Background: Hand-washing with soap and water can prevent a significant proportion of childhood diarrhea and respiratory infectioRs. Health problems such as diarrhea, a major public health problem in Ethiopia could be resulted from poor hand-washing practices. Therefore, mother's hand washing directly impacts the health of her child and all members of household. Objective: To assess hand washing practices and associated factors among mothers from model and non-mothers from model households in rural community of Bibugn district, North West Ethiopia. Methods: A community based comparative cross sectional survey was employed. Multi-stage with simple random sampling technique was used to select households. Amharic version structure interview questionnaire was pretested and used to collect data. The data was entered in Epi-info version 7 and analyzed using SPSS-version 20. Descriptive analysis was done using percentage and presented, using table and graph. Binary and multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with hand washing practices. Result: Mothers from mothers from model households (29.2%) used soap /ash to wash their hand as compared to mothers from non-model (15.8%) households. The independent predictors of mothers appropriate hand washing practices were mothers knowledge on importance of hand washing (AOR:1.68, 95%Cl:1.81 - 2.67)], availability of soap [AOR: 2.41, 95%Cl:1.85-4.74], hand washing facility [AOR:1.78,95%Cl:1.18-2.67],being model household status[AOR:1.88, 95°/oCl:1.19 -2.64] and favorable attitude [AOR:1.86, 95%Cl:1.05-2.75]. Conclusion: Hand-washing practices by mothers in the study area were low. when compared with previous studies. Good Knowledge on importance of hand washing, favorable attitude towards hand washing, availability of soap, availability of hand washing facility and mothers' level of education were the factors associated with hand washing practices. Key words: mothers, Model household, Non-model household, hand washing