Diaper Care General Care and Washing Instructions Caring for cloth diapers is usually as simple as doing a couple extra loads of laundry a week. We recommend you start with a simple routine, then if you have problems, start trying variations. Your water, washing machine, and climate can make a difference in what works. NOTE: These instructions apply to everything except wool. Istructions for washing wool are at the bottom of this page. Here is the basic routine:
- Put wet and soiled diapers directly into a dry diaper pail. (We do not recommend wet pails.) Some people choose to line their pail with a pail liner. If you are past the exclusively breastfed stage, shake off any solids into the toilet, or rinse with a mini-shower.
- Wash every 2 or 3 days.
- Start with a cold pre-wash or rinse cycle.
- Set the washer to a Hot Wash cycle without adding any more detergent. If you use a pail liner, throw it in also.
- If you have a liner in the load, take it out before the final rinse, as it can hold water and prevent everything from rinsing completely.
- Put everything (diapers, covers, wet bags, liners, wipes, inserts*, doublers, pockets, all-in-ones) in the dryer for 60-80 minutes. You may wish to run a shorter dryer cycle, remove wet bags, covers, and pocket diapers (since they'll dry quickly) and then continue to dry everything else longer. Alternatively, hang everything outside for fresh air and sunshine!
*NOTE: Microfiber inserts will stay absorbent longer if line dried or dried on low.
Choosing a Detergent
The only thing less convenient about using cloth diapers today as compared to 20 years ago, is that detergents all have so much *stuff* added to them that doesn't react well with diapers. I personally love Charlie's Soap, but you can use what you like as long as you look at the ingredients. You want the simplest detergent possible, which happily is often the cheapest.
Ingredients to avoid:
- optical brighteners
- fabric softener
- bleach, including color safe
- enzymes
- fragrance
Purex, Sun, and many store brands are currently good choices.
Specific Brand Care Instructions
Click on these links for instructions specific to these products:
Baby Beehinds
Bummis
Happy Heinys
Stacinator
Thirsties
DOs and DON'Ts
DO fasten hook/loop closures onto fold back tabs to prevent diapers from getting stuck together into a "diaper chain". Diapers and covers that do not have fold back tabs should be turned inside out and fastened closed.
DO use the highest water level available in your machine to help rinse diapers completely.
DO unfold/unstuff diapers before placing in the washer to allow complete cleaning.
DO smell your diapers after washing. If they smell stinky or smell like detergent, do another hot rinse to get all the detergent out.
DON'T use bleach or fabric softener on any diapering products. Beware that "baby" detergents and "free & clear" or "natural" detergents can contain oils that leave a coating and affect absorbency.
DON'T use natural soaps, as the natural oils can leave a residue on microfleece causing it to repel liquid.
DON'T use Desitin or other diaper creams containing zinc oxide, as that is very difficult to wash out of diapers. You can use our Baby Bottom Better Salve safely with cloth diapers, or if you need to use stronger medicated creams, use a flushable liner.
Washing New Diapers
All new diapers need to be washed before use. Everything (except hemp and prefolds) only needs to be washed once.
Brand new prefolds will be flat and stiff, not soft and quilted as you might expect. Don't worry, they will soften up! Bleached prefolds need to be washed in hot and dried on high 2-3 times before use. Unbleached prefolds need to be washed 4-5 times to remove the natural oils and waxes in the cotton. Or you may boil unbleached prefolds to remove the oils and waxes.
Hemp products will be ready to use after one wash, but they will continue to become more absorbent through the first 8-10 washes. They also may shrink about 10%.
We recommend that the first few times you wash hemp products or unbleached prefolds, you do not wash them together with microfleece products (like liners or pocket diapers). The natural oils in the hemp and cotton may stick to microfleece and cause it to repel moisture, which will cause leaks.
Care of Wool
Caring for your wool products is easy with LANA Lanolin Soap. The high lanolin content, 20%, is