Somebody who follows the shop mentioned that a child in her house pushed the adapter more easily than the bare pump head. I had not thought about that at all — I made this for my own hands — so I went and looked properly at what a basin needs before a child can work it alone, and this is what I found.
Most of the advice on this is good and most of it is free. A stool, a towel where a hand can reach it, a bottle that does not slide. There is one item that gets skipped in nearly every list, and it is the soap.
If you only read one line.
A stool solves reaching. A foaming bottle, about two pounds and not something I sell, solves a pump that is too stiff. What neither solves is that a pump top is the size of a 5p coin, so it can only really be pushed with a fingertip. If the push is there but the pump only offers room for a finger, a wider top is what I make, and it is the only part of the whole setup that goes in a bag and comes with you.
On this page
1. Why the pump is the part that gets skipped
Every self-care station list covers the same ground, and it is sound: a step stool to reach the sink, a towel on a low rail rather than threaded through a ring, a mirror at the right height, everything within reach on a tray. Then it gets to the soap and goes quiet, or it says buy a sensor dispenser.
That is a shame, because the soap is the step that actually stops the routine. Reaching is solved by a stool once, permanently, for about fifteen pounds. The pump is met twenty times a day. And if you are in the middle of potty training, it is twenty times a day with a toddler who wants to get on with it.
The reason it is hard is worth knowing, because it changes what you buy.
2. Why a hand works where a fingertip does not
A soap pump asks for about 28 newtons.
Roughly the weight of a 3 kg bag of potatoes, pushed straight down. I know this because I measured three supermarket bottles — nobody else publishes the number — and two people got the same reading on every one, one with neuropathy and one with no hand problems at all. The pump sets the price and it does not come down for a smaller person.
But a fingertip is the weakest possible way to pay it.
A fingertip press is made by the small muscles of a hand, working through the joints of one finger. A flat palm has the forearm, the shoulder and the weight above them behind it in a straight line. A fist is the same idea. Two hands stacked, more so again. These are very different amounts of available push, from the same body, in the same minute.
And a small contact patch gives up before the force does.
Force divided by area is pressure, and pressure is what skin feels. The same 28 newtons is around 280 kPa on a fingertip and around 14 kPa on a palm — ten to twenty times less. Which is why a press often stops because it is uncomfortable rather than because the push was not there.
So the problem is the shape of the top.
A pump head is a flat disc 15 to 25 mm across, and that shape invites exactly one grip. All of the above stays theoretical until there is somewhere to put a hand.
That is the whole of what I make. PALM is a 62 mm disc — about a drinks coaster — that fits over the pump you already own, in seconds, with no tools. It turns a fingertip job into a hand job, or a two-hands job, which is the version that matters at a basin because it frees the other arm to catch the soap instead of holding the bottle steady.
To be exact about it: it does not make the pump lighter.
I measured the same bottle bare and fitted and got 2,944 g against 2,938 g — a smaller gap than between two different people pressing that same bare bottle. There is no lever in it. What changes is not the price, it is what you are allowed to pay it with, and a hand can pay it far more easily than a finger can. Those are two different statements and both are true.
3. It goes with them — nursery, grandparents, days out
This is the part I would want to know as a parent, and it is the thing nothing else on the list can do.
Every other fix is bolted to one sink.
A toddler step stool stays in your bathroom. The tap extender stays on your tap. A sensor dispenser is a unit with a tank and batteries that lives where you put it. All of that is fine, and it means a child manages at your basin and nowhere else.
This comes off in seconds and goes in a pocket.
62 mm across, 10.5 mm thick. It goes in a changing bag, a nursery bag, a coat pocket, a suitcase. So it works at a grandparent's house, at a friend's, in a café, in a hotel, on the first day at nursery. Off the bottle at home, onto the bottle there, and off again. That is a different proposition from managing only in one room.
If you are potty training and dreading being out of the house, the soap is one of the several things that is different out there, and it is the one you can actually bring an answer to.
Two honest notes on that.
Public toilets are often easier than home — a lot of them have wall dispensers with a long lever you push with a whole hand, which needs nothing from me. And it only helps if the pump you meet is a shape it fits, which is not every pump.
4. Choosing a colour
I print these to order, one at a time, so if you want a colour other than the ones listed, message me and ask. I will do it if I have the filament, and I will tell you straight away if I do not.
It is a message rather than a menu — I am one person with a printer, not a catalogue — but people ask and the answer is usually yes. Being able to pick the colour of the thing on your own bottle seems to me a fair thing to want, and it costs me nothing to offer.
Ask about a colour. WhatsApp comes straight to my phone.
5. Setting the basin up, starting with the free things
In order of what costs least.
Stop the bottle sliding. Free.
The one nobody mentions and the one that changes the most. Working a pump is two jobs at once — push down, catch what comes out — and a bottle standing loose on a wet worktop skates away from any push that is not perfectly vertical. Then neither job happens.
Stand it in a corner where two walls hold it, or on a rubber mat, or wedge it against the tap. A bottle that cannot move can be leaned on with both hands. Worth knowing: a nearly empty bottle tips before it pumps, so a fuller one is steadier, which is the opposite of what you would expect.
Put everything where a hand already is. Free.
Towel on a low rail rather than through a ring. Soap on the near edge of the basin, not pushed to the back behind the taps. Nothing that has to be reached across water.
A step stool. About £15.
Solves reaching, once. A wide two-tier one for a standard-height sink. This is the item every list opens with and it earns its place.
A foaming bottle. About £2. Not one of mine.
The only common fix that lowers the 28 newtons rather than changing how you supply them — it pushes soap and air through a mesh instead of thick liquid through a narrow valve, so the action is genuinely lighter. Fill an empty one with ordinary hand soap diluted about one part soap to four parts water.
