Teaching Your Toddler About Personal Hygiene – Children have zero sense of personal hygiene. Everything seems fun to touch and explore. For their safety, however, it’s important that they understand personal hygiene. This blog post that we’ve put together with the help of EYFS teachers outlines how you can teach your toddler about personal hygiene.
1, Personal Hygiene – Understanding Bacteria
Bacteria can be both good and bad. Bad bacteria can make us seriously ill when ingested which is why it’s important that we wash our hands regularly, especially before eating. This can be a difficult concept for children to get their heads around so you may choose to use a metaphor and use insects as a way of explaining what germs are. They can be explained as invisible insects that we can’t see and need to be remove by washing.
2, Bath Time
If your child’s a pain to bath, you can look for ways to make it more comfortable and enjoyable. Run a lovely hot bath, making sure that it’s not too hot or cold and find suitable bath toys to keep them occupied.
3, Protect Their Eyes
Shampooing is not a fun experience for anyone. It can sting the eyes if you’re not careful. To help protect your child, look for a shampoo guard that you can clip around their head to protect their face and eyes.
4, Have Them Give You a Hand
It’s also wise to get your child to gradually wash parts of their body as it will prepare them for showering all by themselves.
5, Use Reminders
You can help your child to get in the routine of washing their hands by regularly reminding them. You can also help them to identify what’s unhygienic by referring to things like eating food off the floor as “yucky”. For more parenting resources like this, be sure to follow my blog.
