How to Clean Your Car: Kid Edition

Summertime can be tough if you’re a parent. For most parents, summertime means you get a break from driving your kids between different school activities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your car gets a break from the mess your kids tend to make in it.

It’s okay if you want to keep your car clean and save it from the playtime mess. After all, your car is often in the public eye when you park it outside the grocery store, or just about anywhere you go. It’s not unreasonable to want your car to look presentable. So it doesn’t matter if you’re cleaning your car for shipping, selling or simply because you want it to look nice, these tips ought to be helpful.

Prevent Clutter Buildup

It’s easier to avoid clutter from accumulating in your car than it is to regularly clean it. If your kids aren’t babies anymore, there’s no reason why you can’t keep a designated “trash can” bag. At the very least, doing this will prevent you from having to sort through the things in your car and try to figure out what’s trash and what items your kids still want.

To keep your car even more tidy, you can ask your kids to remove everything from the car after every trip. To enforce this rule, you can tell your kids that you’ll assume anything they leave behind is trash, so you’ll throw it away. But you’ll have to be strict. You can’t tell your kids you’ll throw things away and then clean it up after them anyway. If your kids leave something in the car you assume they still want, ask them about it, and if they still want it, tell them to go fetch it out of the car so it doesn’t land in the trash. However, make a rule that you’ll only ask them about the same item three times, and if it’s still there, you donate it to charity or throw it out.

This will not only keep your car cleaner, but it will also help your kids to learn about taking care of their things.

Preventing Food Spills

Kids, food and cars are a terrible combination, so it’s always best to avoid it when you can. If your kids regularly eat in the car, there’s almost no doubt you’ll find cookie crumbs and soda stains whenever you’re cleaning out your car.

So, obviously it’s good to avoid allowing your kids to eat in the car when you can. But, as a parent, you’ll know that’s not always possible.

Luckily there are a few things you can do to minimize the chances of a really bad spill. For starters, it’s good to keep something like sippy cups in your car so you can pour any drinks in there before handing it to your kids. Even if your kids are already too old for sippy cups, you could make an exception in the car to prevent spills.

Furthermore, it’s great to have some seat covers. You could literally cover your seats with a sheet that has holes cut in it for the seatbelt buckles. Sure, the idea doesn’t sound glamorous, but your kids won’t be small forever, so the temporary inconvenience might be worth it to keep your car seats looking good for longer.

If you’re going to drive a long distance, like when you go on holiday, it’s also good to pack a basket of food that won’t easily spill. Like fruit pieces, dried fruit, chicken nuggets, fish fingers or anything that won’t easily drip or make too many crumbs can work.

On top of all those things, it can definitely help to always have some wet wipes handy. You don’t want your kids wiping their dirty hands off on the car seats!

Keep Your Car Smelling Fresh

So, unfortunately the mess your kids leave in the car might not smell too pleasant. Luckily there are a few things you can do to keep it smelling fresher.

• Don’t allow your kids to take their shoes off in the car. Either this, or make a special shoe basket so that you don’t have smelly, sweaty socks left behind in your car whenever you get out. Tell your kids to choose whether or not they want to wear their shoes in the car before they get in, so they don’t take off their shoes at any time during a ride.
• Once again, food can be a big problem. Create a bag where your kids can leave their empty sippy cups once they’re done, and have a special designated leftovers container for when your kids don’t want to finish their food when they were eating in the car.

Cleaning The Car

Okay, keeping your car clean and cleaning it to begin with isn’t exactly the same thing. But now that you know how to keep your car cleaner once you’ve put in the effort to clean it, you should be excited to get started on the cleaning project.

For the most part, cleaning your car is like anything else. You’ll have to sort through all the stuff inside, then throw away the garbage while keeping the toys and things in a separate pile to deal with later.

It’s once you’ve got all the stuff out when things often get worse. This is usually when you discover stains, crumbs and other things. After a thorough vacuuming, you just need to remove any stains. This can often be done using a dry carpet shampoo. Simply follow the directions as is on the pack of the product you’re using.

Clean For Auto Shipping?

If you’re cleaning your car to have it shipped, let Shipping A Car help you make that possible. We pride ourselves in providing reliable car shipping services at a competitive rate. And we promise to return your car to you every bit as clean as when you handed it over!