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.

Exactly it is not rocket science. Very easy to your move head away from the direct flow from the shower so bodies get washed but not hair
The enabling and excusing smelliness and poor hygiene on this thread is staggering,

Daily showers, no excuses!

Still fucking disgusting and unhygienic.

I don't believe that a t-shirt and trousers worn all day every day by a small boy who is camping, running around, playing on the beach, sitting outside etc didn't get grubby and didn't pong. He must have got grass, dirt, sand, food, sweat, dead skin, sunscreen, liquids on them and clothes get that funky feel after a few days..

Regardless of whether his clothes smelled or not, you should have insisted he changed his clothes. It was poor form to allow him to be this grim.

Well, believe it. It became a challenge after a few days for him to want see it through to the end of the holiday. He was probably about 11 at the time and was quite competent with a knife and fork, so no dribbled food. As I said, he was still presentable in public and he was having great fun on holiday. Probably most of the running around he was doing without the tshirt and he was in and out of the sea. It was far from "fucking disgusting and unhygienic", but just as well you weren't sharing a tent with him.

Lots of excuses actually

As a child, Friday night was bath night and during the week it was a strip wash at the sink.

Back (60s/70) then we had vanity units in our bedrooms so could wash face and hands first thing in the morning etc.

Yes but.....I was 11 in 1969. In the 70s we only had a bath, no showers. hair washing was a tedious faff and hairdryers useless. Hot water was comparatively expensive so a weekly bath was economy as much as anything else. I don't think the situations are comparable.

I honestly can't see the problem these days of a child having a quick bath or shower as part of a night time routine. Learning to keep clean is a good thing. Stick long hair in a shower cap, job done. My hairdryer takes about 5 minutes to dry quite long hair. Life is not the same.

You let an 11yr old not shower for 2 weeks. Why? Campsites have toilet blocks with showers I remember when we were kids traipsing over there to have a shower was part of the fun.

Kids need parenting, even when on holiday. his bum and feet must've been disgusting. It doesn't matter if he had black shorts on to hide the grime it was still there. I mean I'm laid back when camping I'd maybe let them go every other day for a shower. But 2 weeks. Jesus.

What was the reason for not getting him to shower or wash for two weeks? (I might have missed the reason for this as haven’t read the entire thread).

I didn't say that. I said he wore the same clothes for two weeks.

You don't need to wash your hair every time. It's not hard to not get it wet.

'When my oldest DS was about 11, he didn't wash or change his clothes for two weeks when we were on holiday'

Ah you see when you said he didn't wash or change his clothes for 2 weeks I read it as he didn't wash or change his clothes for 2 weeks. But you mean he didn't wash his clothes or change his clothes. Got it.

So daily showers yes? Then putting dirty clothes on. Underwear changed?

We’re not talking about adults here.

detach the shower head from the wall, soap them, then hose them down?

Even worse, he showered and then got dressed in 9 days old clothes? 🤢

Jesus Christ, I cannot fathom why you didn't insist he gets changed after day 3 or 4...

I don’t need to.

Did he at least change his pants and socks?

Laughs remembering a childhood in the 70s/80s when it was absolutely the norm.

Pre puberty and unless they have got covered in mud or whatever then I think it's bad for them to have a daily bath. I'm sure this has been proven.

It wasn’t normal.

I was born on the 60’s. I had a bath every night, so did my best friends.

This is probably more a case of people's laundry not getting properly clean. I remember having trouble years ago, with deodorant build up in the armpits (where I'd previously sweated) not getting washed out and sort of reactivating and smelling bad the next time I sweated.

Edit: the people who shower in the morning and stink early in the day, I mean.

I grew up in the 80s/90s we had a bath but no shower. We didn't bath every day but probably more than once a week. Had a wash at the basin between times.
I look at pics of me when I was a teen and my hair (waist length) was noticeably greasy in lots of them

I shower daily now, but I probably wash my hair twice a week.

Then you were privileged.

A lot of us still had outside toilets and tin baths in the 70s/early 80s.

I had an outside toilet and a bucket with a mug in a poor developing country. I sluiced myself really. Everybody sluices daily. They still do even though they still don't have showers. As most people do across the world even when they have to dig their own wells for water.
This isn't about privilege, mostly. Not in 2024 in the UK.

I didn't say anything about a sluice/flannel.

I said a daily bath. Wholly unnecessary and wasteful.

You didn't, yes @Willyoujustbequiet.You did insinuate only the privileged can or could be clean, and I disagree in most cases.
I also disagree that a daily bath is unnecessary. This flanneling bits and pits seems to be more wasteful.

Actually reading this thread, I feel some people would prefer to go back to medieval times, when people were sewn into their clothes for the winter!

Not ideal or hygienic (private parts left to fester after a week of going to the toilet and sweating in bed 🤢) but not neglect, no.