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.

And to follow that up, for anybody who claims even the sight of Radox gives them thrush and their kids eczema, there are flipping loads of natural products and tbh I don’t believe you can’t find something to clean with that doesn’t break you out.

I remember one post on here who said they only shampooed their hair in the bath, as any products left them wanting to flay their skin off. I asked how it was ok to lie in a bath full of shampoo suds but not a very mild soap, they didn’t reply 🤷🏼‍♀️

Not far off neglect and definitely grim. Bums and feet need daily washing and no a 'top and tail' does not suffice.

We all knew the smelly kids at school. Don't let yours be one of them.

There are different degrees of neglect the same as with all other forms of child abuse. It doesn’t have to be the worst possible neglectful treatment to be classed as child neglect the same as CSA doesn’t have to be years of child rape to be classed as child sexual abuse.

'And to follow that up, for anybody who claims even the sight of Radox gives them thrush and their kids eczema, there are flipping loads of natural products and tbh I don’t believe you can’t find something to clean with that doesn’t break you out.'

Exactly. Just slack, incredibly lazy 'parenting'.

Why would they be smelly? What would be making a child who brushes their teeth twice a day, washes their hands appropriately, washes their face at bedtime and knows how to wipe properly after using the toilet, smelly?

Same here in the 60s/70s. Bath night was Sunday and my hair was washed every other Sunday.
At secondary school I had 2 white blouses - one of which I'd wear for 2 days and the other for 3 days. They were then washed on a weekend.

'washes their hands appropriately, washes their face at bedtime and knows how to wipe properly after using the toilet, smelly?'

Whole bodies need washing properly daily. A quick flick with flannel is not sufficient. Honestly why do some folk need the very obvious pointing out. Poor kids going to school after a once a week bath/shower and their poor friends 🤢.

4 year olds don't tend to wipe terribly well when going to the loo. Even the ones who are good at it. Its why nursery/reception classrooms have that smell a bit like wee.

I'd be fine with once a week but i think their bottom etc needs washing properly on a daily basis .

That said, i couldn't get away with it with my kids (4 & 7). They seem to get muddy/grubby from playing out or have pen on them basically every day, we can only get away with skipping the bath/shower once or twice a week.

Well, official sources would disagree - poor hygiene absolutely is a form of neglect, especially when the children are so young that they have no choice but to go along with what their parents choose.

https://cpdonline.co.uk/knowledge-base/safeguarding/the-types-of-child-neglect/#:~:text=Another%20example%20of%20physical%20neglect,they%20form%20with%20other%20children.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-abuse-and-neglect/neglect

There are different levels and types of neglect.

Just because a child isn't living in a home with dog shit on the floor, doesn't mean they're not being neglected

Literally neither of these links (BTW the first one isn’t the bet source it’s about online courses) say that bathing once a week is neglect.

You need to try harder

They really don’t. Get a grip. I know my child doesn’t smell and she looks perfectly neat and tidy. Children are not adults - she doesn’t smell.

I’ve found this attitude usually the preserve of those Mrs Hinch dickheads who also change every towel in the house after half an hour and use 7 bottles of Zoflora a day then wonder why their children have shite immune systems and the local water systems are polluted as fuck.

And bathing regularly but less regularly than the next family doesn’t mean they ARE neglected

Top and tail is fine for in-between showers. How do you think bed ridden people manage. Fgs.

I never said they did

I said that poor hygiene is a type of physical neglect.

So maybe read people's posts properly before jumping in with your snippy comments?

Again, I never said it did.

Agree with this.
my DC are a bit different in that they have skin conditions where the advice is to not bathe too much, but these smug germophobes may think they’re doing an excellent job keeping their kids clean but I wonder if they’re taking notice of wether their anxieties are rubbing off onto their kids. IME germophobe parents create children who are bags of nerves, and perhaps they shouldn’t be as sanctimonious as they are.

You heavily implied it, otherwise I’m not sure what the point of your post even was

This has never been the norm for me or my family. I always had a bath most days.

It's not neglect (and I come from the era of Sunday night baths myself so grew up with this as the norm.) But my kid definitely needs a bath more than once a week. As I suspect any kid who plays out a lot would.

@Caravaggiouch

Playing? Mine play outdoors most days. They seem to always have grass stained knees, or general "grubbiness" everywhere. Its not just on their hands.

Lots of children will wear a dress with no tights, or shorts, for the vast majority of the year - they often don't feel the cold, and they can easily get mud etc on their legs.

My primary age dc often come home with pen, glue or paint in the most bizarre places.

My DC aren't particularly prone to getting sweaty but we know loads who are pink & sweaty after twenty minutes running around the park.

There'll be a minority of children who might be ok after not being bathed for a week but its not many.

I do think when its your own DC you get used to how they smell & may not notice it but honestly they can whiff if not washed.

As usual on mumsnet, people go to one extreme or the other with no middle ground.

for some children, a weekly bath or shower will be perfectly adequate and for others it won’t. Depends how messy they are, whether they get sweaty, whether they wash in between showers/baths, whether they have clean clothes. So many factors!

As a children’s social worker, I would never consider just the frequency of a weekly bath in and of itself as a child automatically being neglected! That’s ridiculous.
they MAY be neglected or they MAY be absolutely fine.
it would only be if it was part of a bigger picture that it might be considered neglectful.

Well, this is a discussion forum, so to contribute to the discussion...

It's not neglect but it is a bit gross, most kids get grubby and sweaty ime.

EH?!

I said bathing once a week isn’t a form of neglect.

You said “Official sources would disagree” and presented me with ONE source and one online training website that said NOTHING about bathing once a week.

I reall my CBA with the “i dIdNt SAy THat” semantics bullshit that some posters only pull when they’ve been proven wrong and want to pretend they didn’t mean things literally. You’re wrong on every level and I’m guessing you assumed people wouldn’t click on your “official sources”