8 month old & communal toys

[Erlouise]

Hi all
I took DD to a baby club today where they handed out communal toys and DD was chewing away and then picked up a few toys from another baby and started chewing.
I didn’t want to take them off her because ultimately she’s just learning and developing and she crawled to one of the toys and I didn’t want her to think her efforts were for nothing.

but I am freaking out a bit over how they weren’t really clean. I’m not at that stage where if something falls on the floor I give it back to DD, at home yes but not communally.

im probably over reacting but is sharing toys as worrisome as I think?

This is how the germs spread.....but also how the immune system learns to work.
The next few years are going to be communal dribble and snot I'm afraid.

What @Needmorelego said. Baby needs to build her immune system, and communal toys are a perfectly normal part of that. Assuming she has no special health concerns, I'd let her get on with it (and hopefully it will mean slightly fewer days off with illness once you go back to work).

Echoing PPs.
I remember being a little anxious about this too, but concluded that preventing DD doing this could cause more harm than good, and that I wouldn’t be able to stop it all anyway.
In practice I’m sure that before nursery my DD caught most/all infections off well-meaning visiting relatives, and nothing from chewing communal toys…

it's much better to exposed to germs as early as possible, that's how immune system is built up! I have no idea how you'd have 'non' communal toys at a playgroup..