How To Wash Your Cloth Diapers
Charlie's Laundry Soap is a popular diaper-friendly detergent, available on Amazon or from a variety of diaper boutiques.
Gone are the days of wet pails and swishing diapers in the toilet. Today, cloth diapers are easy to store and clean. Wool diapers need some special care, but most other cloth diapers can be cleaned similarly to normal laundry, with a few extra steps. Here is how it works:
1) When you take off a soiled diaper, make sure any velcro tabs are fastened to their “laundry tabs” on the back of the diaper so they won’t get stuck to other diapers in the wash, then just throw the diaper in the diaper pail. If you are using pocket diapers, you will need to pull the soiled insert out of the shell and put the cover and insert in the pail separately, unless you are using a diaper like the new Thirsties Duo Diapers, which un-stuff themselves in the wash. If you have any solid poop on the diaper, you should dump that in the toilet, but breastfed poop can go in the pail along with the diapers because it will rinse right out. Some people swear by diaper sprayers, which connect to your toilet’s plumbing to give you a spray nozzle you can use to rinse diapers extra well before they go in the pail.
2) Line your diaper pail with a PUL pail liner to keep the pail mess-free. These liners are made of the same great waterproof material that diaper covers are made of, which means they hold messes in and can be washed along with your diapers. To avoid stinks and stains, pull this liner out of the pail every 2-3 days and empty it into the washer, then throw the liner in to be washed along with the diapers.
3) First, set your washing machine to a rinse/spin cycle. This will get out a lot of the messes.
4) Then, put your washer on for a hot wash plus two rinses. If you have a HE washer, this setting may be pre-programmed as a Heavy Duty wash.
5) If you have really stinky diapers, you may need an extra rinse. You can tell if you need another rinse if you open the washer and can still smell anything after your two normal rinses are complete.
6) Most everything can be tossed into the dryer next, though your diaper covers will last longer if you air-dry them. Sunlight also disinfects and bleaches out stains naturally, so if you live in a sunny climate, line drying is a great option. If you don’t, you can put everything in the dryer and then sun any stained diapers in a sunny window to remove stains.
