Cleaning a kiddie pool is essential to ensure it is bacteria-free and safe for kids to use. Some ways to keep a kiddie pool clean without chemicals include; manually cleaning it, keeping it covered, removing floating debris, and keeping sick kids off the pool.
Do you own a kiddie pool for the kids to cool off during summer or other hot days? Do you hate how quickly it turns green?
Most parents or homeowners do. The kids go swimming in kiddie pools during the summer season to protect themselves from the scorching summer heat.
But whether you own a small kiddie pool or a larger one, whether you rarely or often use it, you should always ensure it is clean to ensure the safety of your kids while swimming.
When Should You Clean The Kiddie Pool?
Regularly cleaning the kiddie pool is vital to observe hygiene and cleanliness. But what does “regularly” even mean?
Ensure that you’ve cleaned the pool when:
- You see algae or dirt accumulating at the bottom of the pool.
- The kids finish playing or swimming.
- You notice water discoloration in the pool.
- Immediately your children splash the pool around.
- You notice any floating bugs, debris, leaves, or dust in the kiddie pool.
- Whenever a sick child enters the kiddie pool.
Have you noticed any of the signs above in your kiddie pool? Ensure you clean it for hygiene purposes. Parents are advised to clean the kiddie pools once every week to ensure the best results.
Reasons To Never Clean The Kiddie Pool With Chemicals
Pool disinfectants like bleach, bromine, and chlorine aren’t safe or suitable, especially for kiddie pools.
This is supported by the reasons below;
- Because of water loss, you’d require more chemical disinfectants to clean the pool.
- Large volumes of water might get splashed out or spilled out easily whenever the kids are playing. Hence, it proves challenging to measure the right volume of disinfectant to use for the kiddie pool.
- Chlorine might induce a chemical reaction in the kids’ eyes or skin.
- Disinfectants or breaches like bromine or chlorine cannot clean the leaves, dust, or debris.
Cleaning the water from debris, leaves, or dust requires natural methods. This ensures that your kids are protected from the harmful effects above, and it helps avert environmental consequences occasioned by the use of these chemicals.
Based on their strength, the chemicals might also affect your pool’s service life. There are many benefits of cleaning your kiddie pool using natural methods.
Below are just a few benefits you might accrue by cleaning your kiddie pool using natural means.
Importance Of Cleaning Your Kiddie Pool Naturally
Why clean your kiddie pool using natural means?
Below are the benefits or reasons for cleaning your kiddie pool naturally.
- Naturally, cleaning your kiddie pool ensures a longer service life. This is because it isn’t affected by the chemicals that reduce its durability.
- Since your kids won’t contact the harmful chemicals, you’ll be ensuring their maximum hygiene to protect them from diseases.
- As explained above, the chemicals such as chlorine might affect your kid’s eyes and skin by reacting with them if they use the pool for more extended periods.
- It is an eco-friendly way of keeping the pool clean while ensuring or maintaining its aesthetic look.
- Allows your kids to enjoy swimming in the pool for a long time.
How to Keep a Kiddie Pool Clean Without Chemicals
Are you a curious parent? Do you care for the well-being and hygiene of your kids? If you do, even from the foregoing, you are by now aware that using chemicals to clean your kiddie pool is a bad idea.
Remember, kids have tender skins that haven’t developed resilience like adults, meaning they are at a high chance of harm.
So, how can you naturally clean the kiddie pool? There are many options out there, as we shall describe below.
Ensure The Kid’s Body And Feet Are Clean Before They Enter The Kiddie Pool
One of the greatest ways of preventing that debris and dirt doesn’t enter your kiddie pool is ensuring that the kids are clean before they enter the pool. This can be achieved by strategically placing a cleaning point near the kiddie pool.
This will ensure the kids pass by the cleaning point before dipping into the pool.
When they enter the pool, most of the debris, dirt, and dust are brought by the kids, making the water dirty and discolored. Because the kids aren’t aware of cleanliness, you should clean their feet and other body parts before entering the kiddie pool.
Clean their body with water or soap at first. Then, follow by cleaning their feet and carrying them or allowing them to enter the pool and enjoy themselves.
