Mr Germ is not welcome in My Tidy Little Mess.The J mom house has got the "bug". It's that illness that everyone gets, eventually. We have been so healthy this season but our "eventually" has come. After three days of getting worse instead of better, we took Seth to the clinic yesterday to have him checked out. As expected it is viral and nothing much we can do. The Dr. sent us home with some Albuterol so Seth is using the nebulizer three times a day to help with the weezy cough. (Fortunately we already owned one and cut costs there.) The runny nose, fever and achiness is getting covered with Children's Tylenol and Ibuprofen. As a mother you just ache for your child and want to help them with so much more but other than sharing his bed to keep the snot at bay and rubbing aches and pains, you really just feel worthless.
On to the main point: Getting rid of the germs. My house has now had the "bug" so we must remove all traces of said "bug" from my home so it is never seen or heard from again. As the kids are the one who seem to have started this we started the cleaning process with the toys.
Have you ever disinfected your toys? You really ought to think about it. As a day care provider (and an obsessive compulsive mother) I clean our toys more than most. I actually have some what of a cycle I try to keep up with, though my husband can attest it doesn't always happened as planned.
Here are some tips that I hope you can find helpful:
1. If you have a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle you can throw plastic toys in it and run it knowing that they will all be happpy clean when the cycle is complete. This is great for infant toys especially! (For example: teething rings, shape sorter, stacking cups, magnetic alphabets, etc.)
2. Soft play toys can often be run through the washing machine on a short low agitation cycle with a small amount of cleaner. We have some soft blocks, books and stuffed animals that get this treatment.
3. Toys that cannot go in the dishwasher can be wiped with a Clorox solution or pre-purchased Clorox wipes. You can also use Clorox anywhere spray and then let air dry. This works great for all of our small cars and trucks. Not recommended while the kiddos are around though!
4. Any toy that you see enter the mouth should get washed immediately or put in the sink so you can cleanse it properly before any other kids touch it. Sounds crazy but it is possible. With infants in mouthing stage just make sure the toys that are used by mouth stay in one place to be repeatedly used until you wash them at the end of the day.
5. When kids are sick limit the amount of toys they play with so you can keep germ sharing to a minimum. It saves you the extra cleaning.
I try to cycle through the cleaning of the toys each month unless it goes in the mouth. Funny but Seth sees something go in another kids mouth and his automatic reaction is to throw it in the sink for cleaning. You can teach your kids to help you clean too! Make it fun and have a "car wash" for your toys with some soapy water in the bathtub. Kids love it and you get something done too.
All in all keeping germs out of your house is impossible and they say kids need some germs too. I just figure they can get them at someone else's house, not mine!
What ways have you found to keep germs away from your precious little ones?!
1 comment:
Stuffed toys should also be put in the freezer or outside to kill dust mites. I can't remember the amount of time. But I know that just washing your stuffed toys will not get rid of them.
Yuck!!!
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