How to Clean & Sanitise Toys in Childcare — Complete Guide

Key Points — Why Toy Sanitisation Is a Compliance Requirement

Toys are among the highest-risk surfaces in childcare environments for infectious disease transmission. Children under 2 years mouth toys continuously — placing them in their mouths, passing them between children, and re-mouthing them within minutes. In a group care room of 10 infants, a single contaminated toy can expose every child to oral-faecal pathogens including norovirus, rotavirus, and hand-foot-and-mouth virus within a single session.

Toy sanitisation in childcare is not just good hygiene practice — it is an NQS Quality Area 2 compliance requirement. The NHMRC Staying Healthy guidelines specify minimum toy sanitisation frequencies by age group, and ACECQA assessors look for documented toy sanitisation logs as Quality Area 2 evidence during quality assessment visits. A childcare facility that cannot demonstrate systematic, documented toy sanitisation is at risk of a 'Working Towards NQS' rating in Quality Area 2.

How to Clean Toys in Childcare — By Toy Type

Different toy materials require different sanitisation approaches. Using the wrong method can damage the toy, leave harmful residues, or fail to achieve adequate pathogen reduction. The following guide covers every major toy material category found in Australian childcare facilities.

Outdoor Play Equipment

Outdoor play equipment — climbing frames, ride-on toys, sandpit toys, and water table equipment — requires weekly wipe-down with GECA-certified biodegradable detergent during routine maintenance, and a full pressure wash with GECA-certified detergent at each term break. Sandpit toys should be removed from the sandpit at the end of each day and stored covered. Water table equipment must be emptied and dried daily to prevent bacterial growth in standing water. Sandpit toys should be sanitised weekly and during any outbreak period.

The Toy Rotation System — Best Practice for Under-2 Rooms

In under-2 rooms where daily toy sanitisation is required, a documented toy rotation system is considered best practice. The system works as follows: a defined set of toys is made available to children each session; toys removed from service after use are placed in a labelled "pending sanitisation" container; sanitised toys are stored in a separate labelled container; toys only return to the "in service" set after sanitisation is complete and documented. This system ensures that no toy returns to service un-sanitised and provides a clear, auditable record for ACECQA purposes. It also prevents the situation where heavily mouthed toys are returned to a clean basket without sanitisation during a busy session.

Action Steps — Toy Sanitisation in Practice

Step 1 — Set Up Age-Group Specific Sanitisation Schedules

Implement two distinct schedules: a daily schedule for under-2 rooms covering all frequently mouthed hard plastic, foam, and rubber toys; and a weekly schedule for all rooms covering every toy material category. Both schedules should be formatted as signed checklists — recording the date, toys sanitised, product used, and the staff member's name. These logs are the ACECQA evidence for NQS Quality Area 2 toy sanitisation compliance.

Step 2 — Build a GECA-Certified Toy Sanitisation Product Kit

Maintain a dedicated toy sanitisation kit in each room: GECA-certified enzyme sanitiser spray, clean microfibre cloths, a shallow submersion container for hard plastic toys, and a clearly labelled "pending sanitisation" storage basket. The product used must be GECA-certified and documented in the facility's product register. Do not use general-purpose household sprays or bleach-based products on toys — these are not appropriate for childcare toy sanitisation under NHMRC standards.

Step 3 — Outbreak Response — Quarantine and Full Sanitisation

When a gastroenteritis or other infectious disease outbreak is confirmed or suspected in a room, immediately quarantine all toys in that room — remove them from child access — and do not return them to service until full sanitisation is complete. Hard plastic toys should be submerged in TGA-listed disinfectant solution. Fabric toys should be hot-washed at 60°C. The quarantine, sanitisation method, and date of return to service must be documented as part of the outbreak response record. This documentation is both ACECQA Quality Area 2 evidence and may be required by the Victorian Department of Health for notifiable disease reporting.

Step 4 — Remove Damaged Toys from Service Immediately

Cracked, chipped, peeling, or otherwise damaged toys cannot be adequately sanitised and should be removed from service immediately. This applies to hard plastic, wooden, foam, electronic, and rubber toys. A cracked hard plastic toy harbours pathogens in the crack where no cleaning product can reach. A soft toy with torn seams presents both a sanitisation failure and a potential choking risk. Implement a quarterly toy condition audit as part of your term break deep clean process — inspect every toy in every room for condition and remove those that fail the standard before the next term.

Why Toy Sanitisation Is Frequently Under-Documented in Childcare Facilities

In practice, toy sanitisation is one of the most frequently under-documented cleaning tasks in childcare facilities — not because facilities fail to sanitise toys, but because the documentation system is not set up to capture it. Daily nappy area logs are typically implemented because Section 77 is a well-known legal requirement. Floor and surface cleaning logs are implemented because they are visually obvious. Toy sanitisation logs are often overlooked because there is no equivalent high-profile legal reference making the requirement explicit in the same way.

The consequence is facilities that are actually performing reasonable toy sanitisation — particularly in under-2 rooms where educators are conscious of mouthing behaviour — but cannot demonstrate this to an ACECQA assessor because no log exists. The assessment outcome is the same as if no sanitisation had occurred at all. Implementing a simple daily/weekly toy sanitisation log — even a paper checklist that is signed and dated — resolves this gap at no additional cleaning cost. The log itself is the compliance gap, not the cleaning practice.

Toy Sanitisation in Family Day Care Homes

Family day care homes present particular challenges for toy sanitisation compliance. The residential setting means toys are often shared between the family day care children and the educator's own children, and the toy inventory is typically larger and more varied than a centre-based facility. NHMRC standards apply equally to family day care homes — daily sanitisation of mouthed toys for under-2 children in the care programme, weekly for 2+ children — but the implementation is more complex in a household setting. The educator's own children's toys should ideally be stored separately from the care programme's toy inventory during care hours, and the toy sanitisation log should reflect only the care programme's toys. A family day care coordination unit can assist with documentation templates and product sourcing aligned with NHMRC standards for the residential care setting.

Frequently Asked Questions