The short answer: daycare centres ask for a name on everything your child brings. You’ll need waterproof stick-ons for bottles and containers, iron-ons for clothing and cot sheets, and a bag tag. One pack of small stick-ons plus one pack of iron-ons covers the first year for most families.
The checklist
- Bottles & sippy cups — small waterproof stick-ons; they will be washed and sterilised daily. Give a new label 24–48 hours to cure before its first wash.
- Dummies & dummy clips — mini labels.
- Lunch boxes & food containers — small or medium stick-ons on the base AND lid (lids wander).
- Clothing, spare outfits — iron-on labels in the collar; daycares fold dozens of identical tees every day.
- Hats — iron-on under the brim. Sun hats are the most-lost item in Australian childcare.
- Cot sheets & comforters — iron-on in a corner.
- Shoes — shoe labels, one per shoe, applied inside the heel with the clear cover over the top.
- The bag itself — a bag tag survives the peg-room scrum better than anything written in marker.
Why marker pens don’t cut it
Sharpie fades in the steriliser after a fortnight and turns every white singlet grey at the collar. Printed vinyl and iron-on labels stay legible for years — which matters, because the educator sorting twenty identical bottles at 5pm is going by that label.
A note on the dishwasher
Vinyl stick-on labels go in the dishwasher on the top shelf, and not on a high-temperature setting. That covers the daily bottle-and-container wash. Anything paper — bookplates, for instance — is not waterproof and belongs on books, not bottles.