Children and chaos go hand in hand. If you’re planning your very own home daycare center and intend to create a successful business, remember that a clean and healthy daycare leave a fantastic impression on potential clients (or more likely, on their parents). Here are a few tips you should follow to keep your daycare clean and healthy: A great looking, clean-smelling daycare does wonders for first impressions-and creates lasting ones as well.
CLEAN!
One thing you always have to do-every day is sanitize everything. Paint is bound to spill, chocolate is bound to smear, and toys are bound to find their way into little mouths. Wipe down every surface with a mixture of bleach and water (before you gasp its one tablespoon bleach for every gallon of water). These include anything that the children touch. Do this every day on toy shelves, chairs and tables to prevent parents from wrinkling their noses when the come in. If you’re against using bleach, a hot water mixture with a little non-toxic germ killer can do the trick as well.
Launder all cloth items at least once a week. These items include sleeping bags, pillows, blankets and any other cloth items in your daycare center. If they are stained or vomited on, immediately replace them with fresh cloths. Don’t let the stains set in, immediately wash them with hot water.
Wash curtains and carpets once a month. This way, stains don’t set in. Curtains are notorious for keeping dirt around. You can change them weekly or wash them when you please. Kids are probably going to use your curtains as hiding places, so this will get rid of any leftover saliva, peanut butter or dirt from little hands. Wipe down mats and other porous surfaces that smells can stick to. Nothing turns a parent off faster than the lingering smell of feet or an overflowing diaper pail. Remember to regularly throw trash. It can get hectic in a day care center, so have a regular time per day.
Don’t leave things lying around. Encourage the kids to pick up after themselves or do it yourself. Rinse dishes immediately. Don’t let food, paint, glue or any other material stay on the floor. This will not only give a bad impression but it’ll be harder to remove these stains in the long run. Be neat about things like shoes, bags, umbrellas and coats. It will make clean up time so much easier for you.
HEALTHY!
Running a clean day care center can contribute a lot to the health of your charges. Here are a few other tips that will help you maintain a healthy atmosphere for you and your children.
Have requirements as well. If parents have chosen your day care center, make sure that you provide them with a list of necessary vaccinations and requirements that you have. This is to ensure the health and safety of all the children in your care. Children are notorious for having contagious diseases-you wouldn’t want to end up caring for an entire center full of kids down with the chickenpox.
Don’t let parents bring their children when their still contagious. Unless your day care has a special sick room, one contagious child out for a day won’t affect your profit. All of charges down with flu? That will.
Have a list of each child’s allergies and triggers. This will help you not only with planning menus but from accidental exposure that could lead to asthma or allergy attacks. Nothing beats a well-ventilated clean area in preventing them. Fresh air circulating through your daycare will do a lot of the work for you. On sunny, good days, keep the windows open. You can invest in a good air filter to keep those pesky germs from floating around and to clean the air of insect debris, pollen or other allergens. We don’t recommend the use of air fresheners because these can irritate delicate noses and some contain chemicals that may be harmful to kids.
Following these simple tips can keep your daycare clean for everyone and healthy for the children in your care. You will also benefit from a great child care environment both money wise and health wise.
Learn more See: Start A Daycare
Dolson McArt – Author of: Clean And Healthy Daycare Center