Disinfecting with bleach - Daycare.com Forum

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childcaremom 08:28 AM 10-01-2015

Can someone tell me what the mix is bleach to water?

Also, do you dunk, take out immed and set to dry or do you let them sit? Do you rinse afterwards to get rid of bleach?

And last silly question, regular Clorox is ok to use?

I don't usually keep any chemicals in the house but we are on week 3 of someone being sick and I'm tired of washing the toys and hoping to find an easier solution.

stephanie 11:34 AM 10-01-2015

In my center in MN, we use one bleach solution for general cleaning and a second bleach solution for mouthed toys and food contact surfaces.

General Cleaning:
If you are using regular bleach (5.25%), the ratio is 1 gallon water to 1/4 cup bleach. If you are using ultra bleach (6-6.25%), ratio is 1 gallon water to 3 1/3 tablespoons bleach.

Mouthed Toys/Food Contact Surfaces:
Regular Bleach: 1 gallon water to 1 tablespoon bleach
Ultra Bleach: 1 gallon water to 2 teaspoons bleach

We wash toys by scrubbing them with regular dish soap and water first, then spraying them with the bleach solution and letting them air dry.

Bleach solutions only last 24 hours so they need to be made fresh every day.

HTH

childcaremom 11:35 AM 10-01-2015

Thank you so much!

So after spraying with the bleach solution, they don't need to be rinsed?

littletots 12:15 PM 10-01-2015

Quart size: food prep 1 teaspoon per quart of water
diaper CHG/bathroom 1 tablespoon per quart of water

stephanie 12:53 PM 10-01-2015

Originally Posted by childcaremom:
Thank you so much!

So after spraying with the bleach solution, they don't need to be rinsed?

No. It's such a small amount of bleach that it shouldn't have any negative effects and the toys won't smell like bleach or anything.

jenboo 01:28 PM 10-01-2015

Originally Posted by childcaremom:
Can someone tell me what the mix is bleach to water?

Also, do you dunk, take out immed and set to dry or do you let them sit? Do you rinse afterwards to get rid of bleach?

And last silly question, regular Clorox is ok to use?

I don't usually keep any chemicals in the house but we are on week 3 of someone being sick and I'm tired of washing the toys and hoping to find an easier solution.

Your bleach needs to say something about disinfecting on the bottle. It will say something about killing 99.9% of germs.
The splashless, safe for colors etc bleach does not disinfect.

daycare 02:00 PM 10-01-2015

I use the store bought already mix bleach solution. I spray it and let it sit over night. the next day we rinse off and let air dry again.

I don't clean all of my toys in my daycare but every other month. the only toys that get cleaned right away are the ones that anyone saw go into the mouth and trust me my dcks will rat everyone out. I think I made them germaphobes. lol

what kind of illness is going around? some illness there is just nothing you can do about it, kids are going to get it no matter what.

after daycare is done, do you open all the windows and turn on a fan? I do and I also leave a heppa filter to run over night. the one I have claims that it kills airborne germs, not too sure I buy into it, but I do love it.

http://www.target.com/p/germ-guardia...FdgLgQodezgFGg

this is the one I have.

stephanie 03:32 PM 10-01-2015

You can also use a dishwasher and then spray with bleach instead of handwashing, if you have one.

daycare 03:40 PM 10-01-2015

Originally Posted by stephanie:
You can also use a dishwasher and then spray with bleach instead of handwashing, if you have one.

that is a great idea. I used to do this with my duplo legos when I had a nice dishwasher, but the one that I have now sucks, so i don't use it for anything.

love the dishwasher idea

childcaremom 01:42 AM 10-02-2015

Hmmm, another reason to finally get a dishwasher?

I have a bucket that I put mouthing toys in. I am working on nothing in our mouth. I always have windows open. We wash hands. We are outside most of the day. We eat healthy.

But I have had an illness in here ever since one dcg started 4 weeks ago. I sent her home her first week and she has missed 5 days due to illness so far. Just colds, low grade fevers, etc but she mouths and licks everything so I am trying to be proactive. And it just grosses me out. Never bleached stuff before, I usually just wash with soap and water.

Tbh, I thought I could have a bucket of solution, let the toys sit for a minute or two, rinse and then leave them to dry overnight. That seems easier than the soap and water to me.

Maybe it's not?

I'm going to look into the fan.

Thanks!

racemom 05:26 AM 10-02-2015

Originally Posted by childcaremom:
Hmmm, another reason to finally get a dishwasher?

I have a bucket that I put mouthing toys in. I am working on nothing in our mouth. I always have windows open. We wash hands. We are outside most of the day. We eat healthy.

But I have had an illness in here ever since one dcg started 4 weeks ago. I sent her home her first week and she has missed 5 days due to illness so far. Just colds, low grade fevers, etc but she mouths and licks everything so I am trying to be proactive. And it just grosses me out. Never bleached stuff before, I usually just wash with soap and water.

Tbh, I thought I could have a bucket of solution, let the toys sit for a minute or two, rinse and then leave them to dry overnight. That seems easier than the soap and water to me. Maybe it's not?

I'm going to look into the fan.

Thanks!

We do the bucket, let sit for a minute or two, but we don't rinse the toys, and then air dry. We do sometimes run them through the dishwasher, but easier to do the bleach because we can do that in the room instead of transporting them to kitchen. Health department guidelines here say not to rinse, let the bleach solution air dry on the toys.

jenboo 08:45 AM 10-02-2015

I've always dunked in soap water, dunked in rinse water and then dunked in bleach water and air dried.
You definitely don't want to rinse after a bleach dunk. The bleach needs to dry on the toys to disinfect them.

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