How do you wash your cloth diapers?

arly1983

New member
How do you wash your cloth diapers? I think I will be using Charlie's soup. Any suggestions? baking soda? vinigar? Extra rinse? Cold/Hot water? We will be using Mummis whisper wraps and bum genius at night.
 
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scatterbunny

New member
I just followed the directions for the Fuzzi Bunz, and wash in hot. If dd was still pooping in diapers I'd do a cold rinse first. I dry on low. It probably differs depending on the type and brand of dipes, though.
 

SPJ&E

New member
I used Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers. I used a dry pail...actually I just used plastic grocery bags that I'd hang by the washer, never had any stinky problems. I washed every other day and used Sun Classic detergent (great for cloth diapers and baby clothes). About once a week, I used some baking soda in the wash and vinegar in the rinse. Here's what I did:

Cold rinse (plain water)
Hot wash/cold rinse with just a small amount of detergent
A second cold rinse
Dry on low

If you notice they are stinking, even after being washed and dried, or they are leaking a lot, they probably have build up. If you get build up, that means you're using too much detergent...you really don't need much at all...just a few tablespoons. If you do get a case of build up, what you have to do is hot wash them (plain water) over and over until you see no bubbles in the water...then you should be fine.
 

scatterbunny

New member
I forgot, I also do an extra cold rinse at the end of the wash cycle--I have my washer set up to do an extra rinse on every load, just because I like to be extra-sure the soap is rinsed out. :)
 

Stresch

New member
For our diapers (mostly prefolds, a few fuzzibunz) we do a cold soak/prewash cycle, a hot wash with 2mls of Allen's Naturally, a cold rinse, 30 minutes on hot in the dryer to fluff, hang to dry the rest of the way.

We have softened well water, but it's still pretty hard. We have never needed vinegar or soda. We only need to strip diapers occasionally, and then mostly the fuzzibunz.
 

racesmom

Senior Community Member
I've read about Charlie's causing burn type rashes, jsyk.

We use Purex F&C or Sun in hard water. I use about 1/3 to 1/2 cap in a super size top loader, HOT wash, extra rinse, dry on hot (everything except nylon).
 

Dillipop

Well-known member
We use purex free and clear, about half the recommended amount. (How much you need will depend on your water type. Soft water needs less than hard water, I think.) I do a long hot wash and then 2-3 warm rinses, sometimes with a little vinegar in a downy ball. I use a dry pail and rinse all poopy diapers before they make it to the pail, mainly because I use my mom's washer and that's what she says I must do! HTH and good luck finding a good wash routine. It can sometimes take a while.
 

scatterbunny

New member
Wow, it just hard to believe a soap that puts its MSDS sheet on the website has anything in it that would burn a child! :eek:

We have really hard water. Right now I have the dye/perfume-free Sun.
 

MagnificentMama

Senior Community Member
Hot Wash, Cold Rinse. I boil every 6 months or so, but i've been known to go a little soap crazy so i've always had build up issues.

I've always used DeoComplete in Tea Tree and Lavendar. Uhhhmmm... I still use DeoComplete and we haven't been diapering in almost 2 years :eek: It smells so yummy and it gets all my laundry clean
 

Lea_Ontario

Well-known member
I rinse anything messy.
Then put everything into a dry pail.
I wash every 1 to 2 days.

I run a cold cycle (wash and rinse) with about 2/3 of the recommended amount of Tide ColdWater.
I follow with a long hot wash / hot rinse cycle with no detergent.

Sometimes I put some vinegar in the softener compartment during the hot wash cycle.

I hang dry.
 

nisi

Senior Community Member
How do you wash your cloth diapers? I think I will be using Charlie's soup.

Well, for starters, I definitely don't recommend washing them in soup ;) (sorry, the image of washing diapers in a nice yummy veggie soup just struck me as funny :D )

But seriously, there are as many ways to wash diapers as there are CD-ing families. Some people don't do anything special, others (like me) spend months figuring out a workable wash routine. You'll go nuts trying to determine the "best" way to wash them.

I think the most basic wash routine would go something like...
initial rinse to get all the "ick" out
warm or hot wash cycle with modest amount of detergent
regular rinse (part of the wash cycle on the machine)
additional rinse if needed

My advice is to start with that, and if you have specific problems (persistent stink, buildup, whatever) then make changes as needed. Hopefully you'll be lucky and this will work fine for you. :)
 

arly1983

New member
Thanks everyone for the advise. The more I researched the more conflicting opinions and advise I got even about what kind of soap (soup) to use. This has helped me out alot. I now have a routine to start out with and we will go from there. I am suppossed to get our new diapers today. Yay. So we will be washing them about three times. ;)
 

Splash

New member
I'm late to the party...

