Washing Your Diapers (AKA: OMG! It pooped!)

You've bought your diapers.

You've prepped your diapers.

You even put a diaper on the baby.

But then...IT happens. Your baby USES the diaper. And not as a hat. But for its intended purpose!

THE HORROR!

Actually, no. No horror! We promise. It is very easy to clean a cloth diaper, and the visions of a poop-filled washing machine you have in your head? Not gonna happen!

WASHING YOUR DIAPERS: THE BASICS

To wash your diapers, you will need a washing machine (or your hands and a bathtub if you are going to hand wash them!) and a cloth-diaper safe detergent.

WASH ROUTINES
Most wash routines consist of three parts: a pre-wash or rinse, a wash, and an extra rinse.  The specifics of each part can vary from person to person and machine to machine. Some people start with just a rinse, while some do a full wash. Some people use a small amount of detergent in the pre-wash, while some do not.  Much like the diapers themselves and the detergent, there is no one set solution that will work for everyone.

We recommend starting with some variation on the following:

1. Cold rinse (or quick wash) with no detergent
2. Hot wash with detergent
3. Extra rinse

That very basic wash routine is generally successful for a large number of people. The first rinse or wash on cold gets most of the poop off without staining. The hot wash (the hottest wash short of sanitary, which is too hot for the PUL in your diapers!) cleans the diapers. The extra rinse ensures that every bit of detergent is gone and helps prevent build up.

There is a wide range of what works within that basic set up. Some people do two full washes with an extra rinse. Some people skip the pre-rinse. Some do all cold washes; some do all hot washes. Some people use detergent in the quick wash and the hot wash. Some do two rinses at the end.  If you're having issues, you can usually tweak routine to fix them. For example, if you're having issues with buildup, you might want to try another extra rinse.

Some people find that their high-efficiency washers don't seem to work as well as regular top-loaders, because they use so little water to wash. There are a number of ways you can add extra water to your HE machine to ensure that the diapers are washed and rinsed thoroughly: you can usually add water to the cycle through the detergent drawer, you could stop the first rinse/wash cycle before it spins out so that the diapers are still soaking wet when you begin the hot wash (this tricks the machine into thinking there is more laundry in the drum, so it sends more water to wash them), or you could add a wet towel to the hot wash cycle (again, this tricks the machine into sending more water).

DETERGENT
There is a huge variety of cloth-diaper safe detergents out there, and they work completely differently from person to person. The hardness of your water, the exact chemistry of your child's urine (seriously!), the type of washer and dryer you have, the type of diaper you use...all of these factors come into play when determining how well different detergents work. Some people swear by Rockin Green; some find that it doesn't get their diapers clean at all.

You can find a list of cloth-diaper safe detergents here:

Regular washers
http://pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm

HE washers
http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/hedetergentchoices.htm

Many people choose based on what is easily accessible and what is affordable for them. If you have friends that live nearby and have a similar washing machine setup, you may want to ask them for their recommendations. You can also check this table of different wash routines to see if there is a setup similar to what you have, and try the detergent listed there.

Unfortunately, because there are a number of factors that come into play when choosing your detergent, we can't make a blanket recommendation. Try one, and if after a period of time you notice your diapers don't seem to be getting clean or don't smell fresh, try another one. Many people don't have issues, though, and the first detergent they try will work just fine for them.

How much detergent? That's tricky. You want to use the least amount of detergent possible to get the diapers clean.  Most cloth-diaper safe detergents have good guidelines on the package (for example, Rockin Green recommends 1 tablespoon for HE machines and 2 tablespoons for regular machines, and that's a good place to start for most powdered detergents).  Watch the last rinse cycle - if there are still bubbles or suds at the end of it, you might be using too much detergent (or you might just need to add another rinse cycle). If you're using too much detergent, you may get ammonia build up. If you're using too little detergent, you may get a barnyard or dirty smell (smelling the wet diapers as they come out of the washer is a good indicator - they should smell fresh!).

Most people just use detergent in the main wash cycle, but some will throw in a bit during the first wash as well. Whenever you're using more detergent, be sure that there are no residual suds at the end of the extra rinse cycle!

ADDITIVES

If you talk to ten different people, you might hear ten different things that they add to their wash cycle. Vinegar. Bleach. Tea tree oil. RLR. Blue Dawn. Grapefruit Seed extract. Funk Rock. ecover.  They all have different purposes - softening, freshening, stripping, disinfecting, etc. Because there are so many, I'm not going to discuss them in detail here, and I generally recommend keeping your wash routine as simple and purse as possible. But you can Google any of the above with "cloth diapers" and find information.

