We Talk Shop

My toddler son got some of that fancy foaming soap for Christmas last year. We finally finished the bottle, which tells me that we don’t do a good enough job washing our hands. In attempt to do better, to use more soap this cold and flu season I bought another kid-friendly soap: Huggies Clean Team Hand Soap.

It’s a cute bottle with a hippo’s head for the spout. It dispenses a foaming soap — which I love because it just is cooler than regular soap, but more importantly for young kids is that the soap can 1) be seen by the kids and 2) stays on their hands. My only complaint is that I’d like more soap to come out with each pump. I have to double-pump to get enough soap to wash my hands.
But the really cool part is that there is a red light that flashes in the hippo’s head. It stays on for 20 seconds — the amount of time you are supposed to was your hands. Try it folks. Even if you don’t buy this product, try to wash your hands for a FULL 20 seconds. It’s longer than you think. Great idea, especially this time of year. With the MRSA virus speading like wildfire, the best thing we can do as parents is to all wash our hands.

Watch an animated demo.
Read about hand washing on my Mom blog.

Get it: It’s about 3.99 for the dispenser. I got mine at the grocery store so I’m sure you can find it most places you normally purchase hand soap.

Cleaning bottle parts and nipples is a pain for sure, but sterilizing them is made easy with the Medela Quick Clean bags. You just toss the nipples, rings, breast pump parts, small bottles, then add 2 ounces of water, zip the bag up and zap in your microwave for 3 minutes. There’s a convenient “spout” built into the bag so you can safetly get the hot water out of the bag, open the bag to release the steam, and viola! you have sterilized all of your equipment.

I’ve used these bags since my son was born. Early on I purchased a microwave sterlization contraption that took up space and was akward. Plus, I don’t even know if I could clean my breast pump parts in it. I returned it and then learned of these wonderful Medela bags. Even though I stopped pumping, I still use them to clean the nipples and rings to his larger-sized bottles.
They cost about $5 for a box of 5. Each bag can be used 20 times. There is a convenient “count down” area where you can mark off each time you use them so you don’t loose track.

Git it for sure! I buy mine at Babies R Us, but you can also find them at Target and I’m sure other places that sell breast pump supplies.