Help: car seat cleaning

[Susie]

MOTN on Friday night, Hobbes puked in her car seat.  We were on our way to my dad's to drop off our dogs and spend one night before flying out for vacation from the larger airport near him.  When we got to his house we gave her a bath, ran a load of laundry with her clothes and the removable fabric parts of her Graco Extend2Fit, and hand washed the seat/straps.  We did our best, but it was like 3am, we were dead tired, and it probably was not perfect.  In the morning I was still grossed out by the smell so we washed the padded parts again, but we were limited in what we could do because we needed them dry enough to leave at noon for the airport.

Then American lost our car seat (and pack and play, and one piece of luggage), so we didn't have them from Saturday to Monday.  Monday we got the seat back, and the smell is still bad.  

We're washing the removable parts again, and plan to set them out in the sun.  Is there anything else we can do?  Not being at home, we're in a tough spot because we don't have a second car/seat to use while we deal with this one.

Alternatively, if should we abandon it and buy a new Extend2Fit, just tell me so we can not spend vacation time trying!

TIA.

[icedcoffee]

Is it the removable parts that smell? Because when we had this happen 1 load was enough for those. We did put them in the sun to dry along with the car seat and the straps. Unfortunately, I don't think you can really get a good clean on the straps since you're not supposed to submerge them. I just wiped them with a baby wipe. They still probably smell a little, but I try to ignore it. LOL

I'd be really hesitant to abandon the car seat. That just sounds wasteful and she could puke again on the way home!

[tealblue]

Can you get some white vinegar? Throw that in when you wash everything and then wipe down the base with vinegar too. Set it all in the sun to dry.

[cabbagecabbage]

I think sunlight and time are your best friends (one it’s actually fully cleaned)

[starburst604]

My DD is a serial car seat puker.

So we do the following - 1) remove and wash all removable parts, then hang to dry. 2) lather up the straps with a liberal amount of Dawn dish soap 3) grab the hose and on low pressure, rinse off the straps and all of the shell. Repeat the Dawn and hosing off. 4) let dry in sun with the straps facing up. Then reassemble. It’s important to do all of this as quickly as you can after the puke happens!

L has puked a bunch of times in each car seat and we’ve never had a smell issue.

[Velar Fricative]

Aug 14, 2018 13:58:03 GMT -5 cabbagecabbage said:

I think sunlight and time are your best friends (one it’s actually fully cleaned)

Ditto. The smell eventually did go away after lots of time sitting in the sun when we weren't using the seat. However, since it's been a few days that the OP's daughter puked in the seat, I am not sure if the above can help. I'd give it another week before deciding to replace, even though I know it sucks to deal with this during vacation. But really, it's just a matter of letting it sit out in the sun as much as possible and otherwise installing it when you're using it. I would avoid doing anything else with the straps beyond mild soap and water.

[andi]

Ditto the vinegar on the straps, and we put some in a spray bottle and sprayed her whole car seat outside. Let it all sit in the sun. We've never had issues with continued smell doing this.

[icedcoffee]

Technically I don't think you're supposed to use vinegar on the straps. It's considered an abrasive cleaner. I'd limit the straps to dawn, baby wipes and the sun. If they're still bad and you can't handle it, you can probably order new straps.

[Susie]

icedcoffee , yes, the removable parts still smell. So do the straps. I know it seems wasteful to toss but I'm open to it in this specific situation if we can't drastically improve it. If I had to sit in this seat I'd get nauseous from the smell. It's bad, even after 3 rounds of cleaning, and we have a 5 hour drive after we fly home on Sat.  We've cleaned her car seats plenty of times, but never puke before, and def not puke that wasn't ideally cleaned and then spent 2 days in a plastic bag with American Airlines on hot runways.

tealblue , we've tried vinegar. We can try it again but we're at "again" on day 4 or so?

starburst604 , yeah we're already days past the event. That's the real challenge. We did our best the night it happened, but I'm trying to figure out what to do now that might help.

Would OxiClean help, maybe?

[starburst604]

Sorry Susie, was posting quickly from vacation. Some of that might still help if you didn’t try it already. I don’t think anything other than mild soap is recommended for cleaning. I guess I’d tried to repeat everything one more time and see, but yeah I couldn’t drive around with a pukey smelling car seat either, and totally understand replacing. We’ve been lucky that although it’s happened a lot, we were always able to do a full clean right away. Otherwise I’d have replaced if needed.

[boiler717]

Vinegar and oxiclean are both not safe for car seat straps. I’d try drying in the sun but probably lean towards a new seat.

[boiler717]

I’d also check to see if Graco covers this in their warranty like Clek does.

[lilac05]

It’s definitely not MM, but honestly at this point, I think I’d just get a new seat. My vacation time is valuable, and I’d rather not spend it repeatedly trying to get something clean when the odds are not great.

Do you know anyone in the area? Maybe someone would be willing to mess with it in order to have a free extra seat for another car. Or someone who might want to hold onto it for a trade-in deal at Target.

[pinotgrig]

Ugh, I’m so sorry! A few thoughts -
1. What does your manual say?
2. The delay in doing a deep clean on it may mean you need to replace.
3. Can you order replacement straps from graco?
4. This article shows how to clean the buckle which may help if there’s gunk stcuk down in it.

csftl.org/clean-my-car-seat/

[Susie]

Oh geez, I have no idea about Graco's warranty, and the manual is in the car in airport parking back in Philly.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult, I've just totally lost my chill with this vacation.

Friday night was the puke incident and about 3 hours sleep.  Then Saturday, our 3:20pm nonstop flight was delayed, cancelled, we were rebooked on an 8:15, and then were delayed again, finally departing around 11pm.  We spent 10 hours in PHL with a just PT'ed 2yo, then landed at 1am and had no car seat (even a smelly one!) to enable us to leave the airport and find a bed.  After fighting with American to get them to provide one, we got to our house around 3:30am (second damn night in a row!), then had no PNP for her to sleep in.  

We survived, we piled furniture in front of the uncovered outlets and put a mattress on the floor.  But now that she slept like that for 2 nights while waiting for American to find our damn bags, she doesn't want to sleep in the PNP anymore and that's a fight.  Now that our bags are all here and we have swim suits, we're trying to focus on the positive and have fun, but we're still dealing with the car seat.

Why does vacation with kids have to be this hard?  Ugh.  I'm ready for a staycation next time.

[dcn]

I vote get a new seat.

[pinotgrig]

That’s a rough start to a vacation!

Here’s a link to the manual - www.manualslib.com/manual/1041655/Graco-Extend2fit.html

If you’re just over it - which is totally understandable, just order a new one from amazon to be delivered wherever you’re staying.

Sorry after all the back and forth on the PnP that you ran into that. 😩

[icedcoffee]

I just saw Extend2Fits are $144 on Amazon:

www.amazon.com/Graco-Extend2Fit-Convertible-Seat-Gotham/dp/B019EGMGR0/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1534275787&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=extend2fit&psc=1

Sorry for the vacation troubles!

[raangoli]

I'd buy a new car seat as much as I would hate to do that.

I hope you can enjoy your trip, but any sort of vacation with kids isn't really ever a vacation is it? Now I get why people leave their kids behind and go on kid free trips, lol.

[starburst604]

Given your follow up, I vote new car seat, all day!

[belovedbride07]

When DD puked in her car seat, it easily took several weeks for the smell to go away. We washed the seat pad and wiped the whole thing out with baby wipes, rinsed out the chest clip, and wiped the straps with baby wipes; that's really all you can do.

Follow Graco's instructions; don't use vinegar and don't saturate the straps. I read that one manufacturer was telling people it was okay to hose it off as long as you protected the straps and it dried quickly, but I can't recall if that was Graco or someone else. If the smell is too much for you after following their directions, I would replace and not risk the seat's integrity by doing non-recommended cleaning on it.

