Pinterest Challenge #15: Cleaning the Pack 'n Play

Third-trimester(!) nesting has meant a little cleaning-and-organizing twist to my Pinterest Challenge--tonight in particular it meant this crazy little pregnant woman tossed the pack 'n play in the bathtub.

15. Cleaning a Pack 'n Play
source: Mary Organizes
worth doing again: Yes

Okay. This was gross, but I'm glad I did it.

The original (presumably named Mary?) authoress used some mail-order green-cleaning stuff (which she also sells through her blog) to clean her pack 'n play. I opted out of the fancy cleaner but I followed the rest of her ideas.

I started by filling my beautiful shiny bathtub (poor thing didn't know what was coming) with warm water and some Kirkland laundry detergent.

I checked the mattress to make sure it wasn't filled with cardboard (apparently some of them are?) and once I'd assured myself that it wasn't, I plunked it and the rest of the pack 'n play into the bubbles and let it soak. (The mattress was surprisingly buoyant and kept floating up--I had to put the crib on top of it to keep it in the water!)

After about half an hour or 45 minutes, I flipped it over to make sure it got a good soak on each side.

Mary's water was BROWN when she pulled her pack 'n play out. Mine wasn't that bad, but the water was definitely icky/murky/gross. Look at the little floaty things. Gack.

And when I drained the tub, the retreating water left these nasty dirt trails. Ugh. So glad I washed this. I do not want baby girl sleeping in that.

The dirt tracks inspired me to rinse this thing again, so I filled the tub back up with warm water and let it soak some more to rinse, and drained it again.

And, because I'm thorough, I tried to ring the mattress out by walking across it over and over. Aaaaaand gross me out some more: the water that leached out of the double-soaked mattress was yellow. Not okay.

So I pulled the crib out to dry (it is just standing open on some towels in my bathroom to air dry) and ran another detergent bath for the mattress. Another rinse soak and some more stomping around on the mattress to ring it out, and I had a much cleaner pack 'n play for baby girl to sleep in. I am hoping it will dry out eventually, because right now it is pretty wet... and I think Steve may be displeased with a crib hanging around in the bathroom because I randomly decided to wash it... :)