DEALING WITH THE PEE

Pee diapers are a cinch. Throw them in the wetbag. Wash them. That's it! Some people do choose to rinse pee diapers out, as they feel that it lessens the buildup of ammonia (a natural byproduct of urine), but others see no difference.

DEALING WITH THE POOP

There are two stages of cloth-diaper washing: pre-solids (breastfeeding or formula fed) and post-solids.

PRE-SOLIDS
If you are nursing or formula feeding your child, just throw the soiled diaper in the wetbag. Then when you have a load's worth of dirty diapers, wash them. No, really, that's it.  No separating pee diapers from poop diapers. No rinsing or scraping. Breastmilk poo is totally water soluable and will simply dissolve away in the washer. Formula poop should be as well, but I can't personally vouch for that as I haven't dealt with formula poop.

You CAN rinse or use a liner, but there is absolutely no need to do so and you're just creating an extra step for yourself. Of course, some people are uber-paranoid about the thought of poop spinning around in their washing machine, and if that's you, then by all means do what you have to do in order to ease your mind! But you don't have to do anything other than wash the diaper.

Breastmilk poop (and I assume formula poop) may stain your diapers a bright orange. That's okay. Sun that stain away!

(Note about meconium - it will come off, though you may want to swish/spray/scrape the diaper [see below], and any stains will sun out!)

POST-SOLIDS
Depending on how you introduce solid foods into your child's diet, you may immediately see a change in their, um, output, or you may continue to see the breastmilk- or formula-type poop for several weeks or even months. We started solids using the baby-led weaning techniques, and it took two months for her poop to change from the seedy, sweet-smelling (seriously!) breastmilk poop to the "real" poop of people who eat real food. Some people, though, see the change almost overnight.

Once your child's poop has changed - and it will be obvious, trust me - you will need to start dealing with the poop. This is the point a lot of people bail. However, I promise - I've yet to get poop all over the place or even touch poop. I promise you if you were using disposables, you would have had to deal with a poop blowout at least once, if not regularly! Also, if you were using disposables correctly, you would be dealing with the poop anyway - you aren't supposed to put human waste in the trash, and are supposed to remove solids from the disposable diaper prior to throwing it away!

Eventually, your child's poop may become "ploppable," meaning you can just turn the diaper over the toilet and the solids will drop right off into the toilet.

In the meantime, your kid's poop may range from peanut-butter stickiness (um, you may not want to eat during this post) to hummus textured to mashed potato-like.  Those poops, you can't just drop into the toilet. They stick. They cling. They don't want to leave the diaper.

You have several options on how to deal with those types of poops.

1. Swish
You can hold the diaper in the toilet (by one corner, usually) and swish it around in the toilet water, eventually flushing the toilet while holding the diaper tightly so that the rushing water cleans off the diaper. Be sure to have a wetbag nearby, because you'll have a dripping wet diaper to dispose of! This is minimally messy, but it can be difficult to fully clean the diaper.  Plus? It's free and needs no additional equipment!


2. Spray
You can install a diaper sprayer on your toilet (or some enterprising cheapskates use their removable showerhead - brilliant!). You then use this sprayer to spray the poop off the diaper while holding the diaper over the toilet bowl. The key here? Don't use the full force of the spray, and spray DOWNWARD, not into, the diaper. If you spray into the diaper at full force, you will end up with a bathroom full of poop. There's a bit of a learning curve to spraying diapers, but they get diapers quite clean. You do have to purchase a diaper sprayer or make one yourself, however, and again, be sure to have a wetbag immediately available because the diaper will be dripping wet.


3. Scrape
Using a (I hope) dedicated spatula, you hold the diaper with one hand and use the other hand and spatula to scrape the poop off into the toilet, sometimes finishing up with a swish. This is a cheap and generally fairly un-messy option, though some blow-out type poops that get in the elastic areas may be difficult to get off this way. If you don't swish afterward, the diaper remains relatively dry.

No choice has a huge advantage over any of the other choices, and they can each work equally well at cleaning the solids off of the diaper. Once the solids have been removed from the diaper, you can put it in the wetbag and wash it as usual.

Solid food poop also stains, and also suns out beautifully.

DRYING YOUR DIAPERS

If you can, line dry the diapers in the sun. It helps the PUL and elastic last longer, and the sun acts as a natural sanitizer.  Your natural-fiber diapers and inserts might get "crunchy" (stiff and rough) when line dried. To combat this, you can toss them in the dryer for five or ten minutes on low to fluff them back up.

If you use the dryer, dry on low or extra low, and don't stretch the elastic until they've cooled down.

