Recently, a parent cut open their Sophie Giraffe showing the world that it was completely filled with mold. Parents were freaking out everywhere cutting open their giraffes. I was with those parents and came to find something myself—nothing.
We had our Sophie for almost four years and when I saw the mold I had to cut it open. I was sure that it would be filled with mold and was surprised that it had nothing in it. Granted, I will buy another one for my new baby coming because we really loved it. When you think about it though, how would the mold get in there?
Molds are found everywhere, and can grow on almost any substance when moisture is present. They reproduce by spores, which are carried by air currents. This would make sense for the toys that our kids are playing with. When a toy has a hole and they are sucking up water and spraying it out, that would be an ideal location for mold to grow.
This made me worry even more about the toys we had in the tub for our kids. Clearly you can guess what I did—snip snip. I had to cut open more toys that I was sure were going to have mold in them.
We have Alex Toys Rub a Dub Squirters for the Tub and I had to cut them open. These are the types of toys that are ideal for mold because they have a hole where your child will suck up the water and spray it out. Come to find out, they were in fact filled with mold. After only having them for a little over a year I was slightly shocked these had mold and our Sophie didn’t.
At the end of the day, I feel like it’s pretty easy to know if your toys will have mold in them or not. If you have toys where water in constantly going in and out you’ll want to check them out. And then to prevent it from happening, wash your children’s toys in a bleach solution. I do that more because moisture + dark, enclosed space = mold/bacteria growth, etc. It’s Science.
Just keep things clean and if you are interested in seeing mold in your kid’s toys, do it. It’s interesting to see what you can find in these things. Plus, you can always buy new toys if you really loved them—like we did with Sophie.
