Do your children wash their hands before every meal?

[Hayegernz]

We definitely did as kids and thinking I am too lax with mine. They wash their hands when coming in from outside and after the loo but that's it.

After just seeing a thread about worms I'm now a bit worried that my baby ate her dinner with her hands after playing with her big sister's toys and crawling around the floor all afternoon. Barf.

Is it just us?

Yes-! I can’t understand that you wouldn’t get your kids to do this. Don’t you wash your own hands before eating too? Do you wash them before preparing the food ?

Blimey I wondered why all the liquid soap went off the shelves in the pandemic. I wondered who wasn’t washing their hands - now I know. What a bunch of mingers. Kids’ hands are absolutely disgusting so yes, they should be washed before eating. Of course a bit of muck probably won’t hurt them but it’s still important to teach them about personal hygiene - especially around food.

Yes, but it’s been enforced by school, rather than us, she does it automatically
For context, I eat biscuits while mucking out horses 🤣

My children always had to wash their hands before eating, and they were rarely ever ill, so the more germs the better theory is rubbish. It's just a good habit and proper hygiene.

Yes. Unless I forget to tell them!

Yes. In our house we all wash our hands:
-after toilet
-before eating/cooking
-when we come in

These are very standard hand hygiene practices.

People who haven't had stomach upsets are obsessed that being a bit scuzzy is a virtue - but we also have no stomach upsets.

Part of the reason the government had to make such a big deal about handwashing under COVID is that so many people are a bit lax <-- not envy

Nope

Yep. Mine are teenagers but they still do. But I'm a Microbiologist so we're pretty hot on the hand hygiene.

Generally yes, we ask her to wash her hands before meals. Sometimes we forget.

Yes! Wash hands every time we’ve been out and we arrive back in the house, obvs after using the loo, and before eating. All adults and children. We rarely get sick. Like PP I was wondering who wasn’t washing their hands before the pandemic…

I don’t have kids but I don’t usually wash my own hands before eating or cooking. I wash my hands after using the toilet and, since covid, I wash my hands when I come home from being somewhere. Otherwise I don’t tend to wash my hands when I’m at home unless I do something like take out the bins/ clean the bathroom etc. I don’t know anybody who washes their hands before eating either, at least nobody who’s ever been to mine for dinner or invited me to their house for a meal and nobody at work either.

DS2 is 10 and he does it out of choice with no prompting from us. DS1 is 14 and the concept of hygiene is very, very far down on his list of priorities. I sometimes have to send him back into the bathroom to wash his hands. Weirdly though, he has always been the least messy of the two in general. His uniform was always neat and clean at the end of the day in primary school and still is, whereas our resident hand washer appears to squish his food into his clothes and resembles Coco the Clown when he eats ketchup!

No.

Yes, even if we're out and about he'll ask for sanitiser. It's just what we do.

No.
I thought that only happened in Enid Blyton books.

Yes, and I do the same.

Ffs

I hate to admit it but as an 80s kid I never washed my hands, unless it was after going to the loo or handling something gross. I'm early 40s and no stomach issues so far

Nope

after using the toilet and after being outside

No. They use a knife and fork to eat.

Nope. They wash them after the toilet, usually when getting in from school (though this has slipped a bit recently) and if they're visibly dirty.

If we eat out somewhere where I feel they might be germy (eg. Soft play!) they wash them then. But at home, no.

Mine do but I think a lot of it stems from getting really sick on every caravan holiday with the outlaws who never, ever washed hands after going to the toilet (No.2's included ) and them blaming the fish and chip shop, caravan water, soft play attendees etc.

Yep. It couldn't possibly have been the complete and utter lack of any personal hygiene especially before preparing or handling our meals/fruit/snacks/tableware etc.

I don't think that DH, our DC or I ever got sick at all during the year until that caravan week twice a year.

Yes, my parents instilled it in us as children and I will do the same with mine.

The thing that confuses me here is that you went more than once!!

😱🤢🤮

Yes of course 🤔 Seems odd not to wash hands before eating to me.