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.

I only ever had a bath and washed my hair once a week as a kid in the 1980s. I was clean and tidy and not neglected.

And you filled it every day to bath from pans of water?

But people haven't physically changed. They not going to get any dirtier than back then.

I certainly didn't bath my 5 every night! Maybe 2-3 times a week, with a warm flannel wash morning & night on other days. I don't think it's good for their skin to bath every day. Once they got to 10/11 they did start to shower most days though. Teenage years they need a shower every day I think!

No need. Calm down. I was just answering OPs question with my lived experience.

Yeah I can never understand the obsession with bathing children every night. I used to nanny a boy with severe eczema and the mother insisted on bathing him every day, his skin would bleed and scab after each bath.

It most definitely would. The toddler gets hosed down if we run out of wipes. It takes literal seconds to scrub with a soap bar, rinse and dry with towel.

None of this flannel business, holding your bits and bobs over the sink

But people haven't physically changed. They not going to get any dirtier than back then

Norms around cleanliness have changed hugely along with running water in houses (not surprisingly) and being able to heat water quickly, and not have to put the immersion on.

There was a time when people changed only the collars of their outfits and just used to wear the same one all the time, to save washing, they obviously smelt a lot more than people now who have washing machines instead of spending a day a week washing a few items.

That's why keeping up with social norms is important, they do differ, one of my relatives does not wear deodorant and has under-arm hair and in her country this is normal, but here I find it hard going, although it doesn't make me feel any different towards her as a person.

In the 70's, teens often suffered terribly with acne and greasy hair and just had to front it out, I remember one girl was called 'Chip Shop' because of this. I don't think we can just reverse time, adjust our noses and not care if people smell of BO, because that isn't what we expect now, given you can buy soap in the pound shop, and have hot running water all the time or can boil a kettle.

People did what they could- now we do different, just make sure your kids are clean to today's acceptable standards, and this IS more than one bath and no flannel washes a week.

Now I live independently, I shower every day in summer and when I'm working. Every day or (sometimes) every two, if it's winter or I'm not going out. I am lucky enough to be able to afford it so I do. Technically I could get away with showering less because I have lower than average BO, but I prefer to keep clean if I can.

At my childhood house it's a different story. Every litre of hot water that comes out of the immersion tank means yet more energy that has to be used on reheating the refill - and that tank is not energy efficient, and neither is the central heating. Even a quarter or third-full bath (which my family would normally go for anyway), which gets cold quickly and is not especially efficient for washing purposes, takes a significant amount of water from the tank. Having a shallow bath to save money, when it's the middle of winter and the radiators are also on low to save money, is unpleasant enough for a grown adult and I'm not surprised my mother used to tell us to dry off quickly before we got hypothermia! There is no shower in the house and never has been.

For the record we always had cleaned teeth, combed hair, wiped faces after meals. Our bedding and clothes were washed regularly, fresh socks and underpants every day, compulsory handwash and pre-meal nail-cleaning if we'd been outside (which I hated). We were poor, but we were by no means dirty or neglected. The house was kept clean and tidy and we were extremely healthy children who rarely got sick.

I was born in the early 60s and I had a bath every other night. My sibling had a bath on the alternate nights. My parents showered or bathed daily.

I think why would you bother with flannels and top and tailing when a quick 10 minute bath a few times a week will sort it all out. Babies sit in nappies all day - they need more than a quick Pampers wipe (with all that plastic) to have healthy skin.

I’m just bowled over that your kids would only need a bath once a week. I obviously wipe noses and they wash hands etc but I’d say the benefit from a quick shower or bath every day! They love the bath though so it’s a nice routine. I wash everyday so couldn’t imagine not giving the kids a little scrub. I wouldn’t judge if they appeared clean and well turned out but I’d internally raise an eyebrow at a once a week wash if I’m honest!

@Samlewis96 My parents did. I can't remember because I was too young to count the baths they gave me.

If they’re dirty, then wash your dc. Otherwise, once a week is fine for most dc I should imagine.
My dc loved baths, so they had much then everyday or ever other day.

YANBU.

My first born had awful eczema as a baby and the HV told me to bath him once a week max. My second born just hates baths and showers so they're the same, bath once a week.

As a kid we had a bath once a week and a quick wash in between at the sink.

As an adult with long thick hair I wash it as infrequently as possible. Mostly as I find it's in better condition but also because it's a real task to dry and style.

It blows my mind that some kids have a bath or shower every single night. My first thought is the utility bills, my second is their skin. 🤯

I think that because many people in these chat rooms are from the UK we will see a lot of YANBU.

I’m from Australia and it is well known that British people have appalling hygiene. Failing to bathe regularly and failing to take care of their teeth.

It’s a stereotype, but one that is shared by many people who move to this country from Britain.

In Australia the climate varies, but even in winter I shower twice a day. I don’t understand how people who catch public transport, work with the public all day, sweat, pee, poop, menstruate and have vaginal discharge - fail to shower at least once a day.

There’s foot odour, body odour, hair and scalp odour. Many of you don’t wash your clothes regularly and wear outside shoes inside your homes. Bathing isn’t just for cleaning dirt and sweat - it’s for washing pollutants off our skin and for removing the dead skin cells that we are constantly shedding. If you’re not washing these dead skin cells down the drain they end up in your bed, in your carpets and all over your clothes and furniture.

I can smell you. I can smell your unwashed hair and the perpetual damp smell of your clothes. I can smell when you’ve worn the same clothes on multiple days, I can even sometimes smell an unwashed genital smell on people.

I’m not imagining these smells - they are very very real.

My 3 year old every other day on average - he is often quite grim though.

my daughter is 11 and showers every day, she does a lot of sport but I also think it gets them in the routine of daily showering, baths were lax in my household growing up and I don't think my personal hygiene was the best until I was in my 20s

They smell, they wash. Simples.

I would feel i was neglecting my children's needs if i only bathed them once a week. They get done every other day here unless they are particularly dirty.

My kids always bathed daily. I have a friend who only bathed her kids once a week. They did smell. Feet absolutely stank when they came over to play and took off their shoes. I know my kids used to say that other kids at school would make comments too. A bath only has to take 10 minutes.

My hair is 3B, I have a 3A and 3C curl type child. All have fresh glorious curls.

Their hair is not more “dry” than the 4A no-curls child. The greasy scalp would show on 4A more quickly, but that’s oil from her scalp! The others have the oil, just less visible, we still wash it.

There are great products to get great curls every day, & we don’t have frizz! Great tutorials for advice on styling & care. Product ranges for kids as well.

Kids are active, hair gets washed, great shiny curls every day. Looks great, smells great. Other kids always touching their curls, don’t want them to be dirty.

Absolutely agree with this. It’s more normal to shower/bath daily these days.

My kids insist on a bath every night. But they will only
consent to a hair wash once a
week at most! I definitely didn’t have a daily bath when I was a child.

It's on a par with those who claim to wash their towels every time anyone's even looked at them and wash the sheets after a bit of rumpy pumpy! They are then constantly moaning about energy prices because their washing machine is on 4 times a day.

My comments weren’t in the when I was your age bracket. My comments were based on healthy skin and body.
This article explains what too many baths/showers can do to your skin.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/showering-daily-is-it-necessary-2019062617193#:~:text=Yes%2C%20you%20could%20be%20making,waste%20a%20lot%20of%20water.

But everyone had a full strip wash every day.
It's disgusting neglecting basic hygiene like this.