Baby Spit Up Cleaning

If you have a baby, you know how messy one can be. From playing with their food to spitting up at random moments, these adorable bundles of joy are professionals at creating chaos at our busiest moments. One way they do this is by spitting up and leaving a mess on your once-clean carpet.

Hi! My name is Katie, and I’m well aware of how messy babies can be. On top of having two dogs, I also have two kids of my own and have had to clean up plenty of messes like this in the past. I’ve learned the best ways to handle all kinds of messes and am here now to share my experience and knowledge with you to make keeping your carpet spotless a breeze!

In this post, I’ll go over the materials you’ll need and the process of both cleaning and sanitizing the spots on the carpet your baby decided to leave their mark on. I’ll include steps for what to do if the spots are fresh or old, so you’re best equipped for not only handling this mess but any others in the future as well.

Gather Your Supplies

Before we can begin cleaning up the mess, we need to collect a few things. Make sure you have:

• White wash rag or towel
• Some water
• Carpet spot stain remover
• 3% Hydrogen peroxide (optional)
• Empty spray bottle (optional)
• Vinegar

Begin the Process

Once you’ve gathered all of your materials, it’s time to start cleaning up the mess. First, you’ll want to dip a corner of your wash rag or towel into the water. As a quick side note, you want to make sure that the towel you use is white. Colored rags or towels may contain dyes that could spread to your carpet and create a larger, more difficult-to-clean mess.

After you’ve dipped a small portion of your towel or rag into the water, gently blot the spot with it. If the mess is old, you’re rehydrating the stain, which will make it much easier to clean. If the spot is fresh, then you’re keeping it hydrated and diluting it, which also makes it easier to clean. Do not scrub or rub the spot. This will spread the mess, push it deeper into the carpet, and ultimately create a bigger problem that’s more difficult to solve. Blotting, on the other hand, allows the mess to wick up into your rag, transferring it from your carpet onto the much easier-to-clean rag or towel.

Your next step depends on how much blotting with the rag is helping. If the mess is wicking up into your wet rag, then keep going until the spot is completely clean. If blotting isn’t helping much or at all, then you’ll want to spray the spot with a carpet spot cleaner. Let it sit for five minutes, then come back to it. 

Letting the cleaner sit like this will allow it to begin breaking down the mess, making it easier to clean and preventing it from leaving a stain. If you simply spray the cleaner and then blot it up with your rag, you won’t notice any change, and the cleaner may begin working on the rag. Sure, this will make it easier to clean the rag, but this doesn’t help clean the carpet.

After the five minutes have passed, return to the mess. Whether or not the mess is still visible, dip another spot of your rag into the water and blot the spot. Any visible mess should now easily transfer to the rag, and if the mess is no longer visible, then you’re collecting the remains of both the mess and the cleaner into the rag.

Sanitize the Spot

While the cleaner should have cleaned the mess, it’s understandable to be grossed out by the fact that it was caused by your baby’s spit-up. If you feel this way, then there are a few ways you can further sanitize the spot. If it isn’t in direct sunlight, then you can put some three percent hydrogen peroxide into a spray bottle and lightly mist the now-clean spot, then feather in the peroxide. 

If the spot is in direct sunlight, if your carpet won’t react well to peroxide, or if you’d simply prefer to use something else, then instead mix water and vinegar into a spray bottle, spray the spot, and dry it thoroughly with a towel or rag.

Watch the Process

You can watch me use this process to clean my carpet here:

Avoid Direct Sunlight

I mentioned before to avoid using peroxide on a spot that is in direct sunlight. This is because peroxide will react to light and heat, breaking it down into water, oxygen gas, and heat. The more peroxide is exposed to light and heat, the faster this will occur. Of course, this makes using it as a cleaning agent useless, but if there’s enough heat around, it could potentially start a fire. Granted, with the heavily diluted kind I recommended, this is unlikely, but it’s best not to take chances.

Neutralize Your Cleaner

After the mess has been cleaned up, you’ll want to neutralize your cleaner. If you used peroxide, this step might not be necessary. Mix some vinegar and water into a spray bottle, and lightly spray where you used your carpet cleaner. Then, dry this spot with a towel. If you skip this step, the spot you just cleaned may become dirty again as the dirt begins to cling to the fibers.

Test Your Cleaner Before Use

Testing your carpet cleaner, of any type, before using it is paramount, as failing to do so can cause you to use the wrong one and damage your carpet, stain your carpet further, or both. To ensure the cleaner won’t ruin your carpet and make the stain worse, test it first on an inconspicuous spot that you wouldn’t pay attention to otherwise and see what happens. 

If the cleaner damages your carpet, stains it, or produces some other unwanted effect, stop using it and try again with another cleaner. If nothing bad happens, then you can safely use it to clean messes and stains on your carpet with no issues.

Babies can be quite messy, and cleaning spit up from anything is always a tedious and icky process. However, by following these simple steps, this process can be made stress-free, easy, and fast.

Happy Spotting!

-Katie