In the beginning of Charlie's life, we did a hot wash with some Sun detergent and an extra rinse.

Then we moved on to daily diaper washing with two hot washes and lots of bleach and then two warm washes to get the bleach out. Yes, we killed diapers quickly, but not as quickly as I had feared.

Now I do a cold wash with about half a teaspoon of laundry soap. Then a hot wash with 1/2 cup baking soda and a few teaspoons table salt with a bit of vinegar. Occasionally I grind up some bar soap to throw in as well.

We use mostly pockets and microfiber, so easy to clean stuff. Some hemp, which is difficult to get clean, but it works just as well.

I do bacout on every fourth wash or so.

I almost never strip diapers. I've never needed to. I think I might have done it twice, but those were fitteds. I've never stripped my pockets.
 

Lea_Ontario

Well-known member
Why table salt Splash ? That is a new concept for me.


I do use a bit of bleach on a fairly regular basis. Since we hang dry indoors, we don't have the benefit of the dry heat (dryer) or the UV rays (outdoors) for killing bacteria.
 

Splash

New member
For flavor, of course!

Eh, I don't know. It was something someone told me to do once, and I didn't really question it. Salt is cheap, so even if it doesn't help, it's not doing any harm or costing me more than a buck a year, if that.
 

Kellyr2

New member
I use NFB's Clean Diaper Wash - www.naturalfamilyboutique.com
I sometimes rinse in cold first, not always. I sometimes soak in hot after the rinse/before wash, not always. it all just depends on how much time I have. On sunny days every few weeks, i sun stains out. For the wash itself, hot water, NFB clean diapers, that's it. cold rinse. dryer on high. into a basket to be folded, errr... to sit there until they all get used up and then the process repeats lol.
 

lynsgirl

New member
A bit late to this, but oh well. I use mostly FB, with a couple of BG and HH thrown in. I have a mix of cotton terry and hemp inserts and a couple of natural/unbleached prefolds.

I have a dry pail (actually from Cosco :eek: lol) where I put inserts on one side and pockets on the other. I usually wash every day. Sometimes I skip a day. I do a light/short cold soak and wash with about a teaspoon of Bioquest. I do the cold soak for anywhere from 15-30 minutes, depending on if I forget them :p . Then I let it run through the cycle. After that, I put them on a warm/hot wash, long cycle, with another teaspoon of Bioquest and one additional cold rinse. About once a month, I do a pre-rinse to get rid of any buildup - pretty much whenever it starts stinking ;), which isn't *too* often. I've never done stripping, but I'm considering it. I put the inserts in the dryer and hang up the pockets.
 

kangato2roos

New member
Also piping in a bit late...

You have to do trial and error, find what works for you. Yes, you're finding a lot of conflicting information. Wash routine A might work for some people, while wash routine B works better for others, while on some families both might cause horrid build-up.

We use fuzzi bunzs (dh does, I hate them, he loves them) and prefolds/covers (I love them, he hates them :rolleyes: ). What works for me is a dry pail, dump the poop in the toilet (when he was exclusively breastfed the poopy diapers went straight into the pail... can't do that with solid food poo). I wash every other day or two. I cold soak for about an hour or two (if I have time, if not, no soak... doesn't seem to affect it much if I miss a few soaks) with oxiclean to help with any staining, then super hot wash with a few tablespoons of Tide, cold rinse with a little vinegar, cold rinse with nothing, dry on medium in the dryer. I also only use one setting above the actual size of the load... if it's small, I wash on medium, if it's medium, I wash on large. I find washing on the largest setting all the time doesn't work to get all the detergent out for my routine.

Some people can't use Tide without it causing build-up. I, luckily, don't have that problem as Tide is literally the ONLY detergent I can use. Anything else, including the free-and-clear stuff and the hypoallergenic stuff, causes horrid rashes in myself and my kids. For some reason we aren't allergic to Tide but we are to literally everything else. Go figure.

I've only ever had a build-up issue twice and that was with the pocket diapers only... never an issue with the prefolds. Pockets are tricky in the wash, I've learned.

For you, no detergent/baking soda only might work, or detergent with vinegar, or detergent and baking soda, or just detergent, or something else might work. I say start with the simplest routine and stick with it unless it causes you problems. If so, ask questions and revise your routine until you find something that works for you.
 

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