Bath time around our house is, to put it mildly, a production. My daughter has so many floating bath toys that our tub looks like a miniature version of America’s Cup. Sometimes, I can barely spot any water at all.
One night, I was keeping her company as she took her customary marathon soak. As she chattered away, I sat on the edge of the tub, shifting around in a vain attempt to find a comfortable position. To distract myself from my aching back and knees, I idly picked up a floating tugboat toy and examined it.
When I peered inside the tugboat’s hole, I froze. Its interior was coated with a thick layer of slimy black gunk. I picked up a rubber ducky that was bobbing nearby and gave it a cautious squeeze. A dark liquid oozed out.
Ew!
“That looks like the stuff Granddad uses on his driveway,” Sylvie observed.
I nodded. “Tar.”
“Right,” she said. “Or maybe alien blood. No, you know what it looks like? In our school, we have a garbage can that—“
I held up my hand. “I get the idea,” I said.
I tried to remember how long it had been since I cleaned Sylvie’s bath toys. Hmm. A few months? I meant to do it more often, but I can’t say it was ever at the top of my list. And besides, those toys spent most of their time in soap and water. In which case—weren’t they, you know, pretty clean anyway?
Nope. A joint 2018 study from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois examined bath toys used by kids, and found that all of them had “biofilm communities”—a “visible and dense” slimy film of microorganisms—lurking on their inner surfaces.
Ernie’s not going to like that news about his rubber ducky friend.
The researchers found that a stomach-turning combo of substances typically found in the tub is a veritable buffet of microbes’ favorite foods. They range from organic carbon leaching from the toys’ plastic (microbes like to feast on this, who knew) to the nitrogen supplied by the soap to bodily fluids such as sweat, and something familiar to every parent of a young child: “urine residuals.”
Then there’s the setting: Bath toys with squeeze holes that retain standing water are the ideal breeding ground for floating mold spores looking for a nice home, and the bathroom’s high levels of warmth and humidity provide the perfect conditions for bacteria and fungi to thrive.
I know you’re supposed to squeeze the toys out after every bath, but in the rush to get the kid to bed so you can get to some well-deserved binge watching, who remembers? At least I’m not alone. YouTube videos abound of grossed-out parents who gag as they slice open their kids’ bath toys.
But while the slimy stuff is icky-looking, there’s no need to panic. The gunk does increase the risk for kids with compromised immune systems, but we’re exposed to bacteria and fungi all the time. As the researchers write, this kind of bath time exposure is “not necessarily bad for human health, and may indeed strengthen the immune defense.”
Minu George, MD, a Northwell Health pediatrician in New Hyde Park, New York, agrees. “Healthy children have plenty of good immune function that allows them to breathe mold spores in and handle it, even eat some of it by accident,” she says. “Nothing really happens, other than people being somewhat disgusted. No matter how gross this seems, children are remarkably resistant, and most healthy kids are able to fight off potential illness.”
That said, the gunk’s presence still provides a small risk, so it’s best to keep these toys as free of “alien blood” as you can. As the researchers point out, when a child squeezes water with biofilm near their face, they could end up with an eye, ear, or gastrointestinal infection.
The best way to keep the toys hygienic is with a regular dunk in cleaning solution—outside the tub. Toy company Fisher-Price suggests soaking them in a solution of 50% hot water and 50% distilled white vinegar once a week.
When you empty the tub, squeeze all liquid out of the toys and put them on a clean towel so they’ll dry thoroughly. If they still have dark slimy stuff in them, George says it’s better to simply toss them out.
As it turns out, very young babies don’t need bath toys, anyway, according to The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Just the act of taking a bath is pretty mind-blowing for an infant (“the stimulation of the water and washing is exciting enough,” the AAP says).
And yes, of course it’s OK if your child pees in the tub (not that you can do much about that, anyway!). “It’s certainly not something we like to think about,” George says, “but a naked baby in warm bath water is certainly going to urinate at some point. It’s not really a big deal and very unlikely to cause an illness.” Just give your little one a good rinse with clean water when bath time is over, she says.
Not surprisingly, I have since changed my ways during my daughter’s bath time. I’m not going to lie—it takes forever to squeeze water (and, presumably, biofilm chunks, double ew) out of every single octopus, whale, and dolphin. I now know that my daughter has 22—yes, 22!—bath toys. Afterward, I carefully arrange them on a clean towel to dry. And once a week, I follow the Fisher-Price recommendation and give them a good vinegar-and-water soak. It’s slow going, but worth the extra effort. The alternative is to forego the toys, but where’s the fun in that?