Oops, you have the stinkies!

....aka "My RLR soak story."

Once upon a time, I noticed that our diapers were getting a little...ripe. We definitely were having an ammonia smell problem. Why does this happen? Usually because of detergent build-up (or if the diapers are sitting too long between washes).  It started off small, but soon it was enough to make me wrinkle my nose when I'd get her out of bed in the morning.

I decided to try an RLR soak to combat the issue. I'd heard good things about it, and wanted to see exactly what kind of miracle worker this stuff was.

RLR is a powered laundry additive. It adheres to the residue in your diapers, lifting it away and allowing it to be rinsed off.

We have a front-loading washer, and I'd heard it wasn't as great for front-loaders. So I divided my laundry up and did some in a soak in the washer (the ones that weren't as stinky, mostly my pockets and AIOs) and did some in a soak in the bathtub (my fitteds, natural fiber diapers, and hemp).

For the tub soak, I filled the tub with the hottest water I could, added the RLR, and added the diapers. I added a lot; it was a packed house. Hottest cloth diaper party in town. The washer diapers were jealous.

Within minutes, the water in the tub turned cloudy and dingy. I let them soak overnight, and several times added potfuls of boiling water to the tub (to keep it as hot as I could).  Several hours later, you couldn't see the bottom of the tub. GROSS.

Once the diapers were done soaking, I wrung them out as best I could in the tub, then washed them as usual and gave them a few good extra rinses.  The verdict? NO MORE STINKIES. This is definitely something I'll do again.

Once it was all over, I compared a glass of clean water to a glass of RLR water.

The washer diapers actually turned out just fine as well. To do those, I did the "soak" setting on hot and added the RLR to the detergent tray. Again, I added boiling water (through the detergent tray) once the soak was underway, then when the soak was finished I washed as normal and did an extra rinse or two. For normal diapers, the washer is totally fine, but I think for extra smelly diapers I'd stick with the tub soak.

Ok, I have my diapers...now what?

Once you've gotten a stash together, whether you purchased a trial, nabbed some sale diapers, found great used deals, or just said to hell with it and bought new ones at full price, the next steps can be overwhelming.

Do you need to prep them? How do you prep them? Do you need to strip them? How do you strip them? Do you just start....USING them? Do you dive in full force? Do you start just at home and continue to use disposables while out and about? What about overnight?

Prepping and Washing

The easy part of that question is the prep and washing!

New Diapers 
If they're new, follow the instructions the maker gives. In general, you can divide your diapers as follows:

Synthetic fabrics (These are usually stay-dry - most pockets and AIOs. Microfiber, microfleece, and suedecloth are all synthetics):  Wash once. That's it! They don't need any prep; you're just washing to get any nasties from the manufacturing process out. 

Natural fabrics (These are not stay-dry and include most fitteds and many AI2 inserts. Cotton and hemp are all natural fibers): Wash 5-6 times. Why so many? Natural fabrics, particularly cotton and hemp, have oils in them that must be washed out before they become absorbent. They may be ready to use after three or so washes, but they'll be most absorbent after five to six. You don't need to dry between every wash; I usually wash three times, dry, wash three more times, and dry again.  And while you don't want to do these washes with other diapers (you don't want to transfer the oils to other diapers), you can wash them with other clothes.  If your cotton or hemp is in the form of an insert or prefold without snaps or elastic, you can boil them for 20 or so minutes to avoid so many washes.  Once boiled, just wash with detergent once and dry.  (I've boiled inserts with snaps before and it's been fine, but they could easily melt so I don't recommend it.)

A note about bamboo:

Bamboo is usually categorized in the "natural fabrics" section, but in reality the process to make bamboo fabrics usually turns it into rayon and strips the oils out. Bamboo usually does not need to be prepped  the same way as cotton and hemp.

Used Diapers 
If your diapers are used, you probably just have to wash them once and you're good to go. However, inspect the diapers beforehand, and you're hesitant about them for any reason you may want to strip them. You may also find you need to strip them after you've used them if they are repelling. You can visit the FAQs for information about stripping diapers.

Drying Diapers
You've probably heard it before. Line drying diapers is best. And it is. The dryer is hard on cloths. It makes them wear out faster (this goes for ANY clothes, not just diapers!). And it's especially hard on PUL (the plasticky waterproof fabric in a lot of diapers), aplix/velcro, and elastic. So if you can, line dry your diapers. Not only will it help them last longer, it will also get rid of any stains! (It's magic!) You don't have to have a backyard or even a house to do this - you can do it on a balcony or patio, and you can even do it inside. Yes, it will take a bit longer inside without the airflow and wind that the great outdoors provides, but it will dry!

