on by another threat about someone struggling to keep their house clean. They mentioned that their kids are bathed once a week. This caused a lot of negativity amongst posters, with some comments calling bathing your kids once a week 'neglect'. This surprised me!!

My DC is 4 and has on average 2 baths a week (and yes, sometimes that means 1 a week). It has never been part of our bedtime routine - it gets them het up rather than calming them down. Their hair is washed once a week in term time after swimming class (v long hair as per DC's request, which takes an age to wash and dry). On holidays we once went 3 weeks without washing their hair. Hair was not smelly and looked lovely throughout.
My DC is not smelly, not dirty and most definitely not neglected! They have clean clothes, tidy brushed hair, are very popular at school, and have a generally nice life. (They also have a miraculous ability to somehow stay clean even when eating bowls of bolognaise and poking around in the dirt at school, which is helpful 🙏. Obviously if/when they do actually get covered in mud I wash them!).

I did some poking around and the American Academy of Dermatology say that children below pre-teens do not need more than 1-2 baths a week as long as they're not actively dirty/smelly.
https://www.aad.org/public/everyday-care/skin-care-basics/care/child-bathing

So is it really that bad not to bathe your children very often?

YABU - Children are dirty and sticky, more washing please!

YANBU - As long as they're not stinking up the bus then it's fine.

Of course it isn’t and anyone who suggests it’s is has never seen real neglect.

Well the OP on the other thread DID think it was a problem. You may have self cleaning children but most don’t. Not keeping your children clean can be a sign of neglect. Luckily the OP wants to address that and sees there is an issue.

It's not neglect.

You’re right. My 5 yr old Dd has one bath a week. Mainly because she has red curly hair which is dry and washing it more than once a week makes it unmanageable, keeping her hair dry in the bath is impossible.
i give her a top and tail wash twice a day though. If she gets dirty or we’ve been to the beach I may pop her in the bath but once a week is fine.

This. It's just MN competitive cleanliness froth.

When I was a kid back in the 70s, it was the norm to have a bath once a week, usually on a Sunday evening before school on a Monday. None of us kids were ever smelly, but we did have washes on the other days.

Honestly, this subject has been done to death on Mumsnet.

You might find it interesting to look back on one of the hundreds of threads on it.

I'd say the vast majority of MN would consider one bath a week to be inadequate at best and neglectful at worst.

It was just part of our bedtime routine. Can't remember when it stopped, but they certainly don't have a bath every night now. In fact, they never have a bath now.

When my oldest DS was about 11, he didn't wash or change his clothes for two weeks when we were on holiday. I was just exasperated that I'd packed enough clothes for two weeks for him and he didn't use them. He didn't smell, but he was in and out of the sea on some days.

In summer mine are sticky with sunscreen. In winter they are muddy.

For us it’s a 15 minute part of the routine. Every night. And now DS1 is 11 it means that getting him to wash now he needs to isn’t a battle (unlike some of his peers).

We had a bath at the weekend as children and just a wash during the week. We were never smelly, no one we knew had a built in shower.
Describing this as neglect is batshit, some people have no idea.
We bathed one of of kids rarely as she had eczema and our awful tap water aggravated it badly.

It was normal for kids to be bathed once a week on a Sunday night. For decades it was normal.

"Neglect" isn't just one thing though is it? There were smelly kids at my school who were definitely neglected - they wore dirty clothes, their hair was matted and they smelled stale or often of urine. Their lack of hygiene was one obvious sign in probably many ways in which they were neglected.

Not exactly neglect but it’s gross.
We do showers rather than baths (as we don’t have a bath!) but it happens daily.

It's absolutely fine op, yanbu

as a child I had one bath a week, my son had a bath every day but only because he liked it, one bath a week is fine IMO if it suits the child and they are otherwise clean and tidy. It’s only neglect if they are left obviously dirty, teeth aren’t cleaned, nits left untreated etc. there would need to be lots of other things going on as well I think for anything like that to be seen as neglect.

I don't think there's a straightforward answer.

There's a huge difference between a child who only has a weekly bath but who gets their face washed daily, has clean clothes, clean bedsheets and gets their hair and teeth brushed daily, and a child who is only allowed one bath a week, has dirty clothes and never brushes their teeth.

And that's not what we are talking about here. We used to foster and kids that came in like that, did not get that way from bathing once a week in a well managed household.

Bathing DC once or twice a week seems to be the norm on MN. I don’t think it’s neglect but I don’t understand it either. My DC shower daily. They sweat, poo and get dirty in a number of ways as most children do so I cannot fathom washing them 1-2 times in a week. Every family is different.

Ah I think people on here just like to say shit for dramatic effect/feel superior/ make others feel bad.

Nothing wrong with bathing 1-2 times a week as young child unless they are physically getting dirty. As with most areas of life you adjust to the circumstances so if you have a child who is very active and coming home filthy every day then yeah, you'll have to throw them in the shower/bath.

As they get older they need to shower more frequently.
I think people assume that parents are not cleaning their kids at all outside of the bath!

Ds 1.5 is bathed most nights but it is part of is bedtime routine and is more a way of getting the last of his crazy energy out before bed than him actually being dirty. That being said he's also feeding himself and sometimes his hair needs it but at your kids ages that wouldn't be an issue.

I think twice a week is fine unless they actually need it earlier.

Neglect is being used way way too strongly in this context and should be applied to where there's a myriad of omissions of care. A clean house, clean clothes, well cared for children with teeth brushed daily and fed well and dressed appropriately for the weather in a safe environment but with a bath once a week is not neglect.

The thing with the other thread is it wasn't just a bath once a week; there were a few other things going on that meant people were saying the situation could be neglectful.

I don't think it's neglect but I think surely the kids are quite smelly by day 3. It was normal to bathe once a year in the middle ages! Times change. I know it was the norm in the 70s but kids who bathe once a week now probably don't look or smell very clean in comparison to their peer group. It doesn't have to be damaging to sensitive skin if you use limited and skin sensitive products.

I think people assume that parents are not cleaning their kids at all outside of the bath!

This definitely seems to be the issue. I don't quite understand how people think a shower or bath is the only way to stay clean. If that's your comfort zone, then obviously that's fine, but is the judgement that others are dirty for not doing the same.

This! Our paediatrician has recommended no more than two short baths a week because of eczema, if they are grubby because of mud play etc, we shower down super quickly! Pretty standard recommendation for eczema! They are little though so as they grow up of course they’ll shower daily. So many posters seem to see their way as the only way and not recognise that each child is individual.

That is not neglect. We never did nightly baths after the kids turned 5. None of them have baths now as they hate lying in the water. They all just have showers instead but every other day.