Soft play day before holiday?

[BabyDoge]

I'm having a bit of a disagreement with DM and would love some other perspectives.

We're going on holiday on Monday, and DM has kindly offered to take DC out for a couple of hours so me and DH can crack on with packing. I was very grateful for the offer, until she said she's going to take them to soft play. I asked her if maybe she could take them somewhere else, as I don't think they should be going to a germ factory the day before we go away 🙈 But she thinks I'm being too anxious and it would be fine.

AIBU? I have no problem taking them to soft play usually, but the day before we go away just feels like asking for trouble.

It's ridiculous because this idea that they are notorious for being full of germs is paranoid nonsense I've only ever read here.

Any indoor place that is full of young children will have a high proportion of germs, just like nurseries and schools etc. Strange that you've only read that on this site....

I've only ever read about people thinking they are any risk to health on here. Germs are everywhere. May as well lock yourselves in the house and have Dettol showers if you're that convinced soft play is dirty enough to worry about getting ill from. They could go to the park and pick up norovirus from the chain of a swing.

I do actually agree with you, and this is the stance I take... We're very blasé about germs in day to day life, and I feel this has led to my 4 kids having very robust immune systems. I just can see it from another point of view too, and don't think it's ridiculous for op to want to mitigate the risk by preferring her kids to do something outdoors the day before the holiday. A little over-cautious maybe, but not ridiculous. Which is why I mentioned hyperbole.

I’d be more worried about them falling off a slide and breaking something which would ruin the holiday. Definitely wouldn’t be worried about them catching “germs”!

Thank you very much for this. I was looking to see whether I was being unreasonable, and appreciate the majority of people think I am, but I think people have got a little bit carried away. We're not living in a bubble, it just felt like an unnecessary risk at an important time.

That sounds fantastic. Unfortunately I must not live near you as our soft plays are 100% not sanitised between each session. One of them doesn't have sessions, it's just open 9-5.

How do you know what happens at 5 and how much cleaning is done then?

This is what tips it for me into overly obsessive. Being certain that a completely normal age like soft play is dirty enough to warrant any kind of risk that's worth any headspace. Cancelling a playdate with a specific child who you know is ill, fair enough. Worrying that soft play isn't cleaned sufficiently and that there might be contagious children there is overthinking and paranoid

This is the hang over from COVID!

The post I was replying to, I understood it to mean sessions during the day. So 9-11, then closed for half an hour for cleaning. There is one local one here who does that, but it's still pretty grubby when they reopen.
Maybe we've just been unlucky. We're in the North West and I can promise you that I'm not being overly anxious when I say our local soft plays are not adequately clean. But I still take the kids because they love it.
There was one we went to at 9am when they first opened and I found a dirty nappy at the top of the slide. We haven't been back to that one.

@DappledThings we don’t know what happens after 5 (although where I am the soft play is available after official closing hours for private parties and people do hire them for that). However many times we’ve gone as soon as they open and it’s filthy - dried food at least a day old, general dirt. I’ve noticed people often bring their sick kids there too to ‘entertain’ them and keep them busy so they don’t have to look after their own kids when they’re poorly.

We’re a blase about germs, rarely unwell family as well. I’ve often assumed there was a link, and the link was that we’ve toughened up our immune systems.

But what if the causality runs the other way and the families who are more paranoid about germs because their kids are often sick?