Why No Organizer Can Fix a Squirt Toy That Holds Water

Some toys keep water inside

We build a bath toy organizer, so you might expect us to say it fixes every wet toy. It doesn't. Some toys hold water inside themselves, and that is a different problem from the one we solved.

Think of the squirt toys. The hollow ones with a small hole in the bottom or the mouth. A child squeezes the toy under water, it fills up, and it squirts the water back out. That is the whole point of the toy. It is also why the toy holds water long after bath time.

The water sits inside the toy, behind a hole the size of a pea. No shelf, bucket, or organizer can reach that water. We wanted to say so plainly, because we'd rather you know before you buy.

Two kinds of wet toy

Here is the simple way to sort your tub toys. Ask one question: where does the water go when the toy comes out of the bath?

• Solid silicone toys. The water stays on the outside. It runs off the surface. These drain.
• Hollow toys with a hole. The water gets in through the opening and stays in. These squirt, and they hold.

A solid toy has nowhere to keep water. Tip it, set it down, and the water leaves on its own. A hollow squirter has a closed space inside, and the water in that space only leaves the way it came in, through the hole.

So when we say wet toys go in and water drains out, we mean toys where the water is on the surface. That is the claim, and we keep it exactly that size.

What Bath Buddy does with the water it can reach

Bath Buddy is two pieces. The basket where the toys sit dips toward the middle, and a tray sits underneath. Here is how it works, in the words we use on the product page:

The two parts connect precisely — you'll hear the click. Water runs off the toys and is looped down by gravity to a second level underneath. That level catches it. You dump it, wipe it with a cloth, done. Nothing pooling under the toys, nothing to scrub the next morning.

Look at the first sentence of that again. Water runs off the toys. That is the water on the outside. Gravity pulls it down and away, and the lower level catches it. A solid silicone toy gives that water up easily, so it works the way we drew it.

A hollow squirter keeps its water on the inside. Gravity can't loop that water anywhere until the toy lets it go.

The one honest limit

We publish this on the product page, right next to how the drainage works. We don't tuck it in a footnote.

It only fails one way: if the water never gets dumped. And a toy that holds water inside itself will hold it anywhere — we don't claim to fix that one.

Those are two separate limits, and both are real. The first is the routine. The bottom level catches the water, and it only does its job if you empty it. The second is the toy. A squirter holding water inside will hold it on a shelf, in a bucket, in a mesh bag, or in our organizer.

We think you deserve to hear both before you spend $39.88.

What to do with a hollow squirter

You don't have to throw the squirters out. Kids love them. Here is how we'd handle one.

• Squeeze it out first. Before it goes anywhere, squeeze the toy and let the water out of the hole.
• Shake it. A few shakes get out what the squeeze left behind.
• Then set it down. Put it with the others once the water is out.

That is a ten-second job, and it is the only fix for that kind of toy. It is a job for you, not for the organizer.

If you are shopping for new toys, the sorting question helps. Solid silicone pieces give up their water on their own. Hollow ones need the squeeze. Neither is wrong. You are just choosing how much of the work you want to do at the end of the bath.

Where the organizer earns its spot

Most of what ends up in a tub is the kind of toy that drains: cups, solid shapes, the things kids stack and pour. For those, the Bath Buddy does the job we built it for. Wet toys go in. Water drains out. Bath's over.

Two pieces click together. Gravity does the rest. The bottom level catches the water, and you dump it and wipe it with a cloth. It sits on four rubber pads, so it stays where you put it. There is nothing to mount and nothing to drill.

One note on what's in the box. Toys are not included. You get the organizer and a silicone rinse cup. Shipping is free in the contiguous US, with no minimum order.

We would rather sell you something that does one thing exactly as described than a promise that covers everything. The drainage is literal. The limit is published. And if a squirt toy is the one that keeps surprising you with a mouthful of water, now you know why, and you know the ten-second fix.

If you have a question about a particular toy, email us at hello@tiipikids.com. One of us reads it and answers.