Am I Dirty?

[DirtyGirl]

Not as exciting as the title suggests, I'm afraid, but wanted to get your advice/ views on this...
I like to think I keep my family reasonably clean and healthy, but think I am realistic, and am not a 'laundry fanatic' - particularly since dh & I both work full time and we have a toddler and a baby.
Anyway, had a 'debate' with dh the other day, when I asked him whether he really needed to put his shirts into the laundry after just wearing for one day.
I should point out that we're talking about the thick, checked,Timberland-type heavy cotton sort, which he always wears open-necked with a white T shirt underneath (his company has a casual dress policy)
Well basically his response made me feel as if I was being accused of being a slovenly bitch who didn't wash....
My other general principles include:

• only wash tops/shirts/jumpers (when worn over T-shirts etc) after 2-3 wears, or if visibly dirty/ smell of food/smoke etc
• kids PJs/babygros (bedtime) get worn for 3-4 nights(unless accidents occur)
• kids trousers worn twice (unless visibily dirty, or wet etc)
• kids jumpers/tops - changed daily (always dirty/messy)
• all underwear/ socks changed daily

Is this unreasonable? Am I dirty?
(Have changed my name in case the verdict is a resounding YES, in which case I can safely skulk away in shame..)
P.S. Seemed an appropriate thread, given Persil's sponsorship of Mumsnet?

Could not stop giggling reading this thread ,its brilliant, just have to add my own funny/gross dirty washing story, got up late this morning luckily all the kids uniforms were washed and ironed last night so washed fed and dressed them in record time, dashed up stairs to get dressed and would you credit it , no clean tops for me, in a rush i grabbed the top from yesterday had a quick look ,it looked clean so thought it would do.I had this strange pong almost following me all morning and could not work out where it was coming from, an hour ago i spent ages looking for any rouge smelly socks and it suddenly hit me the smell was "me" dh had left his work socks in the basket up stairs( he usually puts them straight in the machine as they pong abit) goodness only knows what people thought this morning at school.

How amazing we are discussing washing & bathing habits!! My dd's get a bath every night, the 2 of them together. I am evil mother though as I put them in the bath and then use the 10 mins or so while they play to tidy their rooms, put another load of washing on.... I know you should never leave a child in the bath even in an inch of water, but there you go.

I wash most of their clothes every day, I must stop doing that, I am going to start washing only when necessary, pj's every 3 - 4 days, my clothes - tops each day, bottoms last a few wears. Dh when I can drag them off him!

But this still means a load of washing a day??? Why???

ds clothes mostly every day (must try harder/be more tolerant of food splodges), my tops/socks/knickers every day, bra every few days, trousers/jumpers not that often, towels when smelly (dh decides - his gets smelly first!), sheets every 2-3 weeks, DH no idea (he is a fully operational human being, and easily does half the laundry - and doesn't usually smell too bad)
I reckon we do a load most days, which horrifies me. Worst part in winter is how long it all takes to dry - we have the steaming radiators syndrome here permanently. Stuff on the clothes horse can stil be damp after 3 days...

I thought my what a sad lot here discussing this but I'm hooked and pleased to see we're pretty normal! Standing in a post office queue is enough to make you want to wash your clothes every day-I think some people NEVER wash their clothes.
Bugsy,I can't believe it,your dh puts his dirty clothes in the washing basket-IS THIS PHYSICALLY possible for a man?Mine likes to leave his on the floor.I have a nose like a bloodhound so pretty good at sussing out nasty niffs,so pretty sure our washing is a ok.Most clothes get washed every day,dh likes a clean shirt everyday,he gets a bit sweaty too.Kids hair gets washed every 3rd day unless food etc in it.Kids bath every otherday unless etc...Or bottoms get a sponging in morning if any niffs.Bedding gets washed least but then I'm hardly in it!

And when I was a kid my mum told me she was a bit embarrased with a story i wrote at school which said "Sunday is when I have a bath".And we used to share the water.Eugh.

Ironed socks (or sheets for that matter)?! I don't even own an iron...
Am sporting a particularly attractive splodge of weetabix on left shoulder today, but no one at work has mentioned it yet...

Haven't had time to read this whole (fascinatign) thread but I would say dirtygirl, I think you do well if you can get 3-4 wearings out of pjs (ours are always stained with pooh (DD) or covered in Weetabix (DS) but I do try to get 2 wearings out of his. Also DD's trousers (he's 3.5) he wears at least 2 or 3 times unless actually dirty. The same with fleeces and jumpers or cardies. I think that's fine. Change vests, t-shirts, pants, socks, DH's smart work shirts each day but then that's more less what youre saying. Now am I dirty as I only change the bedlinen every 2 weeks? Sorry but I just hate doing it!! When I am rich that's what my maid will do every other day...

helenmc - yes, my house is such a tip as SB34 can confirm if she reads this thread

Reading about nasty niffs reminds me of the days when I used to find DHs (then DPs) damp footy kit festering in his sports bag after a week. Luverly!

When I was a child my mum was in hospital for quite a while and my dad had to do all the childcare etc. He just used to turn my knickers inside out to get some more wear out of them

I love this thread - it is inspiring! My DH wears clean shirt and t-shirt EVERY day and it drives me mad especially as he's never around to wash them. But, rod for my own back, I've trained my children to put all their clothes in the wash each day as they are usually filthy. However I have been eyeing them up recently and wondering if I can get a few more days out of them. I will just have to untrain them, from a habit which I will probably spend all their teenage years trying to re-teach them! Now DS is starting school it will be easier to stretch the uniform out over a few days and here is my big announcement - DD is now wearing her trousers for the third day running! You have changed my life (well that and the fact that the washing machine has broken down so we've run out of clothes anyway )

When I was about 10 (and so beginning to care how I dressed, probably happens about 4 now), my mum kept 'accidentally' adding a red item or a black item or washing delicates on a boil wash. When I started whinging, she showed me how to use the washing machine myself...

