How & Why to Clean Bath Toys!
We have tons of bath toys and have made a habit of squeezing the water
out of each one after each bath but they still get disgusting. My kids
started breaking out in a little rash after their baths and someone
mentioned it might be because of mold in their bath toys. I gathered up
all the toys and cleaned them really well and threw a couple of the
really nasty ones away. No more rashes!!
I wondered what method of cleaning bath toys worked the best and so I tried a few. Here is what I tried and how it worked:
Vinegar Cleaning
Vinegar is a wonderful natural disinfectant and is safer than bleach and
so I gave this a try first. I mixed 1/2 cup of white vinegar with a
gallon of water and let the toys soak for an hour. I scrubbed the toys
down with a sponge and squeezed the water out of each toy and let them
dry. This released some of the mold but not all of it so I repeated it
again with the same results.
Bleach Cleaning
I also soaked the toys in 3/4
cup of bleach with one gallon of water. I let the toys soak for an hour,
scrubbed them down and squeezed the water out and let them dry. This
seemed to release more mold than the vinegar. I rinsed the insides of
the toys multiple times to rinse the bleach off.
These next couple photos are gross but I wanted to show what was in the bath toys.
This photo shows what came out when I squeezed the bath toy after cleaning....YUCK!
Some of the toys didn't seem to get clean, this is what they looked like after I cleaned them. I obviously threw these away.
After spending a couple hours cleaning these bath toys I put a little
bit of glue on the holes of each toy to prevent water from getting in
them and me from having to clean them again. This has been wonderful!!!
It has now been 3 months and the glue has successfully stayed on all
but one bath toy. This is seriously the best thing you can do...I would
do it as soon as you get a new toy and then you won't even have to
worry about cleaning the toys!
FYI: I cleaned 20 bath toys. I ended up throwing 3 away because I
couldn't get the inside of them as clean as I wanted them. I then glued
the holes on the remaining 17 toys. It has been 3 months and I have
only had the glue fall off of 1 toy!
From link: http://welovebeingmoms.blogspot.ca/2012/07/how-why-to-clean-bath-toys.html
