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

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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.

Three showers per week are not sufficient for a 15-year-old. He should be showering or bathing everyday. This is not the prehistoric, caveman era; girls and women have far higher standards nowadays. I’d be surprised any girl even wants to sit next to him, never mind date him.

Until I joined MN I never realised how much thought people gave to other peoples hygeine habits. I've never given a moments thought to my family or colleagues washing habits and I've never considered they might be judging mine.

Obviously if someone is clearly being neglected or neglecting themselves (potentially from MH reasons) that is a cause for concern, however they'll be an enormous range of "normal" habits between those who think anything less than 3 showers a day is "lazy/vile/gross/grim" and those who proclaim 1 shower a week is enough!

Most people fall somewhere between the 2 and in reality very few people would be able to tell what others habits actually are, unless they shared the same house or bathroom.

Im being honest as you’ve asked - I cant imagine bathing my kids twice a week ever. Even when ill, they have always had a warm bath, followed by cosy pjs. I think in over a decade, we’ve probably missed a couple of baths on long days out (im talking travelling to theme parks far away when they’ve had dinner on the way home and fallen asleep), then bathed them straight away in the morning. I always went to bed clean every single night. A 4 year old is going to have active days, playing at nursery, playing in the park, days out, food down them, smothered in sun cream in the Summer, hot and sweaty hair. I was bathing my children straight after pre-school/days out at that age (lots of messy play at pre-school). I would hate the feeling of going to bed with sun cream on my skin aswell, so would never do it to my children.

Daily bath/shower for everyone in the house no matter what.

I used to strip wash as a child and this was done before school. I had a bath and hair wash once a week - it was normal when I was growing up.

I don't think you can say it is or it isn't with absolute certainty.

It may be a sign of neglect is probably the more accurate statement.

when I went to my grandmothers, she didn't have a bathroom and only an outside loo. I bathed there a couple of times and it was in a tin bath in front of the Rayburn.

I can’t imagine not giving a small child a bath at least every other day, especially those still in nappies/pull ups. Even older ones, I think they need more than one bath a week. It seems the thing on here to come up with the ‘too much washing is bad for their skin’ excuse. Yes, back in the day, we bathed less, I was born in the 60’s and clearly remember the Sunday night bath and the Wednesday night wash in the kitchen sink. Times have changed since then, our homes and bathrooms are more modern with hot water on tap (pun intended). Those that think nobody can tell if your wain hasn’t had a bath or shampoo in a week (or three weeks!), you’re kidding yourself.

Totally agree - theres a dirt line around the bath after one day out in the summer from sun cream/dirt from playing outside and my bathroom is always clean. I cant imagine the look of the water/bath from a weeks worth of dirt/sweat/suncream - the water would be brown! 😩

This...The children who smelled of pee.
Probably bedwetters, but a couple of children at Junior school smelled bad enough for them to be effectively ostracised by the other children.

Really sad and unfair, it's the parent/s job to make sure their children don't smell of wee , or that oddly fusty smell that comes from stale clothing and less than fresh bedding.

Totally agree - theres a dirt line around the bath after one day out in the summer from sun cream/dirt from playing outside and my bathroom is always clean. I cant imagine the look of the water/bath from a weeks worth of dirt/sweat/suncream - the water would be brown!

in the 70s I used to visit London from a small market town in the midlands - i'd wash my hair once a week over the bath and the water would run pretty much just a dull dish water colour, each time after the London trip the water would be black - it was truly disgusting

No it's not. Dd was advised by gp to not have more than two baths a week....her skin breaks down if more. Gp said children shouldn't be bathed more than twice a week...

Mine are definitely the filthy and need some sort of bath or shower every day sort.

Today for example: sun creamed him which all got in his hair. Spilt milk all down his top during breakfast. 11am had taken his shoes off and played in the sandpit at the farm and then ran through the one puddle there. Lunch, somehow managed to smear butter in his hair from his sandwich. Collected rocks and sticks on the walk in the afternoon and tried to eat a leaf. Then spaghetti for tea which is probably self explanatory.

Ewww - even these days, I feel like I need a shower straight away when I get back from visiting a big city for the day 😅

Hair in London needs daily washing..especially if one travels on the Tube.
The rinse water indeed is discoloured after a day.

The air in the Tube smells bad. {District Line above ground not so heinous}

Goodness knows what happened to lungs..

once a week unless smelly, dirty or have been swimming for us initially, I think by about yr 2 it went to twice a week.

I don't think it's neglect on it's own, ie home, clothes etc all clean and the child is well fed and looked after.
I do think it's slovenly though and the kids do smell musty.
Mine were bathed every day and now have a daily shower as teens.

Theoretically I know that once daily isn’t recommended but I honestly couldn’t envision my child being clean enough to skip the daily bath regularly. He needs it daily otherwise he would smell musty.

I was bathed once a week as a small kid, always on a Sunday before the new school week began. As I got on older it became more often and then we had a shower fitted and it was daily. I think it depends how grubby the child gets. I don’t think it’s neglect to only bath them once a week.

''Kids do smell musty.''

They do!
It's a kind of organic, yeasty funk.

Probably the parent/s can't smell it as they are used to it.

Guaranteed other children will be able to smell it.

The point is she said they got washed once a week, not that they got bathed once a week.
We all knew the stinky kids at school and no one wanted to play with them, sit with them or be friends with them. We certainly didn't want to go to their houses.

I voted YANBU but my view is that one bath a week is ok as long as there’s washing happening meanwhile. Bums and private parts are going to get smelly/sore if left unwashed for a week… and strip washing is a lot more of a faff than a quick shower or bath. So YABU if no bum washing is occurring.

Sorry I see I’m repeating PP.

DD used to be bathed 1-2 times a week and then washed in between.

She's 11 now and baths/showers at least every other day, but usually more as she's very active.

I think if someone has a severe skin condition it is obviously a very different situation but water on basic eczema and similar won't cause skin to 'break down'.

A gp saying dc shouldn't be bathed more than twice a week is talking bollocks, but they often do so take it with a pinch of salt.

I don't know how you do it. We would have sore bottoms, endless sticky bits, terrible odours and stinking hair if I did this. Plus a higher chance of infections as their toilet hygiene is just not amazing. My children are not self cleaning. They are committed to getting moss/puddles/mud/glitter/hay/centipedes/lasagne in every orifice and in their hair on a daily basis.