At some point in time we all reach out to family, friends, and maybe even the internet for parenting advice.
While appearing as a guest co-host on Live with Kelly and Mark, Andy Cohen, father of two, posed a question to Mark Consuelos.
“Speaking of skin, I wanted to ask you, I needed your advice about a parenting thing,” Cohen asked the father of three. “So, Ben and I have taken baths, he loves to take a bath, whatever, I guess that’s normal. Now, were you ever naked in front of Lola? Like, I have a daughter, what is the protocol there? Because I’m a little bit of a nudie, and I feel like I need to start locking it up.”
“Not on purpose, I was never naked on purpose,” Consuelos replied. “I think the rule of thumb was when they start speaking. When they start saying words.”
Cohen is a father to Ben, 4, and Lucy, who is just over one years old, and Consuelos has three children: Michael, 26, Lola, 22, and Joaquin 20.
“So there will be no bath time for me and my daughter. That’s weird, right?” Cohen wondered.
“I’m not here to say what’s weird and what’s not weird,” Consuelos said. Although Cohen was quick to mention his co-host’s facial expression was telling him otherwise.
“That’s all I need to know,” he said. “I just need to know the protocol!”
Moving on from bath time with his daughter, the TV personality questioned when he should stop taking baths with his four-year-old son.
“Like, two years ago,” Mark responded.
However, there are no specific guidelines when it comes to stopping getting in the bath with your child.
The simplest answer is it all comes down to your family and level of comfort.
“In the approach to these questions, I always keep in mind that different families and different cultures have different approaches to these sorts of issues and different approaches to modesty. However, to come up with a single answer to this question, it might be similar to the breastfeeding one — as long as the parent and child wish to,” Dr. Adam Spanier, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Pediatrician with University of Maryland Medical Center, told Romper.
“That being said, if a 2-year-old wants to bathe on their own, they still need adult supervision. Additionally, a child probably needs direct supervision until school age, and after that, a parent needs to be close at hand.”
Spanier noted that each child will be different, but if your child still expresses an interest in bathing with a parent past age 8 there may be an “underlying fear or other issue that might need to be addressed.”
But generally speaking a child will let their guardian know when they want to bathe themselves and when they wish to do so in private.
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This is a hot topic that many parents don’t discuss, but it’s one that we all think about. When do you believe is the appropriate time to let your child bathe in private?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
