How do you wash your cloth diapers?

[RainbowSprinkles]

We would love another baby. When I get pregnant again, I really want to use cloth diapers. I used them very briefly with my toddler. His diapers would start smelling really strong and he would get red in the private area. I eventually sold them. I just never quite figured out how to wash them the right way.

 

I would like to know how you wash your cloth diapers? And do you use regular store bought detergent or do you make your own?

[missesd]

When I was cloth diapering, I used Pre Folds. I would grab my bag from the bathroom area, that contained the "ickies" that I had used my diaper sprayer on, and the one in the laundry room that contained just the wet ones. I would throw in a 30 minute soak load, on hot, with Tide with Bleach. I may have done 1 regular shorter wash after that, but I don't remember. Lena was last in CD in 2008. Then I'd grab the Pre Folds and covers, like Bummis Super Whisper Wraps, ProRaps, and Thirsties, and throw them all in te dryer on low. After one cycle (approx 40-45 min), I'd pull the covers out, and run the PF's through another 30-40 min cycle. I NEVER had any rashes or irritation.

 

HTH~ :)

[annlaura]

I do a really quick cold wash, then a long hot wash, and 1-2 extra rinses. I often squeeze some lime juice in the final rinse. And every so often I strip with dawn. I use store-bought detergent.

[Caitilin]

You will probably get as many answers to this question as there are CDers on the board. ;) My wash routine was this:

 

If wet, remove dipe, spray with BacOut, drop in open pail (with washable liner).

If dirty, rinse with diaper sprayer, spray with BacOut, drop in open pail.

 

At the end of 2-3 days (or whenever the pail was full), I would run the washer without soap through the whole cycle in cold water, then repeat with the hottest water possible, and 1/2 the usual amount of laundry soap. You will want to do some research on what type of laundry soap to use, some are good for CDs and some are very bad, and make them water resistant. ;)

Check out Diaperswappers--there's a whole sticky devoted to this topic. :)

Good luck and happy diapering!

[bluemongoose]

I use a quick rinse or soak to help dislodge anything that was left after toilet dunking. Then a good wash with hot hot water using a detergent that is CD friendly...

 

http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm

 

 

I then did an extra rinse to make sure all the detergent is out (this is often a cause of rashes). If just BFing that was usually good enough. Once baby is eating solids or using formula, I would often use a small amount of vinegar in the rinse.

 

I did one time through with the dryer to give drying a head start and then hung them to finish. I used fitteds, so they take a bit to dry, but Daddy appreciated how easy they are to use!

[Aoife]

i do a rinse first then a hot wash with rockin green soap, then a rinse with vinegar and then an extra rinse.

 

if we get the stinkies (ammonia) I do a soak then wash with bleach and another hot wash and 2 rinse cycles.

 

If you don't have an HE front loader you can soak your dipes overnight in the hottest water you can ( I used to pour boiling water in ) with bleach.

 

Just NEVER mix bleach and vinegar!! :tongue_smilie:

 

I use mostly AIOs and fitteds with wool

[danybug]

We are using BumGenius and some prefolds with wool soakers.

 

I use Bio-Kleen powder detergent in an HE washer. I just throw everything in my diaper pail with no rinsing. After usually two days I do a soak cycle in cold water. Then I do a normal cycle in hot water. Occasionally I add some bleach and an extra rinse. If it is really sunny when I wash I will lay them out in the sun to bleach them, which really works wonders.

[stripe]

I don't mean to sound accusatory (really!) but also make sure you're changing the diapers often enough.

[LittleIzumi]

Quick cold rinse. Hot wash on white cycle with Tide to the first line. Extra cold rinse. Sometimes I'll do an extra hot rinse instead or add Ecover to the last rinse because we have very mineral-heavy water.

[ChrisOR]

We would love another baby. When I get pregnant again, I really want to use cloth diapers. I used them very briefly with my toddler. His diapers would start smelling really strong and he would get red in the private area. I eventually sold them. I just never quite figured out how to wash them the right way.

 

I would like to know how you wash your cloth diapers? And do you use regular store bought detergent or do you make your own?

 

Strong ammonia smells can indicate that the diapers aren't cleaned enough. This could be a result of difficult water. My newborn's diapers were smelling of ammonia as soon as he'd wet them.

 

In our case, it was caused by hard well water not allowing the detergent to do its job. After my initial rinse, I now add Calgon water softener to my hot wash or Borax (for the same effect). Sometimes I add a splash of bleach too. And rinse twice following the hot wash.

[sbgrace]

We had (have) extremely hard water in this town. So hard that appliance repair people from surrounding towns talk about it as it causes all kinds of issues with appliance life. It's extremely hard. But this was a struggle for cloth until I figured out how to handle it. The ammonia is likely from soap build up that didn't rinse because of water. The key is getting the soap out.

 

We found that two hot washes (second without detergent) did that here. At some point I switched to a hunter's detergent from the hunting section of walmart and it solved any problems I had. Those detergents are made to rinse well. I don't recall if I needed a second wash then or not. Hubby thinks we did but I thought not. It's been a long time.

 

You can save those diapers if you still have them. They call removing all that excess detergent stripping. I remember soaking in vinegar and boiling water but what really worked was just washing on hot (very hot--I turned up the heater) until all that soap was gone (no bubbles). I only recall doing that one time and then I learned how to keep it from building up from that point. I had a top loader in my cloth diapering days.

[Carrie12345]

I washed every 3 days or so. We stored dirties in a "dry" wet bag (no dunking or wet pails). 1 rinse cycle, 1 long, hot wash cycle, and an extra rinse at the end, in our front loader.

I didn't stick to one particular detergent brand, but always made sure to use something from the "pre-approved" lists online. Every month or two, I stripped with Dawn.

 

I'll be trying out my homemade detergent with the new baby, but I won't be able to comment on that for another week or so!

[plain jane]

My method of washing cloth diapers was to exclaim, "Honey, the diaper pail is full!" Worked every time and within a few hours I had nice, warm, clean smelling diapers. :D Never found a way to get them folded as easily though. :lol: