Hand washing

[LibbyLou123]

I'm a childminder and have, up until this point, been using different coloured towels for the children to dry their hands on, after they have washed them, so that the children know which is theirs for hygiene reasons.
However, it is just becoming really confusing. They are getting muddled up and I'm fed up of washing and drying these towels all the time. I'm thinking paper towels like they have in public toilets might just be a much more convenient option. Does anyone know where you can buy these from?

I just bought some a week or two ago from ebay. I looked all over the place and found ebay to be the cheapest. I got 'Luxury C Fold White Paper hand Towel' for £17.99 with free delivery and 'PAPER HAND TOWEL DISPENSER - SMALL' for £11.99 plus £5.50 delivery.

I have been very happy with both. The only problem is that I am getting through so many paper towels!

I got in touch with my chief environmental health officer about this.
He very helpfully sent me a letter stating that there is no reason why children can't share the same hand towel as long as it's washed each day.
So, 5 small towels a week instead of hudreds! I had my inspection last week and she was happy with his.

typical, Moo, my Ofsted inspection highlighted the fact that children used the same towel to dry their hands.

i got a bale of small towels, flannels really ,from Primark, they use these once and then put into basket, all washed at end of day, a rite old pain..

I didnt go paper towel option as its so expensive.

Previous inspector flagged up that they should have different towels. I quizzed her as to how there is more of a risk of transferring infection immediately after washing hands, as opposed to the 3 hours previously when the kids have been sharing toys, holding hands, feeding each other etc. She basically had no answer and said that was the reccommendation, so I thought I'd be ready for them this time and get the opinion of someone who was an expert in cross contamination rather than someone who hasn't a clue!!

I use cheapo paper kitchen towel, poundshop usually has mega roll for a quid

I have a pile of flannels (like thebody.) The children take the top one, dry and throw in a bucket. The bucket sits under the soap dispenser to catch drips, so a double win.

Interested in moo 's research though ...

Well done, moogster1a, on challenging one of the myriad of ridiculous hoops we have to jump through! A Cm friend of mine recently commented that she has separate plates, cutlery and so on for the children, also to prevent cross contamination!

This is all getting more and more daft by the day.

I use a hand towel and chuck it in the wash each day. One towel for the kids I have but then I am not very busy at the moment, regrettably.

Consortium do reasonably priced paper towels, I find either C or Z fold work in any dispenser. I use flannells single use, dump in laundry bucket thing, have loads of them and wash in one go. Works out cheaper in the long run and probably more eco-friendly, I also find that the dc's full loads of paper towels out at once and they arn't that great at soaking up the water.

kitchen towel-rip a load up and put on top of toilet cistern.Tell children not to flush them.simple!!

costco sell them but i have no idea how much they cost. I use a coloured small towel for each child or kitchen towel

I look after 7 children and have four of my own. Surely I am not expected to have 7 differnet towels? Should I purchase paper towels instead of just using one towel?

I have 6 S hooks that hang on my towel rail and hang a laminated photo of each child I have that day on each hook along with an Ikea flannel (they are big enough to be hand towels for little fingers). Wash them daily.

Those who provide each child with a towel, are these children before and after school children or with you all day? Just interested to know.

Sorry more questions. Do you put these towels in the washing machine. I do enough washing and would not want to be washing every day, if this can be helped

Not very hygienic putting them on the cistern lisa

I started to use needle and cotton to sew the childrens names in towels.

Didn't get to finish all though so my 15 year old finished off! It does help to have names on towels.

I've used several options over the years and each has its plus and minuses.

Single hand towel (when I first started):
Plus is, of course, less washing!
Minus is that, with more kids, it can get quite soggy/dirty. Then the towel per child ruling came out so I had to rethink.
I would add that, at the time my son was attending a preschool where all the children washed their hands in the same bowl of water containing a weak solution of washing up liquid and dried their hands on the same towel. All 20-odd of them!

Colour-coded/named facecloths:
Perfect, I thought when I introduced this idea. Pluses were that we met OFSTED's requirement, the kids learned their colours, less cross contamination - everyone happy!
Minus is the amount of washing, some colours end up being used more often and, unless you have lots of the same colour, you have to have them washed and dried very quickly for the next time they're used. At first, it can be muddling for them to use their own colours but I did find they quickly caught on. The storage was rather difficult, too. I had a tiny bathroom that didn't really have room for all those hooks and it looked very cluttered.

So, I moved on to a pile of facecloths, free for all:
Pluses: less stressing over using the right colour, and more hygienic because they'd use each one once. It was also less room to have them in a pile.
Minuses: more washing! That neat and tidy pile at the beginning of the day ended strewn all over the bathroom unless I was very vigilant.

I gave up on the cloths and invested in a paper towel dispenser (didn't think of the kitchen roll idea, so can't comment on that, but it sounds much cheaper!).
Pluses: No washing at all! Yippee! Hygienic because they're used once. Looked quite tidy once I'd found a place for it. I picked up a smaller size at my local hardware store.
Minuses: Blocked loo! Some of the kids found it difficult to understand the difference between toilet paper and paper towels and, instead of putting them in the bin, kept trying to flush them down the toilet. I also had two occasions when they ran out of loo paper and used the towels instead.
They did work out expensive as I kept having to buy the towels and the initial dispenser was an expense, too. I don't think they dried the kids' hands as well as the cloth towels. And, if you're interested in that kind of thing, very environmentally unfriendly with all that waste paper.

So there we are. I can't say I'm 100% happy with any of the solutions I've tried but I hope it'll help someone to decide which method they're going to try for themselves.

And if anyone has any other ideas, I'm all eyes!!!