If you’re a parent, you’ve had your fair share of messy blowouts in the car. Well, this winter, my littlest had two episodes of car sickness, and let’s just say the car seat was a disaster. Since it’s winter, she was in several layers, and it was morning so all that came out was her milk, but an entire bottle’s worth. I did the best I could to clean up, but the smell was bothering me so much. I had to take apart the entire car seat and wash it out completely. Here are some quick tips to make cleaning out a car seat a simple chore…
- Don’t wait too long. Because we were on a road trip, I had to wait 2 days before I could clean out the car seat. And because of the low temperatures, the mess just solidified into all the little crevices and just made it that much more difficult to clean out. My suggestion is to not waste any time in cleaning.
- Deconstruct the car seat. It may seem daunting, but if you have a graco it’s very simple to take apart the car seat’s cloth covers. We have the Graco Forever car seat [which I highly recommend] and it has two parts to the covers that are easily detachable. So just remove the two parts and throw them into the wash, very simple.
- Hose it down. There’s no way around using water to get a good clean in a car seat. I did try using a spray bottle and paper towel to wipe down the car seat, but I wasn’t satisfied. Once I started cleaning, I noticed that the vomit had seeped into areas that I couldn’t get to by hand. [Sorry for the graphics]I have done this a few times before, and when the weather is nice, I’ll just take the car seat onto my deck and literally use a hose and soap to wash it down. But when it’s cold, I have used my bathtub and/or my laundry room sink because they’re wide enough to hold the car seat. Using the handheld shower on full force, with warm water, I just use a spray bottle and wash away each part of the car seat. Especially the belt straps, which are so annoying to clean.
And that’s about it, just wipe it down or let it air dry. And reassemble the cloth covers. This is also a great opportunity to clean under the car seat, which is another disaster in itself. Hope these tips help you next time you need to clean out your child’s car seat. And you don’t have to wait for a nasty disaster to try it out!
Sweet Dreamer 