You baby-proofed everything visible. Lead is the thing you can't see. Here is the plain, in-order playbook, plus the free lookups for what you already have at home.
Seven steps. Each one takes a few minutes. Do them in this order and you'll find most of the lead in your house in one afternoon.
The Fluoro-Spec kit is what you spray on a surface and shine a 365 nm UV light at to see lead light up bright green. It is what makes steps 2 and 3 work. Spray, glow, done.
See the kit →This is where most lead in homes shows up, and it is the fastest way to find a source. Drip a few drops on the painted decoration of any plate, mug, bowl, or platter your family eats off of. Bright green glow means lead.
Check your dish →Window sills, door frames, baseboards, painted trim. Anywhere a toddler puts their hand or mouth. Spray the test, shine the UV. Green glow = lead under or in the paint.
Lead dust is the actual exposure route. Most lead a toddler ingests comes from hand-to-mouth contact with dust on floors, sills, and toys. Wet-wipe the surfaces a crawling child touches; spray the wipe and see if it glows.
If your home was built before 1986, lead service lines or lead solder in the plumbing are possible. Run the cold tap for 30 to 60 seconds before drawing drinking or formula water. Order a $20 water test if you want a number.
California's AB 899 law requires baby food brands to disclose heavy-metal results by lot. Open the lot scanner, type your brand, and check the actual lot number on the jar you bought. Same product, different lot, sometimes nine times the lead.
Open the baby food lot scanner →Anywhere you found lead in steps 3 or 4, document it. Photograph the wall, note the room, mark the location with tape. That is your map for what to remediate, in what order, before the next pediatrician visit.
Two pages on the site go deep on this. Here are the four things most parents need to know in one place.
Choose the form, not the brand. Ready-to-feed formulas are 5 to 10 times cleaner than the same brand's powdered version. Powder picks up lead through processing. If your baby will take it, ready-to-feed is the easy upgrade.
Standard cow's milk formula beats the specialty kinds. Soy formulas concentrate cadmium. Goat formulas concentrate aluminum. The worst sample tested ran 11.7 ppb cadmium, twice the EPA water limit. Standard cow's milk powder is the cleaner default unless your pediatrician has a reason to override.
Cross-reference your brand against two sources. One study can be a fluke. Two studies agreeing is signal. Bobbie, Kirkland (Costco), and Similac Sensitive came up clean across both Consumer Reports and HBBF testing. The infant-formula page has the full cross-checked list. Open the formula page →
The lot is the unit, not the brand. AB 899 disclosures show the same product can vary 9× lot to lot. A single recall, a single "is X brand safe" answer, does nothing. Look up the specific jar in your hand. Open the lot scanner →
The /baby-proof page has the full room-by-room walkthrough with photos of what to look for in each spot a crawling child touches. The short list: painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes, imported dishes and decorated mugs, pre-1986 plumbing, certain toys and play jewelry, antique furniture finishes, and imported spices and folk remedies. None of them look like a hazard until you spray them.
Open the room-by-room baby-proof walkthrough →
Free, no kit required. Type in a brand or a product, see what testing has shown.
Which baby bottles on the market have been tested, by exact model and print.
18,500 baby food test results from manufacturer disclosures, searchable by lot.
What is in the formula your baby is drinking, by brand and form. Cross-checked.
Dishes, mugs, cookware by pattern and brand. See what has come back hot for lead.
Plug in your ZIP and see your county's lead-poisoning risk picture.
Lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury per serving for staple foods. Set a budget.
The Fluoro-Spec kit is what parents use to check paint, dust, and the decorations on dishes. Spray, glow under UV, done. The seven steps above all run off the same kit.
Get the kit →