If you have kids, how often do you bathe them? It depends a lot on their age, right?

Middle age kids tend to be a little stinkier, but need reminding to bathe regularly and put on deodorant if they wear it. With a little nudge, it’s easy for them to take care of things themselves… with prompting to turn on the bathroom fan, and a knock to remind them not to spend 30 minutes in there.

Babies don’t get baths unless you bathe them, but they also get a lot of “in between” washing of faces, hands, and backsides, and sometimes the parts that are attached to those parts when the mess creeps up and around. With them, bath time is almost 100% hands-on for the grown up.

Toddlers, preschoolers, and lower elementary kids are the ones who are most likely to have actual dirt on them, and they need varying levels of supervision in the tub, and help getting clean. We’re supervising a toddler to make sure they don’t drown, but the primary reason you’re keeping a close eye on the 4-6-year-old crowd is to make sure they don’t flood your bathroom and cause your tub to fall through the floor. Plus, you can let a six year old do their own washing, but if you don’t help from time to time, there is likely to be a build up of dirt behind their ears and on their necks. Ask me how I know.I’ve never been one to bathe my kids every day. First of all, it takes too much time and energy, and second of all, I never thought they needed it. Sure, in the summer when they come inside with dirt and leaves stuck in their hair and a sheen of dirt on the bottom of their feet, they have baths more frequently. I am as vigilant as I can be about dirt under fingernails. And I would say we are pretty attentive about handwashing.

But honestly, sometimes we just wash faces, hands, and feet if we’re in a hurry to get kids to bed at the end of the day.

Does that make us gross? Ha. Maybe.

But about a year ago, the American Academy of Dermatology came out with recommendations suggesting a lot of people were bathing their kids too much. I sat back with a satisfied look on my face and sighed. It’s always nice to be affirmed, right?

My kids are biracial, which means their hair doesn’t need to be washed that often – in fact, washing it too often dries it out and damages it.There are plenty of opinions out there on this, but we condition their hair with most baths, shampoo big kids once or twice a month, and Littles whenever their hair is dirty, which is a little more often than the Bigs. I am so outnumbered that getting everyone clean more than once a week is just too much. Plus, I have this sense that we are washing all this dirt off of our kids, and messing up their personal biomes and their ability to fight infection. I would rather let them be dirty, happy, and super immune rather than shiny and fresh.

So our personal reasons for infrequent bathing are complex, but now? Also backed by science.

There are other benefits. When bathtime isn’t too frequent, it becomes a special event that kids look forward to. And baths in the kitchen sink? Those only happen when the sink is empty, which is almost never. So they are extra special.

A note on kitchen sink baths – I saw somewhere on Insta recently someone gave her kids baths in the kitchen sink but was totally skeeved by it and was only doing it because her tub was out of commission. Since I’m a vegetarian and rarely make meat dishes (and therefore, infrequently handle raw meat or have to wash anything that touched raw meat), I don’t have a lot of that ick factor with my kitchen sink. If I had to bleach my sink, after clearing it out, before every kitchen sink bath? They would happen less than never.There really is something lovely about nuzzling the head of a freshly washed child before you put them to bed at night. I won’t deny it. It just isn’t an experience I need every night.