Intimate hygiene in girls

[cleanandfresh]

Yeah I know crap title and I apologise in advance for "twee" terms BUT I am genuinely a bit confused about cleaning my little girl's "bits" (and I am calling them bits for brevity's sake rather than getting into labia major and minoria etc...)

So my girl is nearly 3 and she has a bath before bedtime most nights (except Fridays). I know that soap is not a good thing for the intimate regions so I don't get her to soap there but do remind her to "swish her twinkle" (yeah shoot me!) along with swishing her tummy and legs etc.

I have noticed these past few days that she has white, creamy deposits in the folds and around the top of her clitoral hood and wondered whether I should be trying to wash these away. She's been ferreting around this area occasionally and has said "look it's creamy" but it doesn't seem to bother her. The other day she was pretending to be a baby and have her nappy changed so I took the opportunity to get some cotton wool and try to really clean in this area but she really didn't like me doing it and I must admit it didn't feel right.

I guess I worry about thrush but I don't think it is and then I worry about messing about where I should just leave well alone. But then I worry about being too coy and maybe I should be actively encouraging her to "clean" there a bit more. I know on Mumsnet there is a small sector that think any female scent or secretions should be disinfected away and I don't want to fall into that trap - but I do want to keep my daughter healthy and instill a healthy, positive attitude towards her genitalia. I always use the words beautiful and fresh in relation to her body as in my own childhood I was very much given a negative impression of that area of my body.

Mothers of girls please help me out here

Good Christ. I'm with LadyintheRadiator (and others) here. I am the mother of an 11 week old baby, don't feel like I "naturally" know how to clean her other than by guess - I don't remember being so little that I was cleaned by my mum, and I don't know that what works for a grown woman cleaning herself will necessarily work for a little baby (or later on for a little girl) being cleaned by someone else!

As for vocabulary, I don't see anything wrong with how the OP phrased it. Why shouldn't she use terms like vagina and smegma? Stilted but correct, as opposed to terms she clearly felt are too twee (though useful for communicating with kids) like the euphemism "twinkle" she uses in the OP. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Yes, there probably are pervs out there who look at Mumsnet and they might even look at this or similar posts and get kicks from it for all I, or we, know. But why are we not assuming good faith rather than the opposite?

I suspect she "kept coming back to the thread" because a lot of people had labelled her a paedo. Some people can get quite defensive about that kind of thing.

Me and DP had noticed a bit of a White discharge with DD2 and neither of us were quite sure if normal. Not itchy or sore. He said " you ought to ask MN". God how glad I am I didn't!

I think this is genuine. Like LadyInthe Radiator, I had a DS first and then a DD and I too found it tricky at first, getting used to cleaning her. I feel confident now that I know what I'm doing, but I can imagine that some mothers might have a moment of uncertainty again when it came time to teach a wee girl to take care of this stuff herself. (Mine is still a baby at the mo.)

I'd basically second what Aitch said. OP, I think you are just overthinking this because you're concerned about giving your daughter hangups. If you try not to have hangups yourself then I'm sure she will be fine :)

And to all those who lambasted the OP, you should have just bloody reported it and shut the fuck up like we are meant to do with all troll threads. If you think there are paedophiles hanging out on a thread, the last thing you should do is start adding loads of posts to their threads . Idiotic.

A while ago someone posted on here that they had been advised by a dermatologist not to put anything on their ladybits that they wouldn't put in their eyes. Seemed like good advice to me. Neither DD nor I use soap down there, just warm water.

As for the perve-hunters, I think their accusations say a lot more about their own pervy little minds than anything the OP has written.

I guess you might well name change for this if you (a) had body hangups yourself and (b) were insecure about your mothering skills in this department and felt bad that you didn't know "instinctively" what to do.

Aren't there loads of better places on the internet for perves to hang out?

hey monkeyflippers
you sound just our type
stay
the water is warm

My four year old daughter was exactly the same, I've been making sure she swishes water and uses her hand to clean herself in the bath, and using sudocrem at night if she feels she needs it. I always ask her if she wants me to put it on or if she wants to do it herself. Seems to have done the trick.

I think some posters have been extremely harsh on clean and fresh, I bet she's glad she name changed.

"Some of us didn't believe the OP last night- and again, not because of the subject matter, but because of the posting style that didn't seem genuine at all."

Fair enough, but in that case, the thing to do is report and move on. Otherwise, yes, people with genuine but slightly odd-sounding concerns will worry about posting on issues like this -- of course they will! It's one reason MN doesn't allow troll-hunting.

winnybella I consider myself to be quite a patient person and I hate confrontation so usually try to go out of my way to be ultra polite in case I'm misunderstood, but you are sorely trying my patience on this one. Yes, you said use soap but many others, myself included, said don't use soap AND so many people were jumping on her and calling her a perve right from the first few posts, so maybe, just maybe, THAT'S why the OP kept coming back, a mixture of conflicting advice AND desperately trying to defend herself. I think it's AWFUL the way people judged and pounced almost immediately AND I don't understand why those who were suspicious didn't just stop engaging and report her. Shall I be as nasty and small minded as some of you and suggest that the reason you and others kept "coming back" was because you were "getting off on it" yourself, because you, yourself are actually a "pervy old bloke" masquerading as a mum? No, I won't, because I'm not like that!

[worries about asking how to clean boys after having 4 girls]

already had conflicting advice from family about to pull or not to pull foreskins back

swiw OP,

dd's first of all clean faces, behind ears, neck etc,, then as far down as 'possible'

then legs upwards as far as 'possible'

then wash 'possible'

they dont use soap on flannels as very senstive skin, but i do sometimes add some essential oils to the bath or a mild bath bomb from lush.

misdee I was advised by my HV to pull back foreskin gently as far as it would go but not to force as baby boy's foreskin is often very tight and "loosens up " for want of a better term, as they get older. Hope that helps

misdee Nice to meet another Flora Thompson fan.

misdee - must never pull a foreskin back, you can do serious damage!

There you are you see, more conflicting advice!

conflicting advice on here as well!!!

the poor boy will be traumatised when he makes an apparence next month! he might want to considering becoming a girl lol.

misdee should have added "as far as it will go easily! MUA is right that you can do serious damage if too vigorous but my HV told me that smegma can collect under any part of the foreskin which is "loose, mobile", (however you term it, not sure) and if not kept clean can sometimes lead to infection.

OP - my DD had this when she was about three. If it's not cleaned away, it gets really whiffy and starts to make them sore and itchy. Water is not enough to get rid of it all, as it seems to "cling" to their bits, so you would need to rub quite hard to get rid of the stuff. I used Aqueous Cream (which you can get in a large tub from Boots) and used this on cotton wool - it lifted the white stuff easily. You can then either rinse away the area with water and cotton wool, or just wipe clean with dry cotton wool. Aqueous Cream is quite good as it's gentle and neutral for keeping the bits clean generally.

Hope that helps. And sorry for all the grief you've got on here. Perfectly sensible query, I thought.

misdee- you can pull it tiny, tiny bit- but no forcing. When he gets older, the foreskin will become stretchier and then it's advised to pull it back.

"Stretchier" - good term. Why didn't I think of that!