That said, drying on a line isn't always possible. Maybe you don't have somewhere to do it.  Maybe you're in a hurry. Maybe you're lazy. (I admit to all of those at one point or another!) Drying in a dryer is okay. The world will not stop turning if you have to use a dryer. The key is to use the lowest possible setting. When I use the dryer (and I do quite a bit), I dry on extra low for 1 hour and 39 minutes. Why that time? It's the longest timed setting I have on my dryer. In that time, my diapers generally get pretty dry. I might have a couple fitteds or AIOs that aren't quite there, and if that's the case, I leave them hanging on the side of her crib for a couple hours. Is drying on low or even (gasp) medium or even (double gasp) regular okay? Sure. Every once in a while, if you're in a huge hurry or have a reason you need to get your diapers dry quickly, it's not going to ruin the diapers. They will, however, last longer if you do that as little as possible. One hint to help minimize dryer damage? Don't stretch the elastic on the diapers until they've cooled. Another hint: use wool dryer balls to help them dry faster (I like this shop on Etsy)!

If you do line dry, you might find that your natural-fiber diapers start to get crunchy or rough. There are several ways to combat this. You can pop them in the dryer for 15 minutes or so to soften them up (some people think they are softer if you dry them in the dryer for 15 minutes and THEN line dry them the rest of the way; some people think they are softer if you line dry and THEN put them in the dryer - experiment!). The faster they dry, the rougher they will be, so if you aren't sunning them and need direct sun, try putting them in the shade. You can also do an ecover soak or add ecover to your regular laundry routine. ecover is a cloth-diaper-safe laundry softener that uses all natural ingredients to soften clothes and diapers. You can do it as often as needed for fitteds and inserts; however, it will wear the PUL and TPU over time. For those types of diapers, try putting a ecover/water mix in a spray bottle, spraying the inner of the diapers, and letting it sit for a bit. Afterward, run a rinse cycle on the diapers. You can also "float" those types of diapers on top of the surface of an ecover soak, letting the soakers become immersed in the ecover/water mixture and keeping the PUL out of the water, floating on top.

Making the Leap

Okay! So you've got your diapers washed and prepped and ready to go. They're just sitting in a big pile, staring at you.  This is the part where you just DO IT. Take off the disposable your kid has on and put on a cloth diaper! You can do it!  Seriously, stop reading this and go do it. I'm waiting!

Really, what's the worst that could possibly happen? You get a leak? If you've been using disposables, you've probably dealt with leaks before!  Remember: some cloth diapering is trial and error. Just like all disposables don't work the same for all families (have you seen the Huggies versus Pampers wars?), not all cloth diapers work the same. I'll be honest: some diapers might leak for you. It could be the wash routine. It could be the fit of the diaper. It could be user error (did you forget to put an insert in the pocket diaper?? Been there!) But be heartened! Once you have it figured out, they will leak MUCH LESS, and blow-outs will usually become a thing of the past.

Whether you use disposables overnight, while out and about, at daycare, etc., is up to you. My personal belief is it's far easier to just dive all in at once, but there are a lot of hard-core cloth diapering families that still use disposables when they are out shopping or for overnight. That is OKAY. Do what works for you!

Here are some hints for using cloth diapers in various situations:

Cloth diapering while out and about (link coming soon)
Cloth diapering while on vacation (link coming soon)
Cloth diapering at daycare
Cloth diapering overnight (link coming soon)

The biggest hurdle though? Just getting one on the butt! So really, there's no time like the present...throw a cloth diaper on that kid!

Eww! Diaper Stains!

Let me put this out there first:

Poop stains.

GASP! What??

Yes, it's true. Your diapers will get stained at some point. You can minimize this with a good wash routine, and some diapers stain less than others. For example, microfleece and suedeclothe hardly stain at all.  However, most fitteds and natural fiber diapers? They will stain up the wazoo.  Do you have to worry about stains? Not really. The diapers are still clean, even if they stain. It's much like if you wash spaghetti sauce in a Tupperware container and it gets tinted orange. Still clean, just stained.  But many (probably most) people would rather use diapers that LOOK clean as well as ARE clean.

So what do you do?  The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind....

...not really. But it does involve the great outdoors.  For stains, the best thing is...SUN.

Here's a progression of diapers on a line.

Some lovely bright yellow breastfeed poop stains will be our test subjects:

After just FIVE minutes in the sun:

 After twenty minutes, they are nearly completely gone:

And after half an hour, they are completely gone!

MAGIC!