How To Clean And Disinfect Your Baby’s Toys

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Any parent that uses a baby play mat knows that their baby learns through the exploration of their environment. They will crawl everywhere, touch everything, and taste anything that will fit into their mouths. It’s natural and vital to their cognitive development.¹ But, let’s be honest. Even though it’s natural, it’s pretty nasty. Dirt and germs will cover your baby’s toys in no time. So, you really should be cleaning them pretty often. And, to help you, here are tips on the best ways to clean and disinfect your baby’s toys. No matter what they are made of.

How Often Should You Clean Baby Toys?

I’ll briefly address how often you should be clean your baby’s toys before I talk about how to actually clean them. Babies and toddlers tend to place anything into their mouths. Especially their toys. So, don’t wait until you can actually see the built-up dirt. Try to clean and disinfect their toys fairly often. I know time is in short supply with all parents. But, try to clean them at least once a week. You can bump that up to twice a week if you have a little more time on your hands.

Your child will stop chewing their toys as they grow older. So, you won’t have to clean them as often. But, you should still clean them at least once a month. They will still play with their toys. And, they will probably handle food (like cookies or chips) right after. So, even though they may be older… they can still get sick from the germs that live on their toys.

Finally, there are a few times where you should clean all of your baby’s toys. For example, you should clean your baby’s toys right after they recover from a cold or diarrhea. You should also clean them if other babies or toddlers have played with them. Because chances are, those kids probably chewed of them. And finally, clean toys that haven’t been played with for a long time. You never know what kind of germs they picked up while sitting around.

How Do You Clean Toys Made Of…

Plastic

Plastic toys are probably the easiest to clean. If they are plastic and don’t have batteries, try placing them in your dishwasher. Use a little detergent and hot water. But, don’t use the heated drying option as it might warp or melt the toy. After the cycle is complete, your baby’s toys will be clean and sanitized.

If they are larger or have batteries… first take the batteries out. Then, clean the outside of the toy with a washcloth soaked with a mixture of warm water and soap. Make sure to clean all of the nooks and crannies. If you have too, use a toothpick to clean the corners where your fingers won’t fit. You can also use an old toothbrush to really scrub stubborn dirt.

Allow it to air dry once it’s clean. Then disinfect the toy by wiping it with a disinfecting wipe like the ones offered by Lysol or Clorox. Allow it to dry once again. Your toy is safe to be played with once fully dry.

Wood

Wood warps when exposed to too much water. So, cleaning wood toys is a little trickier. Instead of water and soap, try a 50/50 mixture of distilled white vinegar and water. You can also try a soap that’s specifically made for wood like Murphy’s Oil Soap (Amazon Link).

Clean the wood toys the same way you would clean the larger plastic toys. Try to remove as much of the dirt as possible with your washcloth, toothbrush, toothpick soaked in the cleaning mixture of your choice. Just pay attention to make sure that the wood isn’t getting too soaked. Then, after your toy is clean, wipe it off with a clean dry towel. Try to remove as much of the water as you can. Trust me, any water you leave on the toy has a better chance of soaking into it rather than evaporating off of it.

Fabric

Toys made of fabric are a little easier to clean than wood but a little harder to clean than plastic. You have two options that you can try. If your fabric toys (like stuffed animals) don’t have any batteries, you can try washing them in your washing machine. Don’t just toss them in there though. First, place your toy in a pillowcase or mesh bag. Then toss it in the washing machine and let it do its thing. After the cleaning cycle is complete, dry it in your dryer for about 15 minutes on medium heat.

You can’t use the washing machine if your fabric toys have batteries. These have to be spot cleaned with a washcloth soaked in a mixture of soap and water. If your lazy, you can even use a baby wipe. Unfortunately, you can’t clean them too much since water and batteries don’t mix together well.

Books

Most people don’t even think about cleaning their baby books. But, you really should. They are played with just as much as any other toy. To clean them, use the 50/50 mixture of distilled white vinegar and water. Wipe the book down with a cloth moistened with the mixture. You can probably even clean the individual pages if you have nothing better to do. Just make sure to let the book dry completely after you clean it. The best way to do this is by standing it up and spreading each page apart. You can speed up the process with a small fan. Just make sure that the airflow is enough to speed up the drying process but low enough that it doesn’t force the pages together.

Bath Toys

A lot of people don’t bother to clean bath toys. But, water and low airflow are the perfect breeding grounds for germs. So, you should clean them at least once a week. The best part is that they are usually pretty easy to clean. Bath toys typically don’t use any batteries. And, they are usually made of plastic. So, you can clean them the same way as you would clean any other small plastic toy without batteries. Just throw them in the dishwasher. You don’t even have to wait for them to dry since they are going to get wet soon anyways.

Metal

Metal toys are a unique bunch. First off, do they even sell metal toys anymore? I’m sure they do. But, it’s getting rarer by the day. Anyways, metal toys can’t be cleaned in the dishwasher since they usually have accessories made of rubber (ie rubber wheels). And, rubber and hot water are not a good combination. You can try cleaning them with the water/soap mixture. But, stay away from the water/vinegar mixture since the vinegar will have a chemical reaction with the metal.

Instead, try to clean metal toys with a mixture of water and bleach. Just dilute 2 to 4 tablespoons of bleach in a gallon of water. Then, soak your toy for 30 minutes or so. Once clean, allow the toy to completely air dry before use.

Conclusion

That’s pretty much every kind of material I can think of. I hope you found this guide useful. Now, go and clean your baby’s toys. And, if you can think of a material that I missed, feel free to leave a comment down below. I would be more than happy to update this article in the future.

By Grace – Child Development Associate Teacher in California

My husband Mark and I have been blessed with two beautiful, smart, positive (I can go on and on) girls… Kenzie & Kayla. And, we have learned many tips and tricks while raising them. Tips and tricks that we felt would be useful to other new parents out there. So, we started WAYISAVE as a website built by parents for parents to share the best baby deals, coupons, tips, tricks and the occasional piece of advice.