Daycare cleaning checklist: what to clean, sanitize and disinfect, and when

Daycare cleaning checklist: daily tasks by area

A daycare is cleaned in two shifts. While children are there, staff clean and sanitize or disinfect after each use: food surfaces, mouthed toys, changing tables and spills. After the children leave, a deeper end-of-day clean covers restrooms, diapering areas, floors, handles and the kitchen.

The lists below follow the frequencies in Appendix K of Caring for Our Children, the national health and safety standards for early care and education, kept up to date by the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education. We grouped the tasks by area so staff and cleaners can work through the building room by room. The same lists work as a preschool cleaning checklist or for a family child care home. Cross off what your program does not have, and add anything your state’s rules require.

Two habits keep the daytime list working. Keep a “to be washed” bin in each room so a teacher can pull a mouthed toy without stopping the activity. And keep the diapering station stocked before the day starts, so no one has to leave a child on the table to fetch liners or gloves.

Clean anything that looks dirty when you see it, whatever the schedule says. Appendix K adds that programs may need to sanitize or disinfect more often during illness outbreaks, and should check with their health department and child care licensing agency when that happens.

Daycare cleaning schedule: weekly, monthly and periodic tasks

Weekly work covers what children share over days rather than minutes: classroom toys, cloth toys, dress-up clothes, bedding and cots. Monthly and periodic work covers dust up high, vents, baseboards, carpet steam cleaning and floor care.

The toy, fabric, bedding and cot tasks come from Appendix K’s routine schedule, which marks classroom toys, washable cloth toys, dress-up clothes and each child’s sheets and blankets for weekly cleaning. The building tasks are ordinary good practice for any space with small children: they reach and touch more than adults do, and lower walls and glass get handprints daily.

Appendix K recommends vacuuming carpets daily with a HEPA filter and steam cleaning carpets every 3 to 6 months. It also notes that washable area rugs are a safer choice than wall-to-wall carpet, since they can be taken up and cleaned. If you are the cleaner, schedule carpet and floor work for a weekend or a closure day, so floors are dry and the air has cleared before children come back.

Cleaning, sanitizing or disinfecting: which does each surface need?

Clean everything, sanitize what touches food or mouths, and disinfect what is used for toileting, diapering or body fluids. Cleaning always comes first, because sanitizers and disinfectants work best on a clean surface.

The CDC’s page on how to clean and disinfect early care and education settings defines the three steps. Cleaning uses soap, water and scrubbing to remove germs and dirt, and on its own removes most types of harmful germs. Sanitizing reduces germs to levels public health codes consider safe. Disinfecting uses stronger products to destroy the germs that remain after cleaning. The CDC also says to clean a surface before you sanitize or disinfect it, because dirt makes the chemicals less effective.

Here is how Appendix K assigns the three steps to the main areas of a daycare:

The appendix also prefers microfiber cloths and mops, with disposable paper towels as the fallback, and says cotton cloths, cotton mops and sponges are not recommended in early childhood programs. It calls for separate mops or mop heads for toilet and diapering areas, so nothing from a bathroom floor is carried into a classroom. Surfaces soiled with blood or bloody body fluids are disinfected following OSHA standard precautions.

How do you clean and sanitize daycare toys?

Clean toys with soap and water, sanitize any toy that has been in a child’s mouth before another child uses it, and wash cloth toys in the machine. Hard classroom toys that are not mouthed are cleaned weekly and whenever they look dirty.

For mouthed toys, Appendix K says to sanitize with a sanitizer that is safe for food contact, or to use a dishwasher. The CDC adds that nonporous toys can be sanitized by boiling, steaming or a weak bleach solution, to check the maker’s instructions first, and to let toys air dry on a clean towel or paper towel. Cloth toys go in the washer on the warmest setting the fabric allows and must dry completely.

A simple routine for a toddler or infant room:

1. Keep a labeled “to be washed” bin out of children’s reach in each room.
2. When a child mouths a toy and puts it down, a teacher drops it in the bin.
3. At nap time or the end of the day, wash the toys in soapy water, rinse, then sanitize them or run them through the dishwasher.
4. Air dry the toys fully before they go back on the shelf.

Toys that cannot be cleaned, such as some plush toys that cannot go in a washer, are hard to keep safe in a group room. Many programs keep those to one child, or out of infant and toddler rooms. Appendix K also says water tables are emptied, cleaned and disinfected, with their toys, before a new group plays or at the end of the day, and are not used during an illness outbreak.

How to clean diaper changing tables, restrooms and potty chairs

Changing tables are cleaned and disinfected after every diaper change. Toilets, sinks, counters, diaper pails and floors in toilet and diapering areas are cleaned and disinfected at least once a day, and right away whenever they are soiled.

The changing table

The CDC’s diaper changing steps for childcare settings end with the clean-up: remove the liner and throw it away, wipe up any visible soil with damp paper towels or a baby wipe, then wet the entire surface with a disinfectant, following the directions on the product. The CDC also says to wear gloves when changing diapers. Appendix K adds that the surface should air dry between uses, which is why a changing table needs a disinfectant whose contact time fits the pace of the room.

Restrooms

Children’s restrooms get the same treatment as any public restroom, at child height, and more often. Check supplies on a set round during the day, clean up accidents at once, and leave the full clean and disinfection for the end of the day. A restroom cleaning log on the door shows the director and a licensing inspector when each round was done.

