The ‘Frozen’ star is the latest celeb to admit that she only throws her kids in the tub when they absolutely need it.
When Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher joined Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast last week, the couple caused a stink after admitting to not bathing their kids, Wyatt, 6, and Dimitri, 4, all that often—and now Kristen Bell has gotten in on the convo.
During an appearance with her husband, Dax, on The View, Kristen said that they pretty much wait for their kids to smell before tossing them in the bath. This is definitely in line with Mila and Ashton’s belief that, “If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point.”
Dax explained that it wasn’t always this way. “We bathed our children every single night prior to bed as their routine, and then somehow they just started going to sleep on their own without the routine and we had to start saying like, ‘Hey, when was the last time you bathed them?’” Kristen confirmed that they’d forget when eight-year-old Lincoln and six-year-old Delta hit the tub last.
Isn’t that a parenting dream, though? Their kids are in that self-sufficient stage where you don’t have to actively put them to bed anymore. Enjoy that freedom, Kristen and Dax!
Now that bathing isn’t part of their bedtime routine, Kristen has a very simple way to decide when it’s bath time. “I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink,” the Frozen star explained. “Once you catch a whiff, that’s biology’s way of letting you know you need to clean it up. There’s a red flag. Honestly, it’s just bacteria; once you get bacteria you gotta be like, ‘Get in the tub or the shower.’ So I don’t hate what [Mila and Ashton] are doing. I wait for the stink.”
We’re so here for it. In fact, most parents probably lather up their kids—and themselves—far too often. “I wash my armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever,” Ashton said during the podcast. “I got a bar of Lever 2000 that delivers every time. Nothing else.” That being said, Mila and her husband do believe in regularly washing their faces, which the actress does twice a day.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, kids ages 6 to 11 should bathe once or twice a week unless they’re visibly dirty or smelly or were swimming in a body of water like a pool or lake. So it seems like the two couples are right on track. And don’t worry, if your little kids enjoy having a warm bath before bed and it’s a firm part of your bedtime routine, just remember that you don’t have to use soap every night.
So next time you can’t remember if it’s bath night, give your kids a good whiff and go from there.
