How often are you bathing your primary aged children?

[RedRobyn24]

My daughter is 4 and has just started reception. I also have a 9 month old.

At the moment I bathe both of them (sometimes together usually apart) every other day. Is this what other people do? I try not to wash DD1’s hair more than once a week

Are other parents really doing this every day?

To be honest this is a wider question about how the heck parents find the time for everything. I’m a SAHM as well, don’t know how two working parents do it AND make sure their children are eating well and the house is cleaned and the dog it walked and the reading home work is done… but also the child has downtime to just play as well 😬

Our current routine is:
Sunday bath after rugby for DS and swimming/dancing for DD
Tuesday bath after swimming for DS
Wednesday shower for DS after football
Friday bath for DS and DD
Saturday bath/shower for DS after football #2

All depends on clubs here and when they've got sweaty! Don't often go over every other day though.

Every other night for the younger two. I'm a single parent working full time and bathing them is like wrestling a pair of crocodiles, so I don't have the energy for more frequently than that. Although I do sometimes worry that it's not enough!

Tween DD has to be constantly nagged to shower and wash her hair, I try to encourage it daily but I'm fighting a losing battle 🙄

Same here.

And DS used to very occasionally miss a shower on the weekend if he’d just spent all day at home, but he’s now in secondary and starting to get a little BO so that’ll happen even less if not never. He loves having a shower so I thankfully don’t have any wrangling over it.

Every day would be excessive for my kids in winter as they have eczema and get dry skin. I also don't think it's especially healthy to bathe so often.

We do every 2 days usually.

Summertime though, is often daily, especially if sweaty, sandy feet, etc.

5 year old grandchild every day as part of bedtime, hair wash once or twice each week. Same with kids years ago.

Proper long bath? once or twice a week. Quick wash down daily.

We do every other day for the middle dc (4), eldest dc (9) showers himself every morning and the baby (not a baby she’s nearly 2!) also every other day unless she’s got really messy at dinner time.

I would love to be a parent who can do bath story bed every night but the reality is I don’t have enough time. Dh owns a company that is so busy in the week that he’s not on had to help until weekends and my children have Afro hair so I spend a considerable amount of time styling hair in the week too which takes time!

Everyday a quick bath or shower for my three (7, 4 & 1) and hair wash weekly

My kids bathe daily, one aged 8 and the other 11, we wash hair every other day.

Full bath once a week. Quick rinse daily to just freshen up. As it’s getting colder they enjoy being in the bath so after spellings and reading / phonics they might have a bubble bath before dinner. Prevents dragging out bedtime which our elder one is a pro at.
We shower daily so same for the kids.

Shower every other day or every third day if eczema is bad. Wash with a flannel in between as he’s invariably filthy.

its a lot easier recently as he wants to shower on his own.

DD 9 said she likes to sleep in her own filth 🤣. So once after swimming, plus another once or twice during the week. She smells fine and hair is never greasy.

My 7 and 9 year old bathe or shower every evening and have done for since babies. It’s part of winding down for bedtime and also I think if you saw school toilets and how gross kids are you would do the same!

DDs 5 and 8. They shower/bath probably 5 nights a week- usually have friday 'off' and then one night if late home. Wash hair twice a week, once after swimming once again few days later.
They brush teeth, brush hair regularly and if sweaty (eg tennis lesson in summer) might have an extra quick shower.
Good personal hygeine is a non negotiable in our house!

5 year old - shower after weekly swimming class and bath/hair wash once a week. Daily wash/wipe down with wet flannel.

In summer when she's more likely to have been playing outdoors without waterproofs/full length clothes and using suncream we are more likely to do a daily quick shower down in the bath.

Edited to add - we did daily baths until she was about 2 and no longer wore a nappy/smeared food all over her face!

I can't believe some of the responses on this thread. Primary aged children are surely the dirtiest!? I bathe my DS's 2 and 5 every day and have done since they were babies. They love it and it's part of the evening routine - dinner, bath, stories and bed. We also shower every day, twice if have been commuting or had a workout. I guess it's what you're used to, but I never realised other people didn't have daily showers/baths. Another thing Mumsnet has taught me..

@Sal17690 oh, I'm sorry for your students. If you read one more time, you'll see that my kid washes their knicker zone every day.
And I'm not mentioned hands with soap after school, toilet and any playground right after coming back home. I didn't expect it's something that should be.
Usually pop or wee shouldn't be on your neck or head after it, so no needs to be worried so much.

Once a week is way too long!

Even without stinking, there will be dried sweat and suncream in summer. Traces of poo and wee in the bottom area. It’s not just about smell but actually being clean and allowing kids to feel clean and confident in themselves.

And washing with a gentle soap too

Lots of kids hate baths if it’s not a habit. That’s what bubble bath is for.

It’s about building good habitats as much as hygiene

@CorgiOctopus please reread the first paragraph in my first post

mine are old enough to decide for themselves now but when they were at primary it was every day.

Every other day otherwise his skin goes dry & cracks even with coconut butter or his CGM starts to fall off. Its a shame really as he loves a hot bubble bath he’s a pain to get out of the tub

Everyday for shower or bath. Once or twice a week for hair wash.

I work full time and my three year old DD has a shower every night without fail, including hair wash. Anything else is pretty grim I think!

Nearly every weekday. Sometimes we go swimming in the evenings so he'll shower there instead of having a bath at home.

Sometimes I won't give him a bath on Saturday nights as we go swimming on Sundays so he can shower after this.

I don't really know what is normal but when I was a child we had a bath once a week on Sunday evenings and my siblings and I realised way too late into our adolescence that we smelled and needed to wash more often than this. I was the worst as the eldest so I told (bullied) my siblings to wash more often so they were not as smelly as me. I was 13 before I was washing regularly and people commented on it.

I don't want this for my child so I'm getting him into the habit of washing frequently from very early childhood.

Every day either shower or bath. I wash her hair twice a week. She comes in from
school dirty from all the outdoor playing.