Need Advice on Washing Cloth Diapers

I'm glad you asked about cloth diapers because I was about to post a similar question as I decided once the baby arrives I'd like to try using cloth diapers as much as possible. - Stay well - C.

Fill a spray bottle with 1/2 distilled white vinegar and 1/2 water...I keep it next to the changing table. Spray the poopy diapers with it before putting them in the dirty diaper bin. Then when washing a load, put them on prewash, heavy duty cycle, cold/cold with about 1/2 c. white vinegar. After the prewash do the normal cycle with detergent on hot/cold. I use FuzziBunz and they come absolutely clean everytime.

When my mom used cloth diapers on my youngest sister we had a bucket of bleach water we used to soak them before they were put in the wash. We'd wash out the diapers in a the clean water toilet and get most of the yuckyness off. Then put them in the bucket of bleach water. every night mom would wash those diapers in hot water, with a little more bleach and double rinse them. She'd add softener to the second rinse cycle so they would come out soft and smelling good. This was over thirty years ago so maybe they have something better now. I'd try the old and true way though. Good luck!!!

When we CD'd the trick for keeping the poop stains away (other than sun, because that works amazingly well too), was a cold water soak before the wash. I also used those disposable liners so that I could roll the majority of the poop off. Desitin is no good because it does not wash off in the machine (not water soluble). I think you'd need something hardcore - like acetone - to get it off. There are CD friendly bum creams on the net if you do a search.

Oh, and don't dry the poop stained diaper in the dryer - sun it first, as the dryer will set the stain.

I also use BumGenius diapers and love them! You are right, you can't use diaper creams unless you line the diaper. I messed up once and didn't line the diaper and you can still see where the cream got on the diaper!! As for other stains (poop stains.. etc)I wouldn't worry about them. If you hang them in the sun while they are still wet the sun will take care of the stains. It really works!
I also use Charlie's Soap to wash my diapers. Here is the recommended wash cycle:
Cold wash and rinse
Hot wash with detergent
Cold rinse
Cold rinse

Good luck!

B. F.
You are so full of excitement, very awesome to hear. I would love for you to visit gotgreennow.fourpointmoms.com or just email me at ____@____.com. There are some really good products to help with the laundry. Yuk if you must do them by hand.

Hi, you have received good washing instructions already...I just wanted to add that I still believe in the old method of rinsing poop in the toilet first. Then soaking all the soakers, doubles,liners (both pee and poop) and cloth diapers except the pocket diaper/covers in borax, vinegar and water. I haven't had stains or smells ever doing it this way. Hope this helps.

Hi! Good for you using cloth dipers! I wish more people would. It's not near the effort it was when our mothers were doing it. I'm not familiar with your brand of dipers (I use prefolds with Bummis covers), but this is how I wash mine. No more than 1/2 full washer, but full load of water (they need plenty of swishing room). First wash in cold, very little soap. Second wash in hot, very little soap. I wash mine in hot again with an extra rinse. In the summer I prefer to line dry, the sun does a fantastic job of taking care of any staining. And yes, Desitin is not advised with cloth diapers, however in a pinch I have used it but only sparingly and definitly with a liner. One of the best websites I have found for cloth diapering supplies and advice is GreenMountain Diapers. They have a great little handbook on cloth diapering questions and many, many products. Extra bonus is their super fast service! Congradulations on making an excellent choice for you, your baby and the environment.

You have a bunch of responses already some good some very bad, PLEASE DON'T USE BLEACH OR OTHER CHEMICAL TO GET YOUR DIAPERS WHITE!!!

Washing in cold first has worked for almost all our diaper stains, and the sun has taken care of the rest...no nasty chemicals needed!!!!

I too highly recommend Charlies Soap it is great, but be prepared to use it for all your washing, and say good by to fabric softeners (they leave residue, very bad for diapers). We still use pretreated for stains, Baby Oxy Clean on occasion to sanitize, and use distilled vinegar as a softener sometimes too.

If you have top loader the washing instruction below are great. If you have a new high tech front loader you will probably need to run three full cycles (a cold,a hot, a warm) to get enough water through the diapers. If you need more info on this contact me directly and I will let you know what exactly has worked for me.

DIAPER CREAM, the lovely part of cloth diapers is that you will very rarely need diaper cream. The ones you mentioned have fish oils in them and will stain your diapers and make them smell like fish...yucky. We have not had a problem with using Aquaphor, Lanolin or Baby Avalon Organics (Sunflower Markets carries this), but it is still always best to use a liner when applying any creams.

