Selection and Care of Baby Toys

[BonBon]

There's a reason why kids stick everything in their mouth...germs are good for the gut and immune system.

Add me to the list of those who don't clean stuff. Only if it's puked or pooped on.

GMW, I miss having dogs because that's the only way the kitchen floor was kept free of crumbs!

[alison]

We used to wash and sterilize dd's bottles and pacifiers every night for the first few months of her life. I even bought microwave bag sterilizers for when we traveled. We were nuts!

[Thirteen]

I love me some Lysol.

Stuffed toys are few and far between, due to DH's dust allergy.




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[ladymoreta]

Haha see I'm more paranoid about Lysol than germs! There's never a dull moment in parenting...

[Deebs]

Just one more thread where parenting styles are so different. Even though it kind of killed me, we also intentionally exposed our kids to natural bacteria, only washing when things were really gross or fell somewhere really public. We wanted to build up their immune systems and followed the advice that they were less likely to have bad allergies. For pacifiers, I just threw them out when they seemed to get something in them.

[GrayMatterWife]

Deebs: us, too. My husband was once asked what our parenting theory is. He replied: "Antigen presentation."

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Deebs: us, too. My husband was once asked what our parenting theory is. He replied: "Antigen presentation."

That's where we are. I let my step moms dogs love all over D this weekend. They were fascinated by her and I figure as long as they won't bite, the germs are awesome!

[SuzySunshine]

We don't clean toys either, if something plush gets visably dirty I wash it in a pillow case but we also have a dog and my house is not spotless by any means. I let the kids play in the dirt/mud regularly and they happen to be two of the healthiest kids I've ever met. Other then minor colds and runny noses (clear) they are usually very healthy.

ETA: And R has this hybrid pacifier thing he only sleeps with and when it gets cruddy I take it apart and boil it and put it back together.

[DCJenn]

We rarely washed toys- I figured I let him crawl all over the Moscow airport floor and he'd just left an orphanage w/ 100 other kids.

Those that we did need to wash (the stuffed animals) I'd just wash in the machine on gentle with a couple of towels. Dried on gentle as well.

J.

[HouseofWool]

Deebs: us, too. My husband was once asked what our parenting theory is. He replied: "Antigen presentation."

I love this. My slacker parenting attitude has an actual name! I'm in the same camp. If something fell on the floor in Walmart or the clinic, I didn't let them put it back in their mouths, but other than that, I was pretty chill about it all. When living in the north Bronx, the grocery store had carts that were chained together and you had to put in a token or a quarter to use them. When C was teething, he LOVED to chew on the metal nub of the chain. It must have been cool against his gums. *shrug* It hadn't been on the floor, so it passed my test.

As for stuffed animals? They go in the wash with a regular load when they are visibly grungy (and I have pretty relaxed standards). Although S threw her favorite soft baby doll (that she has slept with since she was just a few months old) into the wash because a friend's dog mouthed it.

[JC76]

I also fall in the Deebs camp. If it was something Zoe typically put into her mouth, I only washed it if it fell on the floor/street/etc when we were out of the house. Or if it was visibly dirty. I firmly believe in a reasonable degree of dirt exposure.