Infection Control in Childcare: A Cleaning Guide
Young children share everything, including their germs, so infection control childcare cleaning is less about strong chemicals and more about doing the right job at the right moment. This guide is for directors and educators who want a routine that holds up on an ordinary Tuesday and during a gastro week. It covers how germs actually travel through a room, the daily cleaning that breaks that path, how to deal with vomit, faeces and blood, and what changes once an outbreak starts. It sits with the rest of our practical guides for childcare services.
How does infection control childcare cleaning actually work?
By cutting the route germs take from one child to the next. Most illness in a centre travels on hands and the surfaces hands touch, so cleaning the right surfaces often, handling body fluids properly and stepping up during outbreaks does more than any single product ever will.
The NHMRC's Staying Healthy guidelines describe a chain of infection with three links: the source, where germs live; the way they spread; and the new host who catches them. Cleaning cannot change who is susceptible, but it is one of the best tools a service has against the middle link. The table below shows where that effort goes.
| How germs travel | Where it happens | What cleaning does about it |
|---|---|---|
| Hands to surfaces | Door handles, taps, light switches, tables, cot rails | Daily clean, more often when illness is about |
| Mouths to toys | Blocks, teethers, home corner crockery | Mouthed toys set aside, every used toy washed daily |
| Coughs and sneezes | Horizontal surfaces below head height | Tables, shelves and benches wiped daily |
| Wet areas | Toilets, nappy change, kitchen | Cleaned and dried daily, disinfected where needed |
| Body fluid spills | Anywhere a child vomits, bleeds or has an accident | Cleaned straight away, then disinfected |
Most of this is routine. The parts that call for disinfectant are the ones where body fluids are involved: nappy change, toilets, spills and outbreaks. Everywhere else, detergent, warm water, a rinse and a proper dry do the work, and they do it without leaving residue on surfaces children put their hands and mouths on.
What does a daily infection control cleaning routine look like?
Five habits, done every day without fail: touch points cleaned, wet areas cleaned and dried, the day's toys washed, a spill kit ready in every room, and a clear line between cleaning cloths for toilets and cloths for everywhere else.
- Touch points, every day
Door handles, gate latches, taps, light switches, cot rails and table tops. These are the surfaces that carry germs from one set of hands to the next, and Staying Healthy lists them for daily cleaning.
- Wet areas cleaned and dried
Toilets, basins, change benches and the kitchen stay damp through the day, and germs thrive in damp. Clean them at least daily, then dry them, because drying is part of the job, not an optional finish.
- The day's toys washed
Warm water and detergent, rinsed and dried. Keep a box out of reach for toys that are mouthed or sneezed on during the day, and wash it at the end of the day with the rest.
- A spill kit in reach
Gloves, paper towel, disposable cloths, a scraper and pan, detergent and disinfectant in a bucket or tub, plus an absorbent for large spills. Educators should not have to hunt for any of it.
- Cloths kept apart
Colour-code cloths so the one used on a toilet never reaches a meal table. Use disposable cloths, or cloths that go through a hot machine wash, and never rinse a toilet cloth in a kitchen sink.
Hand hygiene sits alongside all of this. Cleaning a surface that is immediately touched by unwashed hands buys very little, which is why handwashing before meals, after toileting and after nappy changes is part of any infection control plan, not a separate topic.
How should you clean up vomit, faeces or blood?
Straight away, and in a set order: lift the spill with disposable gloves on, bag it, change gloves and wash hands, clean the area with detergent and warm water, dry it, then disinfect. Staying Healthy says to treat every body fluid as infectious, and the steps are the same on carpet or vinyl.
- Disposable gloves
- Utility gloves
- Paper towel
- Disposable cloths
- Scraper and pan
- Detergent
- Disinfectant
- Absorbent for large spills
- Keep people away
Put a sign or a barrier around the spill and move children out of the area until it is done.
- Lift the spill
Disposable gloves on. Wipe up small spills with paper towel; cover large ones with an absorbent, then scoop it up with the scraper and pan.
- Bag it and change gloves
Everything used goes into a sealed plastic bag and into the bin. Take the disposable gloves off, bin them and wash your hands.
- Clean, dry, disinfect
Utility gloves on. Wash the area with detergent and warm water, dry it with paper towel, then wipe it with disinfectant and let it dry. Finish by removing the gloves and washing hands again.
If vomit or diarrhoea is part of a gastro illness, norovirus may be involved, and the guide notes that it is relatively resistant to disinfectants. That is why the cleaning step before disinfecting matters so much, and why outbreak cleaning goes wider than the spill itself.
What changes when gastro breaks out?
Once there are two or more cases, Staying Healthy says to contact your local public health unit, which it notes is a legal requirement in most states and territories. Cleaning then widens: every bathroom and high-touch surface, not just the spill, is cleaned and disinfected, usually daily until the outbreak is over.
In Victoria, the Department of Health publishes a guide to managing gastro outbreaks in children's centres, and your service's plan should follow it. Exclusion periods for children and staff come from the Victorian exclusion table, not from the cleaner, but cleaning has to keep pace with them: an ill child is away, yet the germs they left behind are still on the tap they last used.
- Widen the scope
Every toilet, basin, change bench, tap, door handle and shared toy in the affected rooms, cleaned then disinfected, not only where the child was sick.
- Pick the right product
Use a disinfectant that works against the illness. For suspected norovirus, services commonly use a chlorine-based product, mixed fresh to the strength the department advises.
- Soft items out
Soft toys, dress-ups and cushions from affected rooms are bagged for a hot wash or put away until the outbreak ends.
- Keep a record
Log what was cleaned, when, with which product and by whom. Public health staff may ask, and your own review afterwards will too.
Which mistakes let illness keep spreading?
Disinfecting before cleaning, stopping at the spot where a child was sick, reusing one cloth across rooms, and relaxing the routine the day symptoms stop. Each one leaves a path open for germs that the rest of the effort was meant to close.
- Spray and walk away
Disinfectant on a soiled surface, wiped straight off, does little. Clean, dry, then give the disinfectant its full contact time.
- Cleaning only the spill
A child who vomited also touched the tap, the door and the toys. The whole room needs attention, not one patch of floor.
- A travelling cloth
The bathroom cloth that ends up on a playroom table moves germs faster than any child can.
- Stopping too soon
Keep the outbreak routine going until public health advice says the outbreak is over, not just until the last child feels better.
When should you bring in professional cleaners?
When an outbreak needs a full clean of several rooms overnight, when educators are already stretched covering sick staff, or when you want the disinfection recorded in a way you can hand to public health without rewriting it. Daytime spills stay with educators; the big clean is where extra hands help.
An outbreak clean is not the same as the nightly clean with a stronger product. It covers more surfaces, takes longer and has to be finished before children return. Handing it to an exhausted team after a short-staffed day of illness is how steps get missed.
See how our outbreak and infection control cleaning works, from the phone call to the signed record.
What else do services ask about infection control?
Two short answers we give often during cold and gastro season.
01How often should surfaces be cleaned to control infection?
02Which products work best against childcare illnesses?
- Staying Healthy (6th edition, NHMRC 2024): chain of infection, spill cleaning, gastroenteritis fact sheets
- Department of Health, Victoria: gastroenteritis outbreak guide for children's centres; school and children's services exclusion table
Break the chain, every night.
Nightly cleaning and outbreak cover, recorded properly.