My 2 sense!

When you wash all your CDs attach the velcro to the main strip on the front of the dipe and turn inside out to avoid laundering tab issues. How I wash my dipes. I have HE washer BTW
-take the inserts out
-do above with velcro
-wash cold on heavy duty cycle with baking soda
-wash hot on heavy duty cycle with 1/2 amt of deteregent (I use Sun free and clear it is like $6 for a large box and CD friendly)
-wash hot on heavy duty cycle w/ vinegar in rinse slot

no stinkies, no stains.

i use northern essence diaper rash cream. don't use any non approved rash creams because of repealing issues and it decreases resale value of your dipes

Hey B.

Pre-Spot and Sol-U-Mel work GREAT on baby made stains, they don't have any chlorine or abrasives, that are harmful for the baby, and no phosphates that are bad for the waterways! I only mention that because if you're using Earth Friendly Diapers...you must be somewhat concerned about the Environment! I do not sell they products, but I do know how you can get them direct from the manufacture at 30-40% off Retail prices if you're interested!

Good Luck!
J.
Helping Educate Moms on ways to be more Environmentally Friendly! www.SaferisBetter.com/4myfam

Wow, I thought there would be a ton of responses, there is one easy, and free way to get the poop stains completly out. Hang the diapers outside on the line or a drying rack for 5-8 hours on a sunny day. The sun will bleach them, they will look brand new. I have been cloth diapering for 5 years and my diapers are not stained at all. I even hang them out in the sun during the winter, they might freeze but they will bleach. I just bring them inside to dry later. This works great for stains on clothing too, colors and whites. Give it a try. Don't run your diapers through the dryer, don't use bleach, don't use any harsh detergents or cleaners, I've never had a problem with desitin. But I did get a rash ointment from my doctor to try and it permanently stained the diapers. I don't remember what it was called but just be careful. I use desitin and Baby Badger products. They work great

I agree with one other person - the sun! Since we happen to be washing diapers really often (another story), I don't usually have time to put them out, and we do get poop stains. I don't worry about those because at some point when I dry them outside they will go away.

Can you use bleach? I just read an article to run just bleach and water through your washer after a load of cloth diapers as the fecal matter bacteria can remain even with hot water and get onto the next load. Just a FYI.

I used Charlie's Soap on cloth diapers and it worked great on taking out stains (we breastfed also) and it did not leave any detergent residue to affect the diaper absorbancy:

http://www.charliesoap.com

its not a cheap product but it comes in a big jug with a measured pump and it seems to last forever.

I also found a residue-free oxy product (might be like the one you're using already:

http://www.oxyboost.com/products/oxy_boost.html

I don't know much about the diaper cream issue, except that yes, any product causing an absorbancy issue for the cloth would not be a problem if it stayed between a liner and the baby.

Here are some sites I used for cloth diaper care advice, not sure if they'll tell you anything new or not - I think the detergent residue issue discussed on one of these pages would be similar to potential residue left by a diaper cream - if you think it might be a problem, maybe switch to an all-natural one cream like Boudreaux (might have spelled that wrong):

http://www.bummis.com/en/Detergent-Residues.html
http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/washing-diapers.htm

:) J.

Everything I know about cloth diapering I learned from the Internet. I don't use bum genius myself, but the washing method I use is from diaperpin.com. It sounds very involved, but a lot of the rinses are built right into your wash cycle, so it's easier than it looks. Also, nothing--I mean nothing--gets out poo stains like baking soda. We buy a big bag at costco every month or so. I'm not certain, but oxyclean may also affect absorbancy. As for diaper creams, I think anything on fleece can affect absorbancy, but mostly you want to avoid oily creams like a and d. A good list for creams is on pinstripesandpolkadots.com. We use balmex with good results, but you might find that diaper rash is not a big issue with cloth. A lot of people think rashes are caused by disposable diapers. Finally, babycenter has a cloth dipaering bulliten board that is very helpful, or feel free to email me with any questions. I'm a touch obsessed with cloth diapering. Good luck!

I used Desitin with my son's cloth diapers and had no problem with it.

I put soiled diapers in a diaper pail with disinfectant in it, after rinsing the diaper out in the toilet. Every other day or so I washed the diapers in hot water with detergent and dried and folded them so that they would be ready for use.

It is not hard.

Congratulations on your son. He will bring you a lot of joy.

