This post will deal with what is considered "best practice" as far as handwashing is concerned and how to cope with it. I live in a state with very stringent regulations and one of the worst of these is the handwashing regulations. Many of us in this state feel like we spend half our day washing hands or sanitizing sinks.
When to Wash
What is considered "best practice" in the handwashing department? Actually this is broken down into three different aspects. The first aspect deals with when to wash. Children and staff must wash their hands when they first arrive at the facility, before and after meals and snacks, after using the potty or changing diapers, after playing outside, after playing with playdough, after coughing or sneezing, after participating in water play, after coming into contact with any kind of animal, and any other time they participate in messy play. Children in diapers must wash their hands after being changed, and staff must wash their hands any time they come in contact with any kind of human excretion (snot, slobber, etc.).
How to Wash
The second aspect has to do with how you wash and how long you wash. This comes with steps. Step one is to wet your hands. Step two is to get soap. Step three is to scrub your hands making sure to scrub front and back, in between fingers, and around your nails. Step four is to rinse for at least 20 seconds with warm water. Step five is to dry with a paper towel.
Controlling the Spread of Germs
The third aspect deals with controlling the spread of germs. Most of the experts break this down into the dirty phase of washing and the clean phase. In other words, you can touch the faucet when your hands are dirty but not when they are clean. Turning off the faucet requires a paper towel if you do not have automatic sinks. Also, if only one sink is available for all handwashing needs, then it must be sanitized after each potty/diaper use.
OCD Regulations
For those of us who live in states where these regulations are strictly enforced, it takes us half the day to accomplish all the handwashing required especially for those caring for infants and toddlers. After I explained all these regulations to my husband as we were preparing for our first assessment, he looked at me and said, "Whoever made these regulations has OCD." I have to agree. In my state the assessors were counting off if the children touched anything between the sink and the table when going to meals and snacks. It is nearly impossible to keep 2 and 3 year olds from touching things. Fortunately, after major complaints, the assessors backed off this particular practice. However, it is still difficult to fully comply with all these regulations all the time.
A Man's Point of View
As I have said before, my husband worked alongside me when we first opened our child care. Being a man, he found interesting ways to fulfill the requirements for these regulations. Most of these dealt with how we planned new additions to the facility. However, maybe you can get some ideas from our journey to accommodate the regulations. The journey consisted of my husband finding ways around certain requirements starting with the ones he found the most ridiculous. At the top of that list was having to turn the sink off with a paper towel. When he asked for a recommendation from the resource and referral experts, they told him we could just leave the water running while all the children were washing their hands and then turn it off ourselves when the children were finished. His response to that was, "Are you going to pay our water bill?" Therefore, he went in search of affordable automatic faucets and found some that were quite reasonable. Now all the sinks we use with the children have automatic faucets, and they have paid for themselves ten times over because they automatically shut off within seconds of removing the hands. We are also able to control the water flow and the temperature of the water keeping us from having to reset our water heater.
The next requirement that absolutely aggravated my husband to no end was having to sanitize the sink every single time a child used the bathroom or we changed a diaper because we only had one sink at that time. He started taking measurements and searching online for a small sink that would fit in the small hallway right outside our bathroom. He found the cutest little sink that has become the rave of all my childcare friends. We now have a separate sink for all handwashing that is not potty/diaper related keeping us from having to sanitize the bathroom sinks after every use. Let me give you one word of caution. If you use the two sink method, you must keep the uses completely separate or you will get counted off for cross-contamination.
Training the Children
We have basically dealt with the rest of the requirements through training the children. During group times we talk extensively about how to wash hands to remind the older ones, and we supervise the younger ones until they have learned to do it independently. It is still a lot of work, but we did manage to cut out some of the work with the automatic sinks and having more than one sink.
Antibacterial Soap
I want to touch on one more issue while discussing handwashing, and that is antibacterial soap. As I discussed in my post about bleach, my allergist has given me a sermon on more than one occasion about overuse of antibacterial products and sanitizing. We are killing necessary bacteria along with the bad bacteria. This is especially true when using antibacterial soap. In order for your skin to stay healthy, it must have this bacteria. If you kill this bacteria, you skin will dry out, crack, and bleed. Do not use antibacterial soap. Regular soap does the job well enough. Remember the goal is to reduce the germs not completely eliminate them.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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