Potty chairs

Potty chairs are where state rules differ the most, so check yours before you use them. Georgia’s licensing agency, for example, has a rule on potty chairs in child care that says that, if used, they must be emptied into a flush toilet after each use, cleaned with a disinfectant and stored in the bathroom, and that any sink used to clean them must also be disinfected. Its guidance adds that a potty chair must be disinfected any time an unclothed child sits on it, even if the child does not use it. Other states have their own wording, and some programs avoid potty chairs altogether and use child-sized toilets instead.

What cleaning products are safe to use around children?

Use soap and water or a third-party certified cleaner for everyday cleaning, an EPA-registered sanitizer with food-contact directions on the label for food surfaces and toys, and a disinfectant certified by the EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program for toileting and diapering areas. Use them when children are not in the room, and keep them locked away.

Look for two EPA labels

Caring for Our Children’s Appendix J on choosing cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting products recommends cleaners certified by a third party, naming EPA Safer Choice, Green Seal and UL Ecologo, and disinfectants certified by the EPA’s Design for the Environment program. Appendix J notes that Safer Choice covers products such as cleaners, hand soaps, laundry detergents and floor care, and that for sanitizing and disinfecting products, DfE is the only certification logo.

The EPA explains on its DfE certification page that the logo is for antimicrobial products, that EPA reviews every chemical ingredient before a product can carry it, and that certified products exclude ingredients that might negatively affect young children. You can search the EPA’s list of DfE-certified disinfectants by registration number, active ingredient or product type before you buy.

Use products safely

• Pick fragrance-free products. Appendix K advises choosing products free of fragrances and dyes, and says many cleaning products and air fresheners contain hazardous chemicals.
• Follow the label. Use the dilution and contact time the label gives, and wear the gloves or eye protection it lists.
• Ventilate. The CDC says to make sure there is good airflow, for example by opening windows or running a fan, and warns that some products can trigger asthma.
• Be careful with bleach. Appendix J says to mix a fresh bleach solution each day, never mix bleach with other chemicals, avoid aerosols and foggers, use it when children are not in the area, and let surfaces dry before children come back.
• Lock it up. Keep every product locked and out of children’s reach, with its original label or a full label on any spray bottle you fill.

Labels such as “green” or “natural” on their own do not mean a product is safer. Appendix J warns that these claims are often misleading. Go by the certification logo and the EPA registration number.

What do state childcare licensing rules require for cleaning?

Your state’s child care licensing rules are the legal requirements, and they vary by state. Caring for Our Children is a set of national standards, not your state’s law, so use it as the baseline and your state’s rules as the final word.

ChildCare.gov, run by the federal Administration for Children and Families, explains on its page about regulated child care that federal law requires states and territories to set and enforce child care licensing requirements, that licensing sets minimum health and safety requirements, and that licensed programs are monitored to make sure they keep meeting them. Each state decides the details, such as which surfaces must be disinfected, which products or bleach strengths are allowed, how potty chairs are handled and what records must be kept.

What this means in practice:

• Directors: start from the lists on this page, then read your state’s licensing rules for centers or family child care homes and adjust the frequencies and products to match. Your licensing consultant or local health department can answer questions.
• Cleaning companies: ask the director for the parts of the licensing rules that affect your work, and which products the center has approved. Ask too whether anyone working in the building needs a background check under the state’s rules, before you send a crew.
• Parents: ask the program for its license and when it was last inspected, and check your state’s child care licensing website.

Who cleans a daycare, and how is a cleaning contract priced?

Daycare staff do most of the daytime sanitizing, because it has to happen right after each use while children are in the room. A contract cleaner, or a staff member on a closing shift, usually does the end-of-day, weekly and periodic work after the children leave.

Write the split down. A short table with each task, who does it and how often avoids the two most common gaps: a changing table nobody disinfected at closing because each side thought the other did it, and toys left for the cleaner who was never asked to touch them. Most cleaners stay out of mouthed toys, bottles, dishes and bedding unless the center asks, since those follow the center’s own procedures.

For a cleaning business, a daycare is a commercial account with stricter rules than an office. The walkthrough, scope of work and contract work the same way as for any building, and our office cleaning checklist shows how to turn a checklist into a scope with a frequency next to every task. Our guide on getting commercial cleaning contracts covers the bid, and the free cleaning proposal template turns the scope into a proposal.

Price the scope, not just the square footage. The free commercial cleaning calculator has a school or daycare building type, and our commercial cleaning prices guide builds a monthly price from labor hours, wages, supplies, overhead and margin. Restrooms, diapering areas and daily disinfection add time compared with an office of the same size. If you are new to this kind of work, our guide on how to start a commercial cleaning business covers insurance, equipment and hiring an evening crew.

Is BroomBook a good fit for daycare cleaning?

Probably not, and we make BroomBook. It is built for residential cleaning businesses: houses, apartments, move-outs and Airbnb turnovers, not commercial janitorial accounts like a daycare.

Its checklists match the type of home clean booked (standard, deep, move-out or Airbnb turnover), not a child care scope with after-each-use, daily, weekly and quarterly tasks. Pick something else if you mainly clean daycares, schools or offices, need QuickBooks sync, or want an app your crew installs from an app store.

If you also clean homes, here is what BroomBook does for that side of the business. Each cleaner gets a private crew link with nothing to download. Room-by-room checklists come with photos, each photo is checked against its checklist item, and the ones that need a look are flagged to the owner. Cleaners clock in and out from the phone, and job notes are translated into Spanish, French or Portuguese for each cleaner. See the features or try the live demo.