cleaning things that go in baby's mouth?

[is it puppies?]

How do you clean things that are new? plastic toys, soft toys, binky's etc... (or do you bother cleaning them all)

How often do you clean them thereafter, and how do you do it (ie after every drop on the floor at the mall but not at home, would you boil it or bleach it or spritz with vinegar)

Items like exersaucers or playmats that get drooled on and mouthed- should I be wiping them down after every use?

really, I am lazy and looking for the easiest way to do this, but yesterday I realized it's been a month since I've done anything to DDs pacifiers other than run them under hot water, possibly spritzing with vinegar first. I have ONCE in 4 months washed the pad with her play mat. I have never washed the toys on it. I have newer teething toys that are mixed soft and hard parts which I have probably never washed (not even when new) I have teddy bears she got as pressies that sit on a shelf collecting dust because I don't know if I have to clean them first...

[rhiOrion]

We have a dog and cat, so we watch pacifiers and toys when they get covered in fur

I never do more than just rinse stuff off.

New stuff I might rinse or not rinse, just depending on how I feel about it at the moment.

[ivymae]

well, I usually wash them between kids...

Really, we clean things on a as needed basis. Food, spit up or visible dirt qualifies, as does dropping something at the supermarket/back yard (we have chickens, and chickens poop everywhere). Most things can go in the dishwasher or washing machine, everything else can be handwashed with soap and water. I very rarely bleach anything, though after a big family illness I am more prone to using those bleach wipes.

[texmati]

what every you do, don't try and sterilize a winkel.

I didn't wash DS stuff when it was new, but I guess I should have. I'm subbing to this thread, because I'd like to wash some of DS's drool covered toys for dd but i'm not sure how.

[jecombs]

I don't wash things a lot... I think a little bit of exposure to germs is a good thing. I wash pacis in warm water and dish or hand soap if they've been dropped outside our home. Ocaasionally, I'll throw pacis into a microsteam bag with my pump parts and bottles. I also wash other toys in the dishwasher or washing machine/dryer. If it's a toy that can't be submerged, I wipe it off with vinegar and water. I never use bleach on anything that might go in LO's mouth unless I can also rinse it off. I'd rather not expose the LOs to the chemicals.

[P.J.]

I was just wondering this myself as a lot of toys get dropped. We generally just wipe them off if it's at our house (where we don't wear shoes inside and know how often the floor is cleaned), and if it's out, go to the bathroom and rinse off, or wait til we're home.
I sterilize pacis and other small toys that can handle it (ie not wood) in the microwave sterilizer bag with pump accessories, maybe every few weeks (although our baby is not a big paci user so in a few weeks he's maybe sucked on it five times).
I wash all new clothes and cloth toys first before using.
I also keep telling myself that exposure to germs is good for immune building, although I don't know if it's true. I sure hope so, as we also let DS crawl around all over the place, sometimes public places where who-knows-what is on the floor. I wipe his hands afterwards, but still...

[ann_of_loxley]

cleaning - whats that? lol

[Adaline'sMama]

We put her paci in our mouth to ensure that there is no hair on it... does that count?



We dont really clean things before we let her put them back in her mouth. Then again, she also mouths the table when we go out to eat, mouths the grocery cart when we shop, mouths anything she can get her hands on, and plays on the floor often with no blanket underneath her.

[Llyra]

I occasionally rinsed the paci, if it got really gross with cat hair, or fell in a mud puddle. Other than that, I never really did. Nor did I clean toys-- I cleaned toys if they got puked on, or if they were obviously dirty, but I never went to any special lengths to sanitize anything.

It's not healthy to keep babies too insulated from the microorganisms in their environment-- they need to be exposed to ordinary germs, to build their immune systems. Plus, most germs they would be exposed to from toys are their own germs, or germs that are in your home that they've already been exposed to.

I think I'd wash anything that was on any surface in a hospital, since hospitals are crawling with truly nasty bugs. And I do sanitize surfaces when we have stomach flu in the house, if they've had diarrhea or vomit on them, or been touched or handled by someone who has diarrhea or has been vomiting. That's about all, though.

[SeattleRain]

I bottlefeed so I sterilize A LOT, so it's not a big deal for me to throw other things in there. I use the sterilizer bags which are AWESOME! They're especially awesome if you only have pacis or little toys since you don't have to put up a whole pot of water. If you bottlefeed you end up having to run the bags a few times.

Anyways, so I rinse pacis and I hve a "no share" policy with teething toys like our HABA wooden ring.

[Mawood]

I wash the toys or pacifier when they fall down-sometimes even if that happens at our home. We have an outdoor cat and also not a "no shoe" policy, even though that sounds like a great idea as she is on the edge to become a crawler. I wash them in warm water with dish soap and also like to wash new toys before they are used first. I only sterilized the pacifiers once when they were new.

[Karmabat]

I try to wash things at least once a day, if not after every use... I'm a clean freak though. I'm sure this'll change when she's crawling around and I won't have time to!

[chel]

my dd is 9m so that might explain more, but i rarely clean her toys now. old enough i don't worry about every little thing, but still young enough she's not into lots of germy stuff.

i did sterlize her paci right after i bought it, about 1m, but she never used them as a newborn, and only now uses it for some chewing.

i did boil some bottles for "just in case" at 5m but never had any success getting dd to take a bottle.

i did wipe down some dusty .baby toys that my parents had in storage, but that was something i would have done for my 10yr old.

overall i'm not too concerned with household floor germs. we don't wear shoes inside. and we have no pets.

[MJB]

With a brand new baby I boil pacifiers/pump parts when new and every week or so. My ~3 mo. old's pacifiers haven't gotten more than rinsed in at least a month, though. I pretty much never wash toys unless they look really dirty (like soft teething toys... ew).
I'm not as lax as some, though; I use the cleaning wipes on the cart handle, don't let my kids share sippies with other kids, don't put pacis in my own mouth. I've definitely become more "germ-phobic" with more kids and years under my belt... having sick kids sucks and I'm even more likely to get sick than they are so I try to keep things relatively clean. I keep some Clorox wipes around which I use to clean the bathroom regularly and de-germ the hot spots when someone is sick (remotes, phones, light switches, door knobs, etc). I have a steam mop which is easier to use than a regular mop and sterilizes my floors.

[neonalee]

Oh thank goodness!! I consider it part lazy & part just can't get everything done, but I'm glad to see these replies! I just keep telling myself I'm building a strong immune system for DS (as he wheezes with his snot filled nose from his first cold).

[ShanaV]

Originally Posted by neonalee

Oh thank goodness!! I consider it part lazy & part just can't get everything done, but I'm glad to see these replies! I just keep telling myself I'm building a strong immune system for DS (as he wheezes with his snot filled nose from his first cold).

^^ Exact same situation here!

I wash pacis that fall on the floor - we have 2 dogs and wear shoes around, plus if I don't have a "system" for washing things, they will just NEVER get washed. So I made it a habit to wash them when they fall. I just hand wash them with some hand soap and sink water. Takes about the same time as washing my own hands. Oh, and I almost always will stick the paci in my mouth before the babies' mouths precisely to lick off any dirt that might be on it! I figure, I have a stronger immune system than them, and they can handle a little bit of my spit.

New clothes, blankies, etc, I throw em in a load of laundry before use. Mostly to make them shrink to size. Stuffed animals, you can wash these? Other new toys, I don't bother. Shoot, they come sealed in plastic, right?! Come to think of it, just the other day I bought some hangy toys for the carseats, and they were all hanging loose in the Babies R Us. But I ripped off the tags in the store and attached them before checking out b/c the boys kind of hate their carseats. So yeah, those haven't gotten cleaned. And probably won't for the foreseeable future!

[coffeegirl]

I bottle-feed half the time and breastfeed the other half. But I only steralize the bottles like....maybe once a months or so? Including the nipples. I use the bags to steralize. In between I just usually rinse the formula bottles with hot water and the nipples with a little soap and hot water.

I'm not big on steralization. I think some of the advice out there about it is overkill....just my opinion.