Thank you for the comments in my Why Cloth Diaper posts. The comments lead me to do this post!
I know several people wash their cloth diapers differently, this is how I have been washing mine for a few years now and haven’t had any issues as far as wicking, leaking or smells. Here is how I wash my cloth diapers, please tell me how you wash yours – link up to my McLinky at the bottom of this post!
Here are my diaper pails – nothing fancy. I have one in my kids bathroom & one in our downstairs bathroom. I haven’t used pail liners in over a year – I didn’t see why I needed it, didn’t do anything different for me.
I usually wash my cloth diapers every 3 days.
1st I wash ALL my diapers on hot, full cycle. using Purex Free & Clear Detergent. I have ONLY used this detergent ever to wash all our cloth in. I also add a few sprinkles of baking soda (maybe this is why my diapers don’t smell?) I use a full cap full because my loads are medium. Then once the hot wash is done I do a cold rinse.
2nd After my diapers are washing I bring them downstairs & put them all on pants hangers or I use my drying rack. If it’s going to rain out or if I am not going to be home I will on occassion put them in the dryer but I don’t like to do that. This seldomly happens.
3rd As I got through my diapers after the wash I look to see if any of them have soil stains, if they do I pull out my straight lemon juice I have in a spray bottle that I store in the refridgerator & spray the soiled area of the diaper & place them flat so the sun can naturally bleach the stain out.
4th I use my drying rack to hand up all my pocket diapers, covers & cloth wipes.
Since we have a small patio I use my bench swing to hand my diapers up on!
Prefolds & inserts
All in ones & fitteds
5th After all dried I bring them in put all the inserts in the pockets, etc. & put them away in my babies room!
Please tell me how you wash your cloth diapers! I would love to see how other people do it! Link up how you wash your cloth diapers to my link up – we can learn from each other!
This topic fit in perfect with a series I am running on my blog called “New to Cloth”. I put a link to this post at the top of my post. Thanks for the idea!
First I do a cold cycle with no soap. Then I do a Hot wash with Rockin’ Green detergent. And an extra cold rinse at the end. Then I do a cold wash cycle with no soap, w/ extra cold rinse. Then I dry them in the dryer
We use vinegar in the rinse. I haven’t tried baking soda, I am going to try it on the next load, because I have noticed some odor, and it bothers me. I have heard of sunning them, but the lemon juice is another great idea. If it ever stops raining here, I will do that with a few of mine! I am new to cloth, so I enjoy hearing from others. Thanks for the tips.
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My husband thinks I’m crazy, because I keep telling him how sad I’m going to be when my two-year-old actually potty trains. LOVE cloth!
I have that same can on the left for our diaper pail. We wash about every other day, because I don’t have a large stash of the pockets I like. I do cold rinse, hot wash, extra cold rinse. I use arm & hammer’s sensitive skin detergent, but most of the stores aren’t carrying it anymore for some reason. Sometimes I throw in baking soda (we have really hard water) and/or borax in the wash and sometimes I put vinegar in the rinse. I find the vinegar is the best for preventing the smellies. I never got my act together enough to line dry (add in the daily chance of rain down here), so I dry them on low.
I found your blog through one of my followers. I just wrote a post last night about how I do cloth laundry. Added my link! I love reading about other people’s routines. I didn’t know about the lemon juice, neat idea!
i’ve heard to do a cold cycle first because that helps not ‘set’ stains in as much. i hardly have any stain issues. i do a ‘quick wash’ on cold, then a heavy duty on hot, with rockin’ green. then an extra hot quick wash. :0) i don’t have anything to hang my dipes on so i’m bad and dry them all. lol.
Thanks so much for posting this. I learned a few things.
I have a stainless steep step can with a pull out inner pail for each of my diaper pails. We do use pail liners and I like not having to wash/rinse my pails out. I do spray them with Clorox AnyWhere between loads and let them air dry.
Wash routine: Cold Pre-Rinse. Hot wash with plenty of water using Rockin’ Green. Cold Rinse. If I use a good water level, I can skip the extra cold rinse at the end.
Drying: I dry all of the inserts and wipers and goodmamas in my dryer, everything else hangs dry on the rack. If it’s sunny, I put them out in the sun to dry – disinfects and gets stains out.
Love the lemon juice idea. I have also heard to do a cold cycle first.
Thanks for the lemon juice tip! I’ve heard one cloth-diaper mom say…they’re diapers…get over it…but I don’t particularly like stains and want to keep them looking as clean and fresh as possible!
Thanks for sharing… I don’t use cloth diapers yet but want to. I like to learn as much as i can about something befor etrying it. Your way of cleaning seems simple enough and has encouraged me to try even more!