Just for information for anyone who is interested. We are very untidy in our house, all of us leaving clothes all over the floor, and since October when I first noticed a hole in one of my jumpers we have been having problems.
We ignored the hole in the hope that burying our heads in the sand would mean that they wasn't a problem.
Unfortunately real life is not like that and now several jumpers munched later and some of my undies nibbled, we have found out that we have carpet beetles eating away in our house. They like carpets, wool, fluff anything like that.
For years I have been a horder, keeping size 10 clothes which fitted me about 15 years ago etc. etc. and over the last two weeks about 30 bin bags have gone to the dump.

We have both realised we need to clean up our act and not leave clean or dirty clothes lying around, because this is really horrible.

I'll have to remember that tip Phillipat.

Prufrock, HANDWASH bras????? After EVERY wear???

I only own 2 decednt fitting ones (is this a record?) I'm still in nursing bras, and have been since first child!

I have never subscibed to the 'we are too clean so our immune systems have nothing to do so they go overboard on allergens so we get asthma' theory, on the basis that we are just not all that much cleaner than our grandparents generation, but...............having read this thread, I may have to revise my views. 2 baths per day? Jeeze!
Maybe some of us are overdoing it and nobodys child is getting any practice in dealing with any bacteria whatsoever. It galls me to say this, as I have been arguing the opposite to anyone who'll listen for years.

kkgirl, don't feel bad. Carpet beetles aren't a sign you've got a dirty house, just an even temperature, a hole to the outside somewhere and lots of soft furnishings (i meet them a lot in my job..)

Droile, I think our grandparents opened windows more, had no double glazing or central heating and had real fires which meant open fireplaces. Also baths were once a week at most and clothes were NOT washed after one light wear! I suspect we are considerably cleaner than them. Girls' etiquette books from the 40s talk about the importance of 'daintiness' ie cleanliness, and by that mean washing your hair once a week and having a bath once a week too - hideously filthy by today's standards, I think. From what I've read there is quite a lot of evidence that exposure to animals, farms etc and lack of central heating seem to be linked to lower rates of asthma. My own grandparents grew up in astonishingly filthy conditions - my grandad grew up in a mews house, which in those days was still practically as stable, with a chimneyless fire in the centre of the room, the smoke of which went up a hole in the ceiling. Not something I'd countenance for ds - though maybe I should!

What a brilliant thread! It makes me feel good and bad, I am a bit weird about these things.
Clothes - well as I have 2 under 3's they are sometimes in more than one outfit a day and everything usually has to go in the wash at then end of the day. I wash nappies every day anyway and as they are all rinsed I just chuck the kids clothes in along with them. Now I say it it sounds disgusting! Grown ups wear new underwear every day (though I had to train dh into this!) and I usually need clean clothes as well (covered in everything by the end of the day), and dh wears a clean t-shirt under his shirt and wears the shirts for 2-3 days.
Towels get changed when they smell, bedclothes get changed when I remember (about once every 3-4 weeks probably) and I am mortified that I changed ds's cot sheet last week cos when I put him in there I noticed it was grey in the head area - if we weren't middle class the social services would have had him off me!
The children get bathed about 3 times a week and we also go swimming once - dd sometimes has more baths as it is a great way to keep her quiet for an hour - I stick her in there when ds is sleeping in the morning and then sit on the bathroom floor with a coffee and read the paper! I do wash their faces most mornings, depending on whether we are going out. At the moment it has been so cold here that I have been leaving them in their fleecy pj suits until it is time to go somplace - last Saturday ds never got dressed at all!!

My brs have such a hard job to do making my enormous boobs look perky taht I reckon they deserve special care. And they cost a fortune so I have to look after them.
Just to prove I can be a slut - did you know ou can realistically get 6 (different) wears out of a g-string?

About the allergies/eczema thing. There was an article recently in one of dh's medical magazine things that come in, and it said that a big study had showed that if you don't sterilise bottles then you children are less likely to have asthma and eczema - and that there was no significant rise in cases of gastroenteritis as long as good general hygeine (washing bottles/breastpumps in the dishwasher or by hand in hot soapy water). Made me feel much better about never having bought a steriliser! Both my kids are allergy free (although dh was/is asthmatic/allergic to dust mites/has hay fever) and we've never had any vomiting/diahorrea bug at all.

I suppose I used my own granny as a yardstick. She did 100 times more housework than me, corners every week, the lot. But I suppose they only bathed once a week, etc, etc, so we have changed in that way.

Prufrock - do you mean that you wear a g-string 6 times without washing, or that you can wear it in 6 different ways? I'm not after details, but each scenario amazes me!

susanmt and aloha - I think you may have a point on the sterilising and central heating. I stopped sterilising bottles when dd was 5 months (just rinse with boiled or very hot water) because I have a thing about this.

But I think the biggest cause of our pathetic immune systems is germ-killing washing up liquid / surface wipe stuff - I won't have it in the house!

And susanmt - I wash clothes with nappies (if I didn't, nothing would ever get washed). At 60 degrees the nasty bacteria in them is killed anyway.

Well, both. Cos you can wear it 6 diferent ways, you can wear it 6 times without washing

(But I don't anymore - can't find g-strings big enough to fit my fat a**e)

Prufrock - Evans do thongs up to size 30, beyond that I cannot help you.