This way, you will have naturally ensured the pool is clean.
Ensuring The Kiddie Pool Is Always Covered
As the saying goes, prevention is a better option than cure. Similarly, keeping the debris, dust, or leaves off your pool is better than cleaning them frequently.
There isn’t any other better solution than covering the kiddie pool whenever they aren’t using it. It will ensure that the debris, leaves, and dirt don’t dirty the water or create favorable conditions for bacterial growth.
To ensure this:
- Try using a special kiddie tarp or cover for covering the pool.
- Use stone or bricks to weigh the pool cover to ensure it doesn’t blow away.
- Whenever not in use, place the small kiddie pool under some shelter. This prevents the wear and tear caused by the hot sun and duct from collecting from the loosely lying pool.
Note that you shouldn’t leave the kiddie pool covered all day. This prevents the air from circulating properly, triggering bacterial and algae growth.
The bacteria may be pathogenic, resulting in illnesses for your kid, and you don’t want to incur the associated expenses.
Clean Any Debris Sitting At The Bottom Of The Kiddie Pool
Sometimes, the floating debris might find flow down and accumulate at the bottom of the pool. Some parents clean the visibly floating debris but most times forget to remove the debris accumulating at the bottom.
To ensure that you remove the bottom accumulated debris:
- Clean the bottom of the pool using a brush
- Using a vacuum, suck all the settled debris.
- Ensure that you drain away from the water and pour fresh water into the kiddie pool.
Remember, the debris accumulated at the bottom of the pool forms a favorable ground for the growth of bacteria and algae that might start producing a foul stench if left for a long time. Hence, removing them is paramount.
Keep Any Sick Kids Off The Pool
Letting or allowing the sick children to enter the kiddie pool is a common mistake made by some, if not most, parents or guardians. Whenever a sick child enters the pool, they will most likely play with the water.
Hence, they transmit the germs through the water. Consequently, any other kid entering the pool is highly likely to contract the same illness.
For that reason:
- You should never allow a child, if sick, to enter the pool.
- Whenever a kid develops a cold in the pool, immediately take them off the pool.
- Whenever you let a sick kid mistakenly enter the pool, shock it immediately to ensure it is sanitized.
- Additionally, drain the water from the pool and replace it with fresh water.
Germ transmission through water can result in serious outbreaks at your home. Therefore, you want to ensure that sick children don’t enter the kiddie pool.
Remove Floating Leaves And Debris
Floating debris such as leaves, dirt, and insects might make your kiddie pool look filthy dirty, making their removal essential.
Removing them also ensures they don’t accumulate at the bottom part of the kiddie pool. To ensure this:
- Choose a good net, preferably handheld.
- Skim the kiddie pool with the handheld net.
- Collect any floating debris to ensure the water is free of dirt.
Routinely ensuring that you remove the floating leaves from the water is essential in ensuring they don’t get to accumulate at the bottom and start decomposing.
Manually Cleaning The Kiddie Pool
Most of the above solutions are just temporary. You should clean the pool manually at least once a week to ensure it is properly clean.
You need a hose, sponge, bucket, and baby shampoo to do this.
Follow the process below to clean the pool manually.
- Drain the water from the kiddie pool by deflating it or pulling the drain valve.
- Fill a bucket with water
- Mix the soap with baby shampoo to make a good cleaning solution.
- Dip the sponge inside the bucket to soak it with the detergent.
- Begin rubbing the bottom of the kiddie pool slowly. Too much pressure might create scratches.
- Using the hose, rinse the bottom until you clear the residue detergent water within the pool.
- Wipe the bottom of the kiddie pool with a towel.
- Leave the pool under sunlight for a few hours to kill the germs and dry properly.
- Deflate the pool and safely store it to use in the future.
Conclusion
Kids enjoy bathing in water in their pools, especially during the summer. Hence, parents and guardians must ensure that the pools are properly cleaned.
However, they should make the mistake of cleaning the kiddie pool using chemicals for the reasons described above. Instead, they should turn to using natural methods. Ensure that your kid is safe and hygienic; use natural methods of cleaning the pool described above.
Please be careful and use at your own risk
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