How to Prevent the Spread of Illness at Daycare Centers
Illnesses can spread quickly from child to child in a daycare setting, so you should always take steps to prevent the spread of illness in your daycare center to keep your children healthy. If your daycare center becomes too plagued with frequent illness outbreaks, then parents may choose to enroll their children in other daycare centers.
In addition, keeping your daycare center as clean as possible can help it meet the necessary health and safety criteria to qualify for the Quality Rated program in the state of Georgia.
Read on to learn how to prevent the spread of illness in your daycare center to keep your children and their parents happy and healthy.
Keep Classes Small
You likely aim to keep your classes as small as possible to ensure you meet the state's required child-to-staff ratio and to provide children get the one-on-one attention they need. However, you may not have realized that keeping classes small in size can also prevent the spread of illness in your daycare center.
A study on the prevalence of illness in daycare centers conducted by the American Public Health Association revealed that the strongest predictor of the risk of child illness in a classroom was the number of children in the room.
Small classroom sizes discourage the spread of illness in many ways. First, if one child in the classroom does become ill, there are fewer children in close contact with the child who can then contract the illness from them.
In addition, when each teacher has fewer students in their care, they have more time to guide each child through important illness-prevention tasks such as washing children's hands before eating and taking the right health and safety precautions during diaper changes.
Wash and Sanitize All Toys Properly
You likely have many toys in your daycare center that your children play with daily to learn while having fun. Toys spread bacteria and viruses rapidly because they are considered high-touch surfaces. In addition, many toys have nooks and crannies where dirt and bacteria can hide.
You can prevent the rapid spread of illness in your daycare center by having your staff members sanitize all toys properly on a regular schedule.
First, ensure that any toy a child places in their mouth, along with toys that come into contact with any other bodily fluids, are cleaned and sanitized immediately before other children handle them.
While most state health department require that daycare centers wash, sanitize, and dry all toys at least once a week, you should encourage your staff members to clean them more often. Ideally, toys should be cleaned and sanitized at the end of each day.
While washing a toy with soap and water can remove dirt and kill some germs, you must disinfect a toy with a proper disinfectant solution after washing it to kill bacteria and viruses that soap and water leave behind.
A simple solution made of bleach and water can be used to sanitize non-porous toys, while others non-toxic disinfectant can be used on colorful, porous toys that bleach may discolor.
Follow these guidelines to disinfect your daycare center's toys:
- Plastic and other non-porous toys . Scrub non-porous toys with hot, soapy water. Then, soak them in a tub filled with a disinfectant solution and allow them to air dry.
- Electronic and porous toys . Wipe electronic and porous toys, such as wooden toys, with a hot, soapy cloth, paying special attention to debris-ridden areas. Then, wipe with a cloth saturated with disinfectant solution and allow to dry.
- Fabric toys . Wash in a washing machine with hot water, then dry in a hot clothes dryer.
If you prefer, run non-porous toys through the dishwasher instead of washing them with soapy water by hand.
Follow these tips to help prevent the spread of illness in your daycare center. Contact Janitorial Services Atlanta to have experienced cleaning professionals clean your daycare center to improve its appearance and kill germs that are lingering on surfaces just waiting to trigger illness in your children.
