Do you bath your kids everyday?

[Nastynigel]

How often do your children have a bath -
aged 7 and 9.

Surely it cannot be everyday?? Or am I being thick.

My toddler has a wallow in the bath every evening as part of her wind down routine. Quick hair wash every 2-3 days. I never use soap on her, although sometimes a bit of mild baby bubble bath which I guess is the same thing. Her skin is completely fine so far and she seems to enjoy it. Certainly never wants to get out! I'm quite surprised by the "once a week" comments - not in a judgemental way, it just never occurred to me we could leave it so long. We're outside a lot so do get grubby, have livestock etc.

Shower every day. It's incredibly important to teach children how to keep clean and not smell offensive to others. It most certainly does not 'damage' normal healthy skin 🤣 Perhaps it might if you suffer from a skin condition, but I have 3 well-washed teens with no skin issues at all, who have showered/een washed daily frm birth.

Sorry but if it's a mild wash creme or soap you don't damage there skin I was bathed every night as a child unusual for 1970s yes I know but I bathed or showered my kids every day as well and no one has ever had any skin complaints .

Sometimes every night, sometimes every 3 days. Really depends what we're up to, where they've been, how dirty they are.

I'd rather skip the bath and let them stay out 20minutes more if we're having fun.

Also an eczema family and definitely find it drying. I don't really care what the society says as they spent 20yrs recommending a product only to turn around and say it makes it worse. I'd said that the first time a Dr prescribed it to me.

Obviously once they reach puberty they'll shower/ bathe every day! Completely different situation. Little kids don't get BO or smelly in the same way!

My under 10s shower/bath 2-3 times a week, my older ones are every other day. A wet wipe keeps everywhere else fresh in between washes at that age.
If I start washing mine too often I notice they they begin to get dry patches on faces or the creases behind their legs which become itchy.
Less is definitely better for young ones, no need any more than 2x a week if they aren't actually dirty, in my opinion anyway.
And just for the record, they wear fresh clothes virtually everyday, I'm a bit of a clean freak when it comes to clothes and housework.

It's a pretty hard transition from showring once a week to convincing a teen they now need to do it every day. Start as you mean to go on and save yourself a job down the line.

9 & 11 - twice a week.

I think we have to assume people have different skin though... if I used soap every day I would be red raw... same for my kids.

This is only true for people that have existing skin conditions. There is absolutely no evidence that washing daily using mild soaps has any impact on your or your child’s skin.

mumsnet is hilarious for people making claims with absolutely no scientific evidence 🤣

I agree with the Op @Nastynigel I have eczema and my mother bathed me every day as a child. I was constantly in and out of hospital with infections as a result.

my children are the same age as Ops and they shower 2/3 times a week. We have hard water here, so not good for the skin.

What are people getting so worked up about this?!
Surely it depends.
DH and I shower everyday and sometimes I have a bath too. We were washed every day but no skin conditions.
DS has severe eczema, he gets washed every 2-3 days at most on dermatologist advice and that's with emollients and skin cream. I'd love to wash him every day as he's a mucky sod.

My skin seems fine and i've bathed/showered every day since birth.

At home once a week. They have to shower after sport in school and they have swimming once a week too.

Dread to think what some of your water bills are!

I never did the daily bath or shower for kids up to about 6/7. In summer perhaps, but not in winter.

By age nine they were showering daily.

Twice per day - beautiful, healthy skin and a nice fresh smell.

Same for me and after 43 years, my skin is still very much intact.

I don't bath my children at all.

They are both in their twenties now though, and don't live with me, so maybe that makes a difference 😁

Usually every day. Started as babies, mainly as part of the bedtime routine which they enjoyed but also practical for washing off traces not fully removed by nappy changes and food remnants (messy eaters). A sink wash would have taken just as long and too cold/splashy.

Once they were school age I told them they could bath every other day but they resisted that and only skip if it's a late night or a sleepover or something. Oldest swapped to a morning shower in his teens but will sometimes have an evening bath as well to relax. Youngest (10) now needs to wash hair every other day and wear deodorant so I'm grateful I maintained the daily bathing. Some of her friends' mums despair of how hard it is to wrestle their newly stinky tweens into the shower when they need it!

They never had any problem with their skin. I would have washed them less if they had. We're quite an oily skinned family, alas!

I'm an Irish mother, though living in the US.

I never saw the need to do the daily bath for babies, toddlers, or small children. They were never so caked in mud or food that they needed an all over wash. I know a great many American mothers who did the same as me.

My DCs were topped and tailed daily until potty trained, and after that they probably had a bath twice or maybe three times a week (with the exception of the tricky time when they were getting the hang of wiping themselves, when they bathed or got hosed down in the shower daily) until they were able to shower independently at around six. By age nine they were taking a daily shower and that continued through the tween and teen years. I never had a soap refuser.

And fwiw, I shower and wash my hair every day and have done for as long as I can remember. We had a bathtub when I was a child, and my parents put in a shower when I was about nine or ten, so certainly from that age on.

I'm English and I've never gave a bath every night. Every other night usually unless he's got really messy

Ooh OP, I put a similar question up a while ago and the opinion was that it’s unacceptable to not bathe every day! OP, I bathe my DS 3-4 times a week. If he comes home particularly mucky or had had a messy meal time, messy play or has been covered in sun cream etc then of course he’ll get an additional bath that day. We’re potty training now and he’s bathing daily because of the accidents. He’s also liking the bath again - daily bathing with a bath-hating child who acted like he was being drowned every time was not fun!

There is something around bathing daily for babies and it damaging their skin, I 100% remember my midwife and HV telling me that. And I have bad eczema prone skin which runs in the family so I was concerned for DS. But I think now he’s older it’s not so much as concern as plenty bathe every day.

same

Really surprised to see how many people shower or bathe their kids every day.

when I was a child we had a bath once a week on a Sunday ready for school!

children don’t need to shower/bath every day. They haven’t got the hormones to be stinky yet and it just dries out their skin and hair.