We have been using BumGenius for 7 months now and love them. We do the recommended cleaning with Allen's soup (that's what Fuzzi Bunz recommends, and we started out with a few of those too). I have bad pollen allergies, so we don't sun them, which I know would UV bleach the stains out. I have found that some poops may leave a little stain on the insert or the liner, but after repeated washings and wearings, they fade over time. We wash every other day and use a dry pail. We don't shake out poops yet, as I am still almost exclusively bf my little girl. I have had to strip the diapers once with Dawn detergent after 6 months of wear. I think that we had to because our normal laundry soap is grapefruit based, and may leave a slight residue in the machine (we have the old school top loader). Most diapers are still looking brand new -- the stains will fade.

We've only had diaper rash once, and used disposables for a couple days without any creams and that cleared it right up.

I'm surprised at stains on the BG 3.0. The only time we ever have stains is on the cotton diapers. Sunning is the best method. BacOut is another option to try.

Here's the cloth diaper manufacturers' recommendations on laundering.

http://www.modernmommygear.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/r...

YES! Desitin will stain and cause your diapers to repel. If you absolutely need ointment, try Grandma Els or Kissaluvs Diaper Potion.

http://www.modernmommygear.com/Diaper_Accessories_s/28.htm

I'd suggest using a fleece liner with any ointment.

I love my Bumgenius diapers!! Just follow the washing instructions that came with it. ONce cold wash with 1/4 detergent, one hot wash with 1/4 detergent. you can do an extra rinse if you like (I do every few washes) and it recommends to only use a 1/4 cup bleach once a month. Also, I add Borax to my cold wash on occasion and let it soak for about 20-30 mins before I actually let the cycle start. Hanging in the sun does wonders.
Make sure you are using a "clean detergent." NO color, scents, brighteners, phosphates: all these build up in the cloth and will decrease the absorbency. (Planet, Seventh Generation, there's a few more can't recall)
Bumgenius also recommends a DRY pail. When I change my daughter I usually separate the liner and rinse it with cold water before throwing it in the pail. good luck.
check out cottonbabies.com for TONS of info on washing your diapers and comparatives of detergents.

I used a service when I used cloth diapers, but my sister was diapered mostly with cloth diapers that we owned (she's 9 years younger than I am, so I remember all sorts of things!)

As soon as we took the diaper off, if it was a poo diaper, we rinsed it out. Then it went into a bucket of bleach water to soak. Not a lot of bleach, just a little (you can adjust the amount of bleach as you see what works/doesn't) Then wash the diapers regular with your baby detergent. That worked for us.

As for Desetin - what can I say. I, personally, love Desetin, prefer it to anything else. We used that for my sister, also. I know that my service said not to use Desetin because of the amount of zinc in it - it jacks with their EPA rating washing a bunch of diapers with Desetin and (according to them) it stains. We never got stains when my sister was little, so I'm not sure why they would say they got stains - must have been whatever they used to wash them, I guess.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents - not sure it's helpful, but there you go!

When I wash cloth diapers, I always run them through on a cold water cycle first, with no detergent, and then run them through on a hot water wash with detergent and an extra rinse--so two wash cycles. Also, you want to use the largest setting on your washer--even if you don't have that many diapers. It allows the diapers to circulate in the water and get cleaner. Of course, drying outside is great too.

My sister does a wet soak for poopy diapers--she puts some borax and washing soda in a pail with cold water, and puts poopy diapers there until she washes them (after shaking out the poop into the toilet.)

Good Luck!

I've never used them, but when I looked into it the website says to wash them once with detergent in cold water, & then twice with no detergent in hot water??

Hi B.,

I love my BumGenius and don't have stains(although who really cares, they are diapers!).

I use my top loader as diaper storage. Fill it with cold water and a small squirt of detergent (tide) and about 1/3 cup baking soda, and take the diapers apart (keep the outsides snapped but unsnap the insides), attach the velcro tabs to the velcro inside the diaper, shake out any clumps of poop into the toilet (probably not an issue with newborn), and toss the diaper into the cold water (yes, sometimes there is still a lot of poo). When the washer is full or I'm low on diapers, I run the cold cycle. When it is done, I repeat the detergent and baking soda with hot water. I try to hang the covers to dry, but sometimes throw the whole shebang in the drier if I'm in a hurry.

I have never used anything else on them, since I had a friend who used bleach in her diapers and they weren't waterproof anymore, but maybe she used too much?

Good luck, and congrats on your new bundle of joy!