Wash Routine

There are lots of ways that people wash their cloth diapers. I use my top loading machine.  It is not HE.  It is a plain regular top loader made by Kenmore.

I put no more than 20 diapers in the machine esp if they are poopy.  I run a cold rinse to get the poop and pee out them. Then I run a hot wash cycle with the regular amount of Purex Free and Clear with a cold rinse.  Then another cold rinse.  This gets my diapers clean and I have had no issue doing this.

For a time I tried Nellies to clean my diapers.  While it did a great job on clothing, I found that my diapers were not clean enough and I was starting to get stinkies in my microfibre.

There are lots of debate on how much soap you should use.  A lot of people use a limited amount of soap as they don't want build up, however only a little soap doesn't really clean your diapers well.  I prefer to use a bit more soap and have clean diapers.

When the wash is done, I hang up all my PUL covers and throw everything else- microfibre inserts, fitteds, prefolds, and wipes into the dryer for 30-40 minutes.

Diapers hanging out in the sun this summer

Some people prefer to hang dry fitteds, but I don't have too many of them and prefer for them to dry faster.  PUL covers can also be put into the dryer on low for 20-30 minutes.  It allows them to dry, but not ruin the PUL.  When I had less diapers I did that from time to time.

When the weather is nice, I like to hang my diapers outside.  The sun is a great natural bleaching agent.  Sunning diapers can get all the poop stains out of your diapers and leave the insides white and clean looking again.

I have only put bleach into my machine once.  Benjy had a case of the stomach flu and his diapers came out smelling not so fresh.  This was from not rinsing the diapers enough before I washed them as there was lots of poop residue.  The bleach helped slightly and did make the interior of my diapers white again ( as it is not a great time to sun diapers when it is -10 to -20C) .  Most of my diapers are now back to their smell free state with only 1 or 2 having a faint smell.

To get rid of poop on my diapers not that he is no longer EBF and is eating solids, I use a poop spatula.  It gets the poop into the toilet and then I rinse the diaper in the sink.  I had bought a diaper sprayer, but unfortunately my plumbing is old and my husband could install it without a pipe possibly breaking.  His poop is getting even more solid so sometimes it just rolls off the diaper straight into the toilet.