What Is the Squishy Toy Trend on TikTok? Parents Warn Against the Dangerous Fad
Several kids were seriously burned by their squishy toys.
Published July 23 2025, 1:51 p.m. ET
Parents are issuing a warning about the squishy toy trend on TikTok after several little kids were seriously injured while attempting the social media fad. The squishy toys are made of food-grade silicone, and they were designed for stress relief, sensory play, and to decrease fidgeting.
Unfortunately, the new trend has kids doing other things with the squishy toys, and it led to one little girl ending up in a coma and a little boy being severely burned.
What is the squishy toy trend on TikTok?
The squishy toy trend on TikTok is people heating up their squishy toys in order to cut them open and play with the insides. The trend is making the rounds on the social media platform, but now, parents are warning others about the dangers. Despite a warning on the toys that specifically advises people not to heat, freeze, or microwave the toys because it may cause them personal injury, the squishy toy trend took off.
A little boy in Orem, Utah, got third-degree burns after doing the squishy toy TikTok challenge. The 8-year-old warmed up the toy in the microwave, and the gel from inside the toy exploded on him. The child spent 18 days in the hospital and required several skin graft surgeries.
Another child from Festus, Missouri, was seriously burned by the squishy toy TikTok trend after she also heated up her toy in the microwave, and her father heard her "blood-curdling scream" as the toy exploded in her face and chest, per Tyla.com. The little girl was placed in an induced coma because doctors were afraid the burns on her mouth would cause her airways to close after swelling up.
"She'd frozen the NeeDoh cube the night before, and the next day she showed me it was rock solid and was playing with it," said the girl's father. "She stuck it in the microwave. I was watching her and saw her touch it to check it wasn't too hot when she pulled it out. It all happened so quickly. I heard her scream, and it was like a blood-curdling scream. It had exploded all over her chest, mouth and chin.”
"My first thought was to try and wipe it off her," he continued. "Whenever I touched her, my hand stuck to her. It was really thick and sticky. I ripped her shirt off of her, because it was stuck to her shirt as well. I took her as quickly as I could to the hospital. I was a complete mess. She spent a week in the hospital, and for three days of that, she was in the coma. I don't think I could speak to anybody without crying the entire time."
Her mother added that the little girl saw videos of people microwaving the squishy toys on TikTok, and she wanted to try it herself. "She was still screaming when we got to the hospital, and it's a good 30-minute drive from where we live. It was terrible how scared she was and how much that hurt her. ... It was something she followed that she'd seen on TikTok and YouTube."
The girl's parents want other parents to know the dangers of the squishy toy trend, and her father advised that parents throw the toys away.
"I would have never thought of something exploding outside of the microwave like that," said the father. "For that to happen to my daughter was the hardest thing that I've gone through. I've told absolutely everyone to throw them out if they have them."