5 Cleaning and Hygiene Tips for Early Learning Centres

Cleaning and hygiene are essential in early learning centres and should become a priority for each centre to maintain kids’ health. Many children may be more susceptible to common infections as they enter care services while their immune systems are not very strong. Providers and educators are obligated to apply and promote effective hygiene practices and follow hygiene tips for early learning centres for maintaining children’s and educators’ health. 

Cleaning And Hygiene In Learning Centres

It is critical to keep the daycare environment clean and organized for the health of children and employees. Regular cleaning of surfaces that could potentially represent a risk to children or staff is one of the first steps you should take to minimize infections and the spread of viruses in early learning centres. 

We’ve compiled 5 childcare hygiene tips to help you provide the best care for your staff and kids. Let’s dive into them to have the best hygiene practices possible. 

1. Washing Hands

One of the hygiene tips for early learning centres is the proper implementation of hand hygiene. According to the World Health Organization, people should wash their hands for a minimum duration of 20 seconds. Hand hygiene is essential in early learning centres, as through it, you can remove germs and bacteria from your hands that might become the reason for getting illnesses. How? Whenever you touch your eyes, nose or mouth with dirty hands, you have a high risk of getting sick and spreading viruses. 

Hand washing can prevent approximately 30% of diarrheal illnesses and around 20% of respiratory infections, including colds. Children should be educated enough to practice the right hand washing practices that are most effective in preventing virus spread. With that in mind, early learning centres should:

• Provide regular training activities for children to implement the proper hand washing practices.
• Provide posters in highly visible areas with visuals on how they should wash their hands. Proper hygiene practices can be effectively promoted by exhibiting these posters in a variety of childcare facilities and environments, including playgrounds, classrooms, bathrooms, etc. 
• Encourage children to wash their hands for the whole 20 seconds by singing a song or rhyming.
• Make it a daily habit for kids to wash their hands after using the restroom, before and after eating, and after playing.
• Ensure that not only children but also your whole staff is applying the hand washing practices. 

2. Disinfecting and Sanitising Hands 

Early learning centres should put hand sanitisers and disinfecting wipes wherever possible so that both children and staff can use them whenever the soap and water are not accessible. Most importantly, these disinfectants and sanitisers should be available next to highly-touched public places, including doors, classrooms, cafeterias, etc. For instance, childcare teachers can make up a song about how wipes can be used and what are the cases of using hand sanitisers, promoting children to implement those steps while singing. Hand sanitisers can help to lower the number of bacteria and germs. 

3. Disinfecting Surfaces

While teaching children how to disinfect their hands and apply hygiene tips, early learning centres should disinfect the surfaces of these centres on a daily basis. Custodians should clean and disinfect highly-touched surfaces regularly, including faucets, toilet flushers, door handles, light switches, tables, chairs, and toilet seats. 

One of the germiest places in centres is restrooms. They should be cleaned regularly to avoid spreading germs and viruses as they pose health risks to children and staff.  

4. Cleaning Toys and Any Other Equipment Children Use

Germs and bacteria can be found in abundance on equipment and toys. Children are prone to touching a variety of dirty surfaces and equipment, particularly after playing with toys or engaging in outdoor sports. Sweaty palms and wet hands are a great risk for bacterial spread during sports, especially when children use the same toys like balls, hula hoops, etc.  

Aside from sports and outdoor games, other engaging children’s hobbies are classroom games, art projects, playing musical instruments and so on that can lead to physical interactions, causing the spread of infections and viruses. 

Many children don’t even know elementary hygiene practices, so you need to educate them properly, like not re-using the fallen eating utensils. Proper cleaning of toys and equipment can help to reduce the risks of infections. 

5. Educating Children the Proper Way to Cough

Whenever you sneeze or cough, the viruses spread through droplet transmission. That’s why you need to train kids and staff on the proper way of coughing and sneezing. Children should be taught to cover their mouth and nose with a tissue or to cough and sneeze into their inner elbows. After using tissues, they should throw them out to trash bins and wash their hands with water and soap. 

Generally, children don’t understand the importance of hygiene, so it is essential to teach them proper hygiene and safety practices. Supervisors and parents should all know how to apply a variety of strategies to promote these important hygiene practices.

Encouraging the best hygiene practices in children at a young age aids in the development of lifetime hygiene habits. Throughout their development, this can considerably lower the risk of bacterial infections and cross-contamination. 

Implementing good hygiene habits cannot be imagined without high-quality products. Opt for Hyex to buy the best ones and maintain children’s and your staff’s health.