Managing a home daycare takes care, attention, and quite a bit of hard work. When you want to keep your home daycare properly sanitized, there are several steps you can take. Use these tips to ensure that the facility is clean throughout the day. When the children arrive, you want their parents to find a clean daycare that they will fall in love with. As the children leave, you want your home daycare to return to normal in moments. Moreover, you are doing this to ensure that everyone in the daycare is safe.
CDC Guidelines
One of the first things you can do is use guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control to keep your home day care properly sanitized. As you read through tips from the CDC, remember that they will change over time. Currently, the CDC recommends that you:
- Regularly wash hands
- Use hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol
- Supervise young children as they wash their hands and use hand sanitizer
- Clean surfaces that are touched regularly
- Wear masks
- Do not use masks on babies and children under the age of 2
- Cover coughs and sneezes
- Send sick children home
- Communicate with parents
- Be prepared to close if COVID-19 spreads
Aside from these tips, work with local health officials if there is an outbreak. If it is difficult to find supplies, work with local officials to secure all the needed sanitizing supplies.
Use Disinfectants
When you are cleaning surfaces throughout your facility, remember that you must clean every surface because children touch everything. You never want to skip something, and you should wipe the sides of counters, chairs, and the edges of doors. Do not be afraid to over-clean for the sake of everyone’s safety.
When you are disinfecting, you should keep in mind that using the wrong chemicals can be dangerous. There is no need to use bleach or ammonia because you can buy commercial disinfectants that will do the job well. If you are intent on using bleach and ammonia, please do not mix them. You will create a toxic gas that could prove fatal for you and anyone else in the area.
Buy Hand Sanitizer in Bulk
When you buy hand sanitizer in bulk, you can keep it out throughout your facility. This is important because every adult needs easy access as they try to keep their hands clean. You should leave the hand sanitizer out for the parents as they enter, and you can teach the kids to use the hand sanitizer during the day. You are creating a routine that is easy to repeat over and over, and you can buy bulk packages that cut costs, give you a massive lot to work with, and help you track your usage.
Buy from bulk suppliers because they can give you the best prices. They also tend to have brands that give you the best protection from germs and bacteria. These companies generally only sell at wholesale prices, and you want what other industrial buildings use. Even if you have a daycare in your home, you can place a large order with these companies.
Wash Everything At The End of the Day
You should get into a routine where you wash everything at the end of the day. Doing so ensures that you can keep the space clean and that it will be clean when families arrive the next day. Start a routine with other adults in your facility so that every surface is cleaned. You can also isolate the last few children in just one space so that you can clean at the end of a long day.
Vacuum
You need to vacuum every day to ensure that you do not have any germs on the floor or in the carpets. Wear a mask when you empty to vacuum because dust can disperse easily.
Diaper Changes
Keep your diaper changing area separate, and disinfect the area after every change. You need to be hyper-careful to ensure that the area is clean. If you are not cleaning the diaper area, you could easily spread the virus without realizing it.
Wash Toys Daily
You must go through all the toys and clean them daily. You can use a disinfectant bath composed of water and a diluted sanitizing solution. Drop all the toys in a tub and wash them thoroughly. You can also do this with cloth toys by running them through the washing machine. If you do not have time to complete both steps of this process, you might want to eliminate cloth toys for the time being.
Clean Bathrooms Thoroughly
You should clean your bathrooms as thoroughly and carefully as possible. Clean the sink, faucet, handles, toilet seat, bowl, and handles. You should clean the door and handles, and around the threshold. This might seem mundane, but you never know which surfaces people will touch when they come into your facility and ask to use the restroom.
Touchless Trash Cans
You should use touchless trash cans that come with a foot pedal. You can teach the kids to use these trash cans, and the parents can do the same. You are reducing the number of surfaces you touch, and you can quickly eliminate trash by donning a pair of gloves, removing the bag, and replacing the bag before disposing of your gloves in the new trash bag. These cans are inexpensive and help you maintain your sanitization plan for many years to come.
Keep Your Daycare as Clean as Possible
Using the tips listed above will keep your daycare clean during the COVID-19 pandemic, and you should consider keeping up with your cleaning routine after the pandemic ends. You can reduce the number of illnesses you deal with during the year, and you will teach the kids to live healthy lives. If you need help, you can ask the parents to bring cleaning supplies or pitch in.
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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