Apparently not everything that splish and splashes in the bathwater each night is squeaky clean. One mum discovered the horror of mouldy bath toys and posted her gross, slimy discovery as a warning to others on social media. While another is thankful her son didn’t lose his vision.
Kids love a bath full of toys – it’s one way to make SURE they stay in there long enough to get clean. But how clean are those toys?
Bath toys are the OPPOSITE of clean
A rather grizzly, stomach-turning discovery, mum Morgan posted her bath toy discovery to her Facebook page:
“I just cut my kids bath toys open and needless to say, they are all going in the trash and I will never buy another and I would suggest you all do the same! They say mould grows in them because they’re never able to fully dry out! I’ve never been more disgusted in my life!!”
The social media post went viral and with 45,000 comments made, you can bet your bathwater there were quite a few perfect parents who felt the need to stop by and make their feelings known. Morgan took it all in her stride and edited her original post with a further caption reading:
**DISCLAIMER FOR ALL YOU
PERFECT
Yes, I clean my kids’ toys but you cannot dry them out fully, therefore mould grows because it’s wet
. 
“. And with that postscript, this mum effectively pulled the plug on the bathwater and silenced them all. Huzzah!
Rub-a-dub-dub, these toys need a scrub!
Many commenters on the social post made mention of washing the toys in bleach since apparently mould can’t grow on bleach, while others suggested blocking the toy air holes with glue or silicone to prevent water getting in there in the first place. Alas, often it’s all too late and the best thing is to get rid of them altogether.
Just in case you thought mould never hurt anyone. Think again.
Eden Strong’s son Baylor while enjoying some bathtime fun, squirted himself in the eye with water squeezed from a bath toy. What followed next was a horrifying and painful experience for this family.
Eden wrote about the harrowing time, warning her friends and family.
“I knew water could get trapped in tub toys, particularly the rubber ones designed to squirt water. I’ve seen the posts where mom’s have cut them open and discovered a ridiculous amount of mould inside. I knew. So I squeezed them out after each bath, cleaned them out every few weeks with a bleach-water solution, and regularly held them up to the light to look for mould.
However, I didn’t know that even with regular bleach cleaning, the fact that they never fully dry on the inside means that bacteria can still grow. Invisible bacteria..”
Mum instinct kicked in and Eden got Baylor medical attention within hours when things didn’t look quite right, suspecting it was a case of “pink eye” (conjunctivitis) which by morning revealed itself to in fact be a terrifying case of cellulitis.
Eden goes on to warn parents:
“The next week was pretty scary. He had severe cellulitis that eventually spread down his face and to both eyes. They warned me that he may lose vision in the worse eye, but in the end, thank the Lord his eyes healed.
But tub toys? THROW THEM OUT. You cannot clean them, you just can’t. I don’t have any mouldy tub toy pictures to show here, because there was never any visible mould to take a picture of. You can’t see bacteria and I’ve known that since 6th-grade science class but I thought I was better than dirty tub toys. I was wrong.
So those tub toys? Just throw them out.”
Thankfully, Baylor is getting back to his bright-eyed self now. But aye-carumba what a scare!
