This past weekend The Spouse and I decided to do a bit of Spring cleaning while T.B.M. enjoyed the sunshine. One of the items on our agenda was tackling Professor Chaos’ mattress. Like any child night time accidents can and will happen, usually brought on by an insistence of just a “sip” of water before bedtime. So, what must one do in order to salvage a mattress?
First: We applied distilled white vinegar to the mattress and poured baking soda over it (this helps remove the smell). The vinegar smell will linger for a bit, but it will eventually go away-and vinegar smells way better than pee-. We let this set for a while and then vacuumed it up. I would highly recommend applying baking soda more than once to ensure the mattress gets thoroughly dried-the baking soda is what pulls the moisture out of the mattress; it’s also great for when the accident first occurs in order to dry it-. We did it only once since we started a bit later in the morning and wanted to get the mattress out in the sunshine before it got too late.
Second: Place the dry mattress outside in a nice sunny spot. We placed Professor Chaos’ mattress on top of T.B.M.’s outdoor play equipment so it wasn’t lying on the ground and had a great sunny spot. We kept it out there for the rest of the afternoon-roughly 3 hours or so-. There was a noticeable difference in the mattress when we brought it inside, not all the stains were completely gone (some of the darker ones had faded but not completely disappeared, while others were totally gone), but we had only had it out there for a few hours so we weren’t expecting them all to have vanished.
We plan to repeat the process on another weekend, skipping the vinegar/baking soda process and then placing the mattress out in the sun first thing in the morning and not bringing it in until just before the sun goes down. We were very pleased with the difference and are happy we won’t have to replace the mattress anytime soon. Not only does the sun help get out those pesky stains, but it kills any gross bacteria that may be lingering on the mattress as well, giving your little one a fresh smelling, stain free, bacteria free place to lay their head. I recommend vacuuming the mattress before you put the bedding back on just to make sure there is no lingering baking soda, pollen, etc. that may have been leftover or picked up while outdoors.
First: We applied distilled white vinegar to the mattress and poured baking soda over it (this helps remove the smell). The vinegar smell will linger for a bit, but it will eventually go away-and vinegar smells way better than pee-. We let this set for a while and then vacuumed it up. I would highly recommend applying baking soda more than once to ensure the mattress gets thoroughly dried-the baking soda is what pulls the moisture out of the mattress; it’s also great for when the accident first occurs in order to dry it-. We did it only once since we started a bit later in the morning and wanted to get the mattress out in the sunshine before it got too late.
Second: Place the dry mattress outside in a nice sunny spot. We placed Professor Chaos’ mattress on top of T.B.M.’s outdoor play equipment so it wasn’t lying on the ground and had a great sunny spot. We kept it out there for the rest of the afternoon-roughly 3 hours or so-. There was a noticeable difference in the mattress when we brought it inside, not all the stains were completely gone (some of the darker ones had faded but not completely disappeared, while others were totally gone), but we had only had it out there for a few hours so we weren’t expecting them all to have vanished.
We plan to repeat the process on another weekend, skipping the vinegar/baking soda process and then placing the mattress out in the sun first thing in the morning and not bringing it in until just before the sun goes down. We were very pleased with the difference and are happy we won’t have to replace the mattress anytime soon. Not only does the sun help get out those pesky stains, but it kills any gross bacteria that may be lingering on the mattress as well, giving your little one a fresh smelling, stain free, bacteria free place to lay their head. I recommend vacuuming the mattress before you put the bedding back on just to make sure there is no lingering baking soda, pollen, etc. that may have been leftover or picked up while outdoors.
Copyright(c)2012 Rayven Holmes
