Washing Cloth Diapers

Everyone seems to have their own method of washing cloth diapers…. Well everyone who diapers with cloth anyway. Most will condone a pre-wash or at least a pre-rinse before running the actual cycle. There are also differences between High Efficiency (HE) washers and regular washing machines. Some say that you MUST wash everything in Dreft for the baby, and some say that Dreft is way too mild to actually clean anything. But I can only truly vouch for my own method so far. Here it is!

I have a regular washer but my washing process doesn’t start there. When I’ve finished changing my little man, the diaper goes to the bathroom sink. I rinse out the poo and add a little bit of dove soap and do a quick hand-wash scrub to get the yellow stain mostly off. The wet diaper is then rinsed and wrung out and tossed into the hanging wet-bag on the door to the bathroom.

Every other day the whole thing gets tossed into the washer for a “small-load” wash on cold. So far, I’ve not had any troubles with staining or anything of that nature.

The detergent I use is home-made.  Its what we use on our regular clothes too, so when we discovered that the baby could be against our clothes without getting a rash, washing his clothes and diapers in it was the next step to make sure he wasn’t allergic to it.

So for you guys who like the “step-by-step”explanations,… here we go

1. Rinse off poo in sink
2. Quick rub-wash with soap (not necessary, but helpful for white diapers)
3. Toss in Wet-bag
4. Toss load in Washer with detergent
5. Run Washer on Cold