In a related thread it seems that a lot of kids take baths every day. I generally give my kids baths on an as-needed basis, which is usually every three days. Even when they were babies I didn’t fully bathe them daily. (Of course all of their dirty bits would get a thorough cleaning with a washcloth.)
So I’m curious, if you bathe your kids daily is it because they actually need it? Or do they enjoy it? Maybe it’s just a habit/part of a bedtime routine? Or maybe that’s just how often you think it should be done? And what do you think about kids like mine who don’t bathe daily - is it gross? Weird? (Do keep in mind that my kids are not actually dirty, and you would not know whether they had a bath the previous day unless you asked.)
Back in the UK we would bath my daughter every other day at least. She generally enjoys it and it’s a fun thing to do.
We’re in Greece now and the hot water comes from solar panels. This means that we don’t always have hot water at this time of year. Heating up a tank electrically takes an hour and is expensive. So now she gets a bath every 3 days or so (sometimes 4-5). The rest of the time she gets wiped with a cold flannel (she’s not an enormous fan of this!). She isn’t any dirtier than your average 2.5 year old.
The perception that you cannot be clean without full body immersions at least once a day is nonsense IMO.
We have two. They get bathed a couple of times a week. Their skin is soft and lovely and they smell divine. I shower every morning and smell like the troubles of the world by bedtime.
Our 2 year old gets a bath before bed almost every night but it’s not really anything to do with cleanliness (well not usuallly). She usually just sits in a couple of inches of water and splashes about a bit - there’s often no soap or actual washing involved. She enjoys it and it’s a good part of the bedtime routine. I don’t think anything of children who have other routines, particularly - I don’t think little children need bathing that regularly.
In the summer my kids (ages 4 and almost 2) get a bath every day, with hair washed, because they have played outside and gotten filthy, sweaty, and smelly. In the winter it’s usually every other day, or every third, because they just aren’t getting that dirty. I’ll wash their faces, hands and feet, and bottoms every night, but don’t feel the need to put them in the tub unless they are truly dirty.
If I’m off work and lounging around the house…one of my favorite activities…I may go up to 48 hours without showering.
If I have to work, or if I worked the night before (I bartend so I think of everything in “nightly” terms) then I will shower…mainly because I am paranoid about smelling like a bar.
I don’t see why children should be any different; in a perfect world they would be bathed every day, but I grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books wherein everyone took a bath on Saturday nights, once a week. Granted, I’ve always assumed that if I were to travel back in time, the smell of humanity would be the first thing I’d notice…but smelling a little “sour” won’t kill you.
Having said that…when I was a kid I bathed daily, and it’s still ingrained. And for the OP…kids can be compared to cat boxes, in that the owners of the cats/cat boxes can’t smell it, but everybody else can. Way before kids are old enough to develop B.O., they can still smell quite strongly of dirt and sweat and “dirty little kid.” Just because you can’t smell it doesn’t mean others won’t.
I used to babysit, quite a lot. And after a day of running around and playing, etc., kids can smell rather terrible.
Every couple of days, sometimes 3. Bathing her takes a long time, because she has waist-length hair, and it seems a bit wasteful to run a full bath just to wash her body - a flannel will do that just as well.
During the colder times of year, our 6-year old gets a bath on non-karate days: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. During the summer, when he is in camp, he will get a bath nearly every day as he is playing and rolling around outside and getting messy as kids will do.
My son (nearly six months old) gets a bath almost every night, but it’s not so much about cleanliness. He LOVES it. He gets his last bottle from Papa, and goes to the bath, where he will play and splash and giggle as long as we will let him. Seriously, he’s never gotten tired of it yet, and my husband has sat there with him for almost an hour. We get him out, dry him off, put on a sleeper, and kiss him goodnight. He sleeps like a log.
I have no idea whether the bath and accompanying routine help with the sleeping, but I’m so happy to be getting a solid night that I’m not messing with success.
Now that they are nine and ten - pretty much every day. My son has stopped smelling like child and started to smell like boy heading to teen. And my daughter has already hit greasy.
As small kids - once a week. My son has eczema and too many baths always caused him to break out. Plus a friend of a friend had her three year old drown in the tub when my kids were babies and so I was never a huge toddler in the tub fan. If they got dirty we’d pop them in more often, but really, they seldom got dirty - and small kids don’t really get stinky - as long as you are taking care of their diapers properly.
We shower our kids- 5 & 7- every other day. They do most of the work, and one of us just sort of soaps up the washcloth and supervises (“don’t forget your armpits. did you do between your legs yet? be careful you don’t slip when you do your feet”). We also shampoo and condition their hair, which is tricky for them b/c it’s long & thick.
Until about a year ago, we bathed them 2x/week, but that was hard on us. It ain’t easy kneeling & hunching over the tub for 30 minutes with a bad back. The kids much prefer baths to showers.
During winter, our daughter (22 months) has a bath every second day, sometimes once every three days, but gets a flannel/washcloth cleaning on the odd days. During summer, she generally has a bath every day, but we usually only wash her hair and do the whole soap thing every other day.
My baby son is now almost nine months. When we got him home, the nurse warned against every day bathing, especially against every day bathing with soap. She said it was not necessary and might even be harmful. We settled on bathing our baby twice a week, or whenever he had had an diaper explosion. We washed his hair once a week.
Apparently, diaper rash is a very common ailment in babies. Our son’s bottom’s skin is flawless. As for his smell, he smells great to us, but of course, we are biased.
His dad and I both shower every day.
OtOH, now that he has started crawling, I wondered if I should wash his hands more often. He uses his hands to crawl on our floor, then sucks on his fingers. Continually. But we decided against that; you’d have to do it all the time. We just keep our floors clean and hope he builds up a good immune system.
Last week, he had a cold. I hated the build-up of snot around his nostrils, and I tried to clean his nose every chanche I got. But he hates, hates that, and I didn’t want to keep spoiling his mood.
We bathe our two kids (2 and 4) together every other day. That just seems right to me. We will occasionally skip it if the bedtime routine is already compromised (i.e. we get home from an outing too late).
I don’t give my kids baths at all. It’d be too oogie with the ones who are 18 and 19, and the 7 year old views taking her own baths as a mark of her growing independence.