It also gives a smaller dose per press, which is the answer if what happens in your bathroom is half the bottle on the floor. I do not sell one. There are no affiliate links on this site and I earn nothing from saying this.
A wider top to press. £9.99. This one is mine.
Once the bottle is steady and within reach, the remaining limit is the size of the thing being pushed. That is what the disc is for, and everything in the two sections above applies.
6. The rest of the kit, including what I do not sell
A sensor dispenser
Asks for no force at all — a hand goes underneath, soap comes out. Most self-care station lists recommend one, and if a pump cannot be worked by any means then they are right and I am not. The trade is cost, batteries, a tank to refill, and that it stays where you put it. I do not sell one.
A pot with a flip lid, or a bar of soap
No pump at all. A hand goes in. Free or nearly, less tidy, and it removes the problem rather than easing it.
A tap extender
Different problem — water rather than soap — and worth having if the reach to the tap is the sticking point. Not something I make.
Somewhere to compare without being sold to
Living Made Easy, run by the Disabled Living Foundation, is an impartial database of daily-living equipment. It lists my competitors alongside me, including things that would replace mine entirely. If you want to compare without being sold to, start there.
7. Where this is not the answer
Said plainly, because a page that only recommends its author is not worth reading.
If the pump cannot be worked at all.
A wider surface cannot find force that is not there. There is a free test: wedge the bottle into a corner so it cannot slide, and try the bare pump head with a flat hand and then with two hands. If nothing moves, a foaming bottle or a sensor dispenser is your answer, not this.
If too much soap is the problem rather than too little.
A wider top does not meter the dose. A foaming bottle gives a smaller, lighter press.
If reaching is already tight.
It sits 10.5 mm above the pump head, or 16.5 mm for the Dome fitting. Worth measuring first.
If the bottle is light and narrow.
62 mm of disc overhangs a slim bottle, so a push near the edge can tip it. The corner trick above fixes that, and it applies to anybody.
If your pump is an unusual shape.
Three fittings cover the common tops and there are heads none of them suit. The size guide has a printable gauge, or send me a photo of your pump from the side and I will tell you honestly whether it will work. If the size is wrong I exchange it free, and there are 30 days to change your mind.
And the things it is not.
It is a fitting for a pump, so it does not make a basin safe and it changes nothing about whether a child is there on their own — that is a decision for the parent and a plastic disc has no view on it.
It is not a toy and is not made or sold as one: the filament I print in, Bambu Lab PLA Pure, is certified against the EU food-contact standard (EU 10/2011) and EN 71-3 toy safety, and that is a fact about the filament, not the finished part, which no certification body has assessed.
It is hand wash only and softens above 60 °C, so warm water, no dishwasher, and not something to leave loose in a hot bath.
PALM is a daily-living aid, not a medical device — it does not treat, prevent or improve anything, and nothing here is a statement about what any child can or should be able to do. Everything above is about a bottle, a pump and the mechanics of pushing something. If the page has raised a question about your own child rather than about your soap, a health visitor, your GP or your child's nursery is the right place for it and a shop page is not.
8. Questions
Will this make the soap pump easier for my child to press?
It makes it easier to press with a hand, which is usually what was missing. The pump still asks for the same force — about 28 newtons, and I measured the same bottle bare and fitted, closer to each other than two people pressing it are. But a fingertip and a palm are not equally able to supply that. A fingertip press comes from the small muscles of one hand and lands the whole load on one joint; a palm press has the arm behind it and spreads the load across twenty times as much skin. A 62 mm surface is what makes the second one possible on a pump top that only has room for the first.
What if they cannot press it at all?
Then a wider surface will not help and I would rather say so. Wedge the bottle in a corner and try the bare head with a flat hand and with two hands. If nothing moves, a foaming dispenser or a sensor dispenser is the answer, and I sell neither.
Can we take it out with us?
Yes, and it is the main reason to choose it over a sensor dispenser. It comes off in seconds, it is 62 mm across and 10.5 mm thick, and it goes in a bag or a pocket. Nursery, a grandparent's house, holidays. It only works on a pump top it fits, and plenty of public toilets have lever dispensers that need nothing from anybody.
Can I get it in a different colour?
Message me and ask. I print to order, so if I have the filament the answer is usually yes, and if I do not I will say so straight away.
Is it safe for a child to use?
It is a fitting that clips onto a pump, and it is not a toy — the filament carries certifications, the finished part does not. Hand wash only, and it softens above 60 °C. Whether a child is at the basin unsupervised is a decision for the parent and nothing here changes it.
What is the cheapest thing to try first?
A foaming bottle, about two pounds, filled with ordinary hand soap diluted one part to four. Genuinely lighter action, smaller dose, and I do not sell one.
If the push is there and the pump only offers room for a finger, that is what I make. A 62 mm disc that clips onto the bottle you already own, comes off in seconds, moves to the kitchen when you want it there, and goes in a bag when you leave the house.
See the PALM — £9.99Will it fit mine?Ask about a colour
Nothing on this page earns me anything except the adapter. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site, and the foaming bottle, the sensor dispenser and the step stool are all things I recommend and do not sell.
Where to get proper help
A health visitor, your GP or your child's nursery is the right place for a question about your own child. A pharmacist will talk to you about hand pain with no appointment and no referral. An occupational therapist looks at your hands and your bathroom rather than at a category page, and in England you can ask your council for an assessment. Both are free. Living Made Easy, from the Disabled Living Foundation, is an impartial place to compare equipment.
PALM is a daily-living aid, not a medical device. It does not treat, prevent or improve any condition, and nothing here is medical advice.