I am a home child care provider and this weekend we took up the carpet it was around 20 years old give or take. We refinished the floors them and now we have almost our last coat of sealer on it. My question is I have babies that I watch and I lay them on the floor to play, have their tummy time things like that. I usually lay a blanket under them but now with no carpet I'm wondering what to put under the blanket. I thought about those padded blocks that have the alphabet on them and you can put them together like a puzzle or just getting an area rug but I would still need to keep it clean or have it cleaned. What do other parents and care givers do when they have hard wood floors ? I feel like this is a stupid question. thanks in advance
If you have an old comforter or thick blanket just use that. It should give them enough padding.
It sounds like you might be trying to avoid having to clean carpets-- but a large area rug may still be your best bet-- for a couple reasons.
First, as you'll quickly discover, new wood floors with that nice smooth and satiny polyurethane finish are EXTREMELY slippery. Especially with babies and toddlers, you'll either have to make sure they always have shoes on or are barefoot. They'll be slipping all over the place with just socks.
Second-- if you're considering putting the foam puzzle blocks on the floor, you might as well just put in an area rug. Those foam blocks will get just as dirty (drool, spit up, sticky hands, etc) and will have to be cleaned every now and then just like the carpet will. Plus, unless you plan on putting those blocks down and leaving them there all day all night every day, then you'll have to put them down and take them up again every night. So, if you're going to have something lying on your floor as a mat that's going to be there all day every day anyway-- it might as well be a nice area rug that matches the room. If this is a room that's used exclusively as part of your childcare center with all their toys (as opposed to a living room or family room area that you also use for the children you care for) then you might want to get one of those large educational area rugs-- they have rugs that have the alphabet going all around the edge, with numbers 1-20 underneath, then all the shapes and colors, etc.
We have hardwood floors through out our house, however I put those blocks in my daughter's room. They are great, when she was younger they made a good padding, and now that she is 19 months they make a good toy. She loves to pull them up and put them back together. We found them at Babies R Us but I am sure you can find them other places also.
N.
What about getting some bathmats? They are rather "squishy" and can be tossed into the washer in case of accidents, you could almost get on for each baby they could have their own little mat, just a crazy idea.
To save money we used a thicker blanket and folded it up under the baby blanket.
I used yoga mats. Just enough padding, but firm enough they wouldn't sink into them when they try to push up. You can usually find them for under $10 at Kmart.
