Spring Cleaning Your Child’s Car Seat

Spring cleaning is here! One of the least desirable and dirtiest items to clean is a child’s car seat. Images of disinfecting wipes and hazmat suits appear when I plan to attempt this hurdle but in all truth, gentle is best. Here’s my tips cleaning your child’s car seat.

The best way to clean your children’s car seats are with warm water and gentle soap. This means no disinfectant wipes or spray of any kind. Sounds kinda crazy, right? The dirty, germ covered little boogie monsters are in these seats everyday so natural instinct is to want to strip those germs. However, your child’s car seat is designed to save their life and it’s build tough. You never want to wipe away any of the fire resistant coating or compromise the strong webbing on the straps. However, some car seats now have an easy zip off feature and can be machine washed. But that doesn’t solve the problem of getting into those little hard to reach spots once the fabric is off. 

Now what do you need?

A soap with a neutral ph balance like dawn dish soap or dove body soap. Oh and lots of patience! These soaps aren’t meant to be harsh so it may take a couple rounds to get the car seat clean. I find a toothbrush works great on the hard to reach spaces. Once the car seat is clean you can use towels to soak up any excess moisture. Then I suggest putting the car seat outside to completely dry. The Florida sun should work it’s magic quickly! 

Please always check with your car seats manual for the specific instructions on how to dissemble and clean your child’s car seat. Happy cleaning!