How to Clean and Disinfect Children’s Toys

Over the years, the Advanced Vapor Technologies (Advap) team has had the pleasure to experience firsthand the extraordinary results of using dry steam vapor. There are so many astonishing stories of amazing events since we opened for business 25 years ago that we simply someday have to put together a compilation of some of the best ones.

But for now, one of the top experiences that comes to mind, and it relates to the cleaning and disinfecting of toys, is the story of a mother who had a child living at home with a chronic illness.

Because the child could not eat and drink on its own, a feeding tube was required. Connected through the stomach, the tube was soft and flexible and needed to be cleaned and flushed after each feeding, but also before and after giving the child any medicines.

Already using steam vapor to clean their home, the mother turned to steam vapor to flush the tube in lieu of a syringe and a bleach solution that can cause vomiting, stomach irritation, and other health issues. 

It worked beautifully.

Not surprisingly, after sharing this process with her insurance company and the state, the mother was reimbursed for her steam vapor system purchase. But more than that, the child’s doctor was so impressed with how steam vapor cleans and disinfects that he allowed the mother to bring her machine with her on office visits so that she could disinfect waiting room toys without toxic side effects. As you know, children will play, throw, and unfortunately even chew these toys. 

Let’s face it, the last thing you want at the doctor’s office is for your child to put toys that harbor dissolved dirt, bacteria, and microbes in or near their mouth. This is especially true when your child's immune system is compromised. Nor do you want your child exposed to strong chemical disinfectants such as bleach, which sadly is the popular way to clean toys. 

It’s somewhat surprising but most people do not realize that chemical disinfectants are pesticides designed to kill living organisms. Your child is a living organism.

But even if that does not bother you, and it certainly should, strong chemical disinfectants such as bleach must be applied and left wet for minutes in order to actually kill or destroy anything. And then the chemical residue must be rinsed away so that it does not breed new bacteria. But perhaps more importantly than that, scientific testing published in the American Journal of Infection Control says bleach leaves as many live bacteria cells as dead cells. So bleach isn't the perfect disinfectant many believe.

With this story in mind, we would like to share with you the best way to treat and clean children’s toys with a Ladybug steam vapor system.

All Ladybugs are equipped with an innovative technology called TANCS® that uses the minerals in tap water to break down pathogens at a molecular level, including bacteria and viruses. By combining TANCS® nanotechnology with superheated dry steam vapor, Ladybug steam cleaners can disinfect toys thousands of times better than most chemical disinfectants. And there’s no residue left behind to rinse away.

If you own a Ladybug, here’s how you do it. Place the steam nozzle on your machine, then attach the proper sized tool—a small or medium nylon brush, a clothes brush, or the large round brush—onto the nozzle. Cover the brush with a folded terry towel, using a rubber band to hold the towel in place.

With the steam pressure set to low, slowly move the brush with the towel attached over the toy surface. It’s a good idea to hold the toy with a pair of tongs so that you do not run the steam over your fingers.

There is no need to scrub. Let the heat do the work.

By following these simple tips, you can disinfect hard surfaced toys such as animal figurines, building blocks, and rubber rings in 2 to 7 seconds without the risk of filling your child’s small lungs with toxic bleach fumes. While no device or chemical—by law—can claim to disinfect soft surfaces, the combination of dry steam vapor and TANCS® will outperform anything you could ever use to disinfect plush toys.