Recently, a friend of mine told me it grosses her out when her 3-year-old wants to play in the sandbox at the neighborhood playground. I had no idea why until I read this post on Lil Sugar about moms forbidding their kids from playing in the sandbox...
According to the post, "rodents and insects visit the sandbox during the night and leave their excrement behind."
Um, that's DISGUSTING. Forbidding kids from playing there might be a little extreme, but ew, I don't even want to think about this!
According to some moms in the Stay At Home Moms Group, even sandboxes at home can be pretty grody, especially if you don't have one with a cover to keep animals from pooping in it. Moms say they are "messy," "a pain in the butt," and "a breeding ground for mosquitoes" and other bugs.
Does your family have a sandbox? Ever experienced any bug or poop problems like these or does a cover keep it clean enough?
Ashley Is a Widow Who Stays Strong...
This Hot Dad Wants to Vacuum Your Rug
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
KStew Refuses to Shower
Comments 18
We have our own at home that we keeped covered so animals cant get in it.. but i dont care about bug crap. really...
If we went to a public sand box it would determine on how it looked & smelled..
Kids are kids... Just clean them up afterwards & like someone in the article said -- if you think that is gross research on how many bugs can legally be in our food! (canned food, fastfood, every type of food!)....
We have a sandbox at home with one of the covers on it. I even put down a large piece of plastic before putting the lid on and then put a brick on top of the lid to keep it from blowing away in a storm or if it gets windy and to help keep water out of it. I do have to clean it out before my daughter uses it though. Sometimes I find spiders have gotten under the lid and the plastic as well as earwigs. It stays pretty clean but my daughter knows that I have to check it for bugs before she uses it. She loves playing in her sandbox!!
We have a playground behind our house like 5ft from our yard and my daughter who is 14 mo's plays in it every day and we've never had ne issues- she always gets a bath afterwards and whatever she was wearing goes straight in the washer....I feel germs are good for kids to build up antibodies and until I actually know someone who's gotten really sick I will not ban the sandbox. I grew up with a huge one in our backyard in the woods w/o a cover and I turned out just fine!
The only sandbox we have access to is at my son's school and they keep it covered when the school is closed. As for the grossness of it all, well, IMO, it's no different than taking him to the beach to play in the sand there. Life is just sometimes gross...but this article did remind me of the only episode of House I ever watched which dealt with this VERY SUBJECT! Huh...racoon poop can apparently be pretty nasty if kids ingest it.
Goodness, a little dirt and bug poop will rarely kill anyone. People just get a little carried away. Make sure they clean up afterward, and do your best to keep them from putting their dirt hands all over their face and I am sure they will be fine!
I was also thinking about putting my toddler in a bubble. Seriously, now!
My son has his own in the backyard. The one at the park? No thanks. I'm scarred from my sister getting worms from playing in the sandbox at our apartment complex when we were little. Gross.
Dirt and bug poop probably DON'T hurt anyone. Cat poop can make you SERIOUSLY ill. And what kind of animal do you think is the most drawn to pooping in a sandbox??
We had one growing up with a cover on it, and I can say from memeories that it was AWESOME. However we left the lid off of it for ONE night and it became the insta- potty for all neighboring cats-in one night!
So, a private sandbox with a cover when not in use is fine by me. In fact, its amazing.
A public sandbox where who knows what has been in it? NO WAY.
We have our own at home and we keep it covered everytime they are done using it.. so it is still very clean
I don't let the kids play in the park sandbox because people throw their beer bottles and cigarette butts in there. But we've always had a sandbox at home. When they were toddlers it was a sand table and they played in it constantly. My middle daughter used to eat the sand (those were gross diapers to change).
Now they have a bigger one in the backyard with a cover. They usually remember to cover it and I've never had a problem with bugs or animals and we have a lot of stray cats, a couple of racoons and there used to be a possum living in our garage. Right now it's full of water because they left it open in a couple of storms. It doesn't get enough sun to dry it out. :(