I was just wondering what all I can wash down after my child has pink eye. We don't want to reinfect anything. We have been washing sheets and changing towels.
I don't like bleach so wondering of other at home ingredients that might help... and where I should put them, I did use the lysol wipes on door handles.
basically what do you do after colds at your house to keep the rest of the family healthy!
Vinegar.
In the wash. In a spray bottle. Wherever.
It's non toxic - kid safe. Drinking a spoonful with honey provides relief for sore throat/coughing.
It's a disinfectant - so it kills all the germs.
It cleans your pipes as you wash it away.
No chemical smell.
Did I mention disinfectant?
And good for burns.
ETA Oh, and it cuts grease, takes out wring around the color, returns white tshirts yellow spots back to white and....did I mention disinfectant? :)
ETA2 http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/uses-for-vinegar-home-remedies-ga.htm
We washed all the sheets and towels and clothes, basically, and lysol wiped everything. My husband also bought some kind of febreeze or lysol spray and went to town on the stuffed animals our dd sleeps with. We haven't had a recurrence in pink eye. (Thankfully!)
Disinfect all hard surfaces like doorknobs, light switches and sink handles. Pink eye isn't the same as the stomach flu so don't go overboard.
It's the hands touching surfaces then rubbing face/eyes which will get you reinfected.
Besides washing towels, sheets, stuffed animals, etc, washing the surfaces that hands touch - door knobs, keyboards, phones, computer mouse, stair railings, etc.
I use melaluca (sp?) which has tea tree oil in it. I actually canceled my membership with them over a year ago and I STILL have enough stocked up for probibly another year, lol! They make you buy so much product every month and then it lasts forever! I use it every single day too. I do not use any lysol or bleach. The bacteria will just come back even stronger because it becomes resistant to it. Really you can just keep washing sheets and pillow cases.
You can just clean like normal. Soap and water will do the trick. You need to watch the little ones if they have a runny nose to be sure they don't touch the nose mucus and then rub their eyes.
You know, I don't think I have ever done any special cleaning. We just had the kiddo wash their hands a lot and that took care of that.
The bedding was changed on the regular morning for washing.