That was a sucky weekend when we dealt with it at my dad's house; I'm sorry this is coupled with other travel stress!

[vtdiamond]

I vote new car seat. If it was a $300 carseat I'd keep trying to clean it, but yeah for $144 I'd get a new one! Hope the rest of your vacation improves!

[tealblue]

Given you’ve tried all the tricks to clean it multiple times, get a new seat.

Once you are home and it’s trapped in a hot car, I feel like any inkling of smell is just going to be a million times amplified when roasting in a car all day.

[momin2013]

I vote get a new seat, and see if Amazon can deliver it to where you're staying ASAP. Puke is the literal worst smell for me; I can't imagine you'll ever get it out entirely, and the trouble is just not worth it.

[Susie]

Thanks all for the suggestions and help. We're going to see if this one last washing did it, and if not we have time to Prime one here. The exact one we have is currently $164 on Amazon, but IDGAF about colors. If we can make it happen without too much trouble though, I might try to get ahold of one of the $229 ones with the Rapid Remove cover. That's what our other one at home is, and it's nice. So much easier to remove to clean.

[pooh8402]

Aug 14, 2018 14:14:34 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Technically I don't think you're supposed to use vinegar on the straps. It's considered an abrasive cleaner. I'd limit the straps to dawn, baby wipes and the sun. If they're still bad and you can't handle it, you can probably order new straps.

What she said. When I saw vinegar being recommended, I was like, yeah, don't do that.

For us, just sunlight and time. I can tell you Graco does not cover this in their warranty.

[noodleoo]

Susie , ugh just coming in to send hugs! Sorry your trip has started out so badly. Good luck with your last cleaning, but I was coming in to say I would just buy a new one and be done with it. I wouldn’t want to waste any more energy or time on something so frustrating during a vacation. We just got back from a short trip with DD and yeah, vacations with kids are so much more challenging. It is a hard adjustment to the new reality. I hope things start to pick up form this point on!

[sent]

The first time DD sat in her plush Maxi Cosi, she puked all over it. I could not figure out how to reassemble the seat. We drove straight to BBB and walked out with a Chicco Next Fit Zip. I have since cleaned vomit out of that carseat a billion times. The key was to hose it down to get the crud out of the crevices. I used dish soap on the straps with a tooth brush. Ran the fabrics through the wash and hung to dry, out in the sun if possible. We lived in an apartment at the time. I used to have to drive to my parents' house to hose the seat out on their deck. DD usually puked on the way to their house anyways so it worked out, sort of.

I wound up giving the pseudo-reassembled Maxi Cosi away to a fellow mom. She said it took her over an hour to figure out how to put it back together. My kid used to vomit multiple times a week. Hours to clean and reassemble the seat? No thank you.

I understand the need for car seats and safety and all, but the "rules" are not at all practical. So many restrictions on being able to clean it when the occupants of the car seat are prone to vomit and poopsplosions. Gross. I hate car seats so much.

[thebreakfastclub]

Some of the same people who were up in arms about hand washing a baby bottle feel much differently about amazingly strict car seat cleaning "rules."

Who knew blue Dawn could clean baby ducks and immediately erode your car seat straps in a 5 minute wash? Powerful stuff!

[pooh8402]

Aug 15, 2018 5:40:43 GMT -5 thebreakfastclub said:

Some of the same people who were up in arms about hand washing a baby bottle feel much differently about amazingly strict car seat cleaning "rules."

Who knew blue Dawn could clean baby ducks and immediately erode your car seat straps in a 5 minute wash? Powerful stuff!

Actually dawn is one of the recommended soaps (by some manufacturers, not all) but baby shampoo or baby wipes are universally recommended.

We're up in arms about the vinegar, which is acidic and known to break down fibers.