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At what age does dad stop seeing daughter with no clothes on?

christinen's picture

SD is almost 7 and DH still has to turn the water on and off for her when she gets a shower, pour her drinks, and he even still dresses her a lot of the time. This morning SD was sitting in the dark on her bed and DH was putting her clothes on her. I said why are you dressing her? Why don’t you turn on the light and tell her it’s time to get up and get dressed? What is normal and when does the babying stop? Also, when is it no longer appropriate for a father to see his daughter with no clothes on? I think it’s getting weird and creepy as she gets older.

Teas83's picture

I'll be interested to see what people say about this as well. My SD is also 6 and my husband still does most of things for her that you mentioned. I've had the same question about the age at which it is no longer appropriate for fathers to see their daughters naked. SD refuses to get dressed in her own room for some reason, so she currently brings her clothes into the living room and changes there. When I see her do this, I tell her to go back to her room to change.

AllySkoo's picture

"Kids will allow you to do everything for them if you don't teach them to do it themselves."

Will you PLEASE tell my 2.5 year olds this?!?! If I hear "I DO IT MYSELF!" one more time in regards to things they clearly cannot do (pour their own milk, cut their own pork chops, carry something fragile and/or potentially dangerous, etc etc etc) I am going to scream. I applaud their independence, and I do encourage them to try things slightly beyond their ability, but sometimes fast, neat, and safe must win out!

zerostepdrama's picture

She is at the age that she should be dressing herself. Running the shower water, she may still need help with that to make sure it isnt too hot. My BS9 started to be able to do this with no help from me when he was about 8.

I still see him sometimes naked. Not on purpose though. But he still needs help with certain things at time, so I do have to see him naked. But we have evolved out of that when I stopped having to help him in the shower.

Ninji's picture

I met SD at 6yrs old and she was still running around the house with nothing but underwear on all day. SO said she was always like that. TOO Bad. I made her start wearing clothes because I wasn't comfortable with it and she had a younger and older brother. It was time for her to start wearing clothes. When SO and I got our first place together SD was around 7.5yrs old. I told SO it was time he stopped walking around in only boxer shorts. SD was getting too old.

Over the summer SD had a rash on the inside of her thighs near her privates. She showed me and when I told SO about it he freaked and ran in and pulled her skirt up and look and then took her in front of MIL and FIL and pulled her skirt up. He didn't get why I was pissed about the situation. She's almost 11. He doesn't need to be doing that and she had a rash from swimming in the ocean all day with shorts on. She wasn't dying

SecondGeneration's picture

Personally I think 7 (or nearly 7) is plenty old enough for a child to be dressing themselves. And dad should be doing things in order to start teaching about what is appropriate. He can turn the water on for her shower and turn it off when she is done without seeing her naked, if he isnt teaching her modesty then how is she going to realise its not normal for adult men to see her nude?

My SD is 4, she has been wiping her own backside since she was 2. I do not and will not go there, she used to have wipes to make it easier and her dad would occassionally check to make sure she'd done it right. Nowadays shes fine just with toilet paper although if she feels shes struggling she will shout for a wipe.
She doesnt shower, she has baths, she has only used showers when we have been away in hotels and given her age she is still somewhat assisted. Shes getting the hang of washing her hair but I (or her dad) will just double check for her.

I asked my partner what he thought and he said honestly he feels that he feels its inappropriate for him to see SD4 naked now and that is why he avoids. As others have said some girls hit puberty by 9!

My SD4 still struggles with some clothes; buttons particularly. Putting them on is generally not a problem, its taking them off shes not got down yet.

Maxwell09's picture

I stop dressing and bathing SS at three. That's when they start recognizing body parts are different. He can shower himself with soap and dress himself except for the longer socks. I think 5 is a good age though.

I think if your DH stopped helping her, she'll start doing it herself. At 7 she should be coordinated enough to atleast put it on. I would suggest your DH wait until a Saturday and pop his head in her room and ask her to get dress while he's getting breakfast ready. As in, "hey SD while I cook breakfast, why don't you get dressed so we can blah blah blah" if she does it once then you can use that to set the precedence.

StepMat789's picture

I am surprised the child wants anyone to see her naked. My daughter flips out if I even walk into the bathroom. She is all about her privacy.

When my kids were small we walked in and out of the bathroom naked. At one point we were all changing from our swim suits into clothes at the same time. Our society has become so sensitive to everything. Who cares if the dad sees his daughter naked. At one point in time she will not want him in the room...I am guessing around 10.

christinen's picture

Thank you ALL for the responses! SD does know how to dress herself. When she is with me, I do not dress her. But particularly in the morning, I guess DH is just being lazy or not wanting to wake SD up early or whatever. But he will go in her room, not even turn the light on, and dress her. It’s very odd if you ask me. She sleeps in her underwear so even if he isn’t the one physically putting clothes on her, he is still seeing her like that every night and then when she gets a shower, he sees her fully nude. It’s funny because if I walk by, she will cover up but she has no problem with dad seeing her goods. It’s strange if you ask me. I want to talk to DH and let him know I think it’s becoming a little inappropriate and he needs to teach her about modesty. I don’t have any kids so I was not sure what the norm is. Thanks again!

AllySkoo's picture

I don't think there is one exact age, it's going to vary by family and sometimes by child. But... this is your home, and your family as well (or at least DH is), so I think you should get a say. Have you talked to DH about it? I mean, have you told him it weirds you out? Maybe you guys can come up with a strategy to make her more independent, so your DH is no longer "helping" her in ways that seem babyish.

Drac0's picture

Gosh, my daughter is 3 and she can dress herself. Although she does needs guidance ("You got your shoes on the wrong feet again!").

Then again, my daughter shouln't be used as a comparison since she learned how to open the patio door shortly after she learned to crawl and made her first escape attempt.

I can't wait until she's a teenager....

christinen's picture

Yup, she just stands there naked in front of him like it's normal. I am not sure how I would feel if we had a daughter together. I would hope I would raise my child to be more independent than SD is. The crazy thing is SD is perfectly capable of dressing herself. If DH wasn't there and I went in her room, turned on the light and said get up and get dressed, she would do it. Idk if he likes feeling needed or something like that.

Teas83's picture

This is a good point about having a bio daughter with your husband. I do have one with mine, and I don't want him to see her naked past the age of 4-5.

CaliforniaSM's picture

SD is 5 and I'm finding it a bit odd myself. Most things starting shower an washing her hair she does need help with because she'll try to do it herself and burn herself or not rinse her hair out and one of us end up having to out her back in the shower to rinse her hair again. But things like when she asks DH to put her panties on then runs around making it a game refusing to put on panties irritates the shit out of me. I stood back and didn't say anything once and they were in there for 15 minutes and he couldn't get panties on her (push over, feels bad for only seeing her on our days). Finally I went in there and told SD to get her panties in herself now because it was getting out of hand and past bedtime. I don't think my SD will develop that instinct of body awareness on her own because BM is such a whore herself and always half naked around men.

BethAnne's picture

My SD is 7 and I don't really see anything inappropriate about her dad seeing her naked. He is not a pedophile and has no sexual intentions towards her. I suppose yes at some age it does become inappropriate, I certainly don't really want my dad seeing me naked these days. Not sure when that transition happened but at some point I think kids are just naturally embarrassed by it, my SD isn't there yet. SD knows that being naked in public isn't acceptable for her and she frequently wears shorts under her dresses/skirts when playing so that no one sees her panties.

As step mom I do what I want to help SD, and at times I don't want to do anything. So then it is up to my husband to do bath time with SD. She loves her baths and will stay in there playing for hours if we don't go in every 5 or 10 minutes and remind her to wash herself and hurry her up towards bed time. If my SD has problems around her genitals he needs to check these things out and it shouldn't always be my job as SM just because I am a woman. The same with swimming lessons, sometimes I don't want to chaperone and so it is up to my husband to take SD to the family changing facilities and make sure she gets changed and ready for her lesson. She isn't mature enough yet to do it on her own.

How is it more appropriate for me, unrelated to SD, to see her naked than it is for her own father??

I dread to think how all those single fathers cope if they can't see their daughters naked from the age of 3 or 4 as some have suggested.

StepKat's picture

This is a can of worms lol. SS10 was 9 years old when he finally started to turn the water on in the shower for himself. BM always did it for him and DH would fall into that trap and do it for him during the first years of our marriage. I MADE DH stop turning on the water for him and I refused to. Eventually SS10 figured it out. He STILL doesn’t tie his shoes. He doesn’t know how and BM keeps buying him the damn velcro strap shoes instead of teaching him. DH and I have been trying to teach him but he keeps “forgetting”. I hate all this babying crap!

Drac0's picture

>SS10 was 9 years old when he finally started to turn the water on in the shower for himself. <

I got you beat. My SS was 12 when DW finally stopped turning on the shower for him...and this was only after said something nasty to DW about it.

Bojangles's picture

I think privacy and independence are 2 different things. My daughter still needed a little assistance sometimes with dressing at 5/6, if only to move things along (it's amazing how a 5 year old can dawdle when it comes to getting ready). My DS5 is the same. DD has been dressing completely independently since she was 6, she'd only need help with back zips. In my experience I'd say a 7 year old should be dressing herself.

But in terms of whether DH still sees DD7 naked - yes, at bathtime or morning/bedtime. I don't think it is in any way weird for a Dad to see his 7 year old daughter undressed. Obviously children develop at different rates and to some degree that dictates when you change routines to reflect age, but 7 is still a little girl. I really don't think a Dad should be running the bath for example, and then feeling obliged to exit the room before his 7 year old disrobes. My DD is relaxed and doesn't have any sense of embarrassment about her body, I think that's a good thing, but I have gradually introduced concepts of personal privacy and as she approaches 8 I can see that we will naturally move towards a point where she will be that bit more private about changing and bathing.

unluckytwin's picture

When SO and I moved in together, his daughter was one month shy of her 9th birthday, and he was still bathing her. It made me WICKED UNCOMFORTABLE. I cut that out immediately, made her wear a bathing suit, and taught her how to turn the water on and wash her hair myself. (After the hair-washing part of the shower, I'd leave and she'd take the bathing suit off and wash her body.) It took a few weeks, but she could finally do an age-appropriate task and no one had to see her naked. (I suspect BM continued to do this for her well after I taught her.) I'm disengaged but taught her myself because *I* was the one who had a problem with SO seeing her naked--neither of them had a problem with it. :jawdrop: :sick: