Mom Hack Wednesday (Week 3)

Happy Wednesday Everyone! I’ve had a bunch of questions on how I cleaned the kids bath toys and ‘non-battery’ toys. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today! Any time I have cleaned the kids’ toys in the past year, I would clean and then go back through and wipe down with water.

I hated the thought of the kids ingesting something that they shouldn’t. We keep the chemicals locked up for a reason, right? So I started researching and the one ingredient that came up religiously was, VINEGAR! I now use it for just about anything.

It makes me feel a heck of a lot better about what my kids are ingesting whenever they’re licking their toys. So here is what I do.

I try to do the rounds at least once a month. It doesn’t always happen exactly the same day each month, but I do my best. I do it in two part just because the bath toys take a little extra care.

For every gallon of water, I add a half a cup of vinegar. I do the bath toys in my kitchen sink. After squeezing all of the water out, I suck water and vinegar in to make sure that I clean the inside. I let them all soak for about an hour. Once done, I squeeze out the water and clean all of the surfaces of the toys. Leaving them sit overnight to dry.

Some people use a hot glue gun to cover up the holes to make sure that the toys don’t intake water. My kids really enjoy squeezing the water out so I just keep cleaning and watch for any mold. Once that’s spotted, I throw them away immediately.

The other plastic toys are little trickier. My kids don’t like it when I pick up their toys at night, let alone taking them away from them for a day. They follow me around wondering what in the heck I’m doing with their toys. Especially since they love bath time so much, so with me taking all their toys into the bathroom without them, they aren’t ever very happy with me. I use the bathtub because that way I can do it all in one shot.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have no idea how many gallons of water my tub will hold. At first, I was going to measure it all out. Then I was like, are you kidding? That will take forever.

That’s why I fill the tub about 3/4 of the way. Then I add in twelve cups of vinegar. I always just keep a bigger bottle of vinegar in the house that way I never run out. Throwing all of the toys in, I let them soak for about a half hour. I go in and give everything a good stir. Making sure that everything submerges and things are turned over.

After another half hour, I set everything down on a towel after a good rinse. Once everything dries, which is usually into the evening, I bring it all out and let the kids get it all germy and dirty again. Thus, continuing the process of cleaning everything in my house over and over again.

Here’s a few pictures of the last time I cleaned everything! I hope this helps and I hope everyone has a great Wednesday!