How Daycares Can Stay Healthy With Proper Disinfecting
As if life wasn’t hard enough with tiny, toddler bosses – now we have Covid-19, SARS-C0V-2, and variant waves on our hands! Daycare professionals know that kids are awesome germ spreaders because of their penchant for touching every single thing and, often, putting it in their mouths. Never fear, Force of Nature is here! Here’s how you can use our powerful disinfectant to protect children and staff at your daycare center.
The Truth About Cleaning Chemicals and Health
You might think that as long as you and the children at your center don’t touch sanitizing chemicals, you’re not exposed to any health risks. Sadly that is not the case. For example, a recent study showed that chronic exposure to the 2 most common disinfectant chemicals, bleach and quaternary ammonium compounds (“quats”), can be as harmful to our lungs as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And that research was on adults, so imagine the impact on babies, toddlers and children whose respiratory systems are still developing! Another study showed that chronic exposure to these same chemicals can increase your risk of developing COPD by up to 45%. Something else you might not know is that the CDC recommends avoiding bleach and quats around anyone with asthma or allergies, which is about 40% of US children. It is almost impossible to avoid these 2 ingredients when you’re looking for products to kill germs.
The Difference Between Cleaning and Disinfecting
If you don’t know the difference between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting, you’re not alone! We’ve got a whole blog post on the topic, but in a nutshell: to be a disinfectant, a product has to be tested, approved and registered by the EPA to confirm that it kills at least 99.9% of the microbes it claims it can. This has to be accomplished during a specific “dwell time”. Cleaning, which removes physical debris, should be done first to ensure that your disinfectant comes into contact with 100% of the surface.
Top Tips for Disinfecting Your Daycare With Force of Nature
1. Surfaces
We disinfect our classrooms to keep kids healthy, but conventional disinfectants often use toxic chemicals that, sadly, may be harming kids, not helping them. Force of Nature is a powerful, EPA-registered disinfectant, but it’s also gentle enough to use around children and people with allergies and asthma. Hypochlorous acid, the active antimicrobial ingredient in Force of Nature, is actually the same substance our own immune systems make to fight infection and is used in veterinary and wound care! That means you can feel good about spraying it on tiny tables and chairs, highchair trays, playmats, and everywhere else kids learn and play. More great news: you don’t need to rinse surfaces after using Force of Nature – just spray and let Force of Nature work it’s magic. You can even let it air dry without wiping.
Spray Force of Nature directly onto surfaces in your daycare like:
- Tables
- Desks
- Chairs
- Playmats
- Easels and art areas
- Bookshelves
- Classroom Pet Environments
- Countertops
2. Toys and Classroom Materials
To disinfect toys, books, and other classroom materials, spray them with Force of Nature thoroughly, then let dry naturally. You can also spray a cloth with Force of Nature and use it to clean more delicate items.
3. Kitchen and Communal Areas
Force of Nature is a great kitchen disinfectant! For disinfecting food prep surfaces, countertops and appliances, wipe the surface of any visible soil or residue so that the disinfectant can come into contact with 100% of the surface. Then spray Force of Nature thoroughly and let air dry. If you have staff members who eat in a shared communal area, make sure to spray tables, chairs, and other high touch areas, too.
4. Bathrooms and Changing Areas
Even if you take potty training out of the equation, bathroom surfaces are typically pretty gross! You can use Force of Nature to kill 99.9% viruses and germs on pretty much every surface in a bathroom, including doors, faucets, toilets, sinks, and mirrors. For a streak-free clean on glass surfaces, spray and then wipe thoroughly with a clean dry paper towel or cloth. Force of Nature doesn’t have any toxic drying accelerants like typical glass cleaners.
You can also use Force of Nature to disinfect changing tables and pads and to clean and de-stink diaper pails.
5. Personal Belongings
When your staff and tiny charges leave for the day, their shoes, backpacks, and lunchboxes spray them with Force of Nature and let them air dry.
6. Hands
Force of Nature is gentle enough to clean your hands when you don’t have access to soap and water. Certified as SkinSafe by the Mayo Clinic, Force of Nature is free of allergens and irritants. While handwashing is best, in a pinch you can use Force of Nature for cleaning big and little hands on-the-go.
7. Door Knobs, Cabinet Handles and Drawer Pulls
To stop them from becoming a prime location for germ-transfer, spray high touch areas like doorknobs, cabinet handles, and drawer pulls regularly with Force of Nature.
8. Shared Technology
Disinfect phones, computers, and tablets with Force of Nature by spraying a clean paper towel until it’s wet, then wiping your devices with Force of Nature. If possible, power them off first & check out your manufacturer’s cleaning instructions in case they have specific recommendations.
Learn More
At Force of Nature, we’re parents and we want to keep our kids safe! We wanted to create a powerful disinfectant that kills 99.9% of viruses without exposing our children to dangerous chemicals. These are just a few ways you can use Force of Nature to disinfect your daycare. Check out our blog for more ideas and learn more about our revolutionary device. Want to buy in bulk, or need to make enough of our formula for several bottles a day? We’ve got you covered on that too with Force of Nature Pro, our large capacity appliance that makes 32 or 64 oz of all-in-one cleaner, deodorizer and disinfectant.
Another Solution For Your Daycare Business
When child care centers thrive, our children thrive. Any parent knows that high quality child care is expensive, hard to find, and indispensable. And providers know that running a center is as full of challenges as it is satisfaction. We recently learned about Daycare Owl, which has a super innovative and low cost suite of turnkey tools to help child care centers thrive. From helping parents to find your center, to making invoicing super simple, and helping you fully book all of the hours you have available, Daycare Owl is ready to help you grow your business. And get this: they break the silly paradigm of locking centers and parents into a model of weekly or monthly commitments and instead offer a tool for you to sell unused spots on an hourly, daily, or weekly drop-in basis! How could no one have thought of this before?! Now all those parents who don’t need or can’t afford full-time care have YOU to fill that need. We love what Daycare Owl is doing to help grow child care providers’ businesses, make them stronger, and make high quality child care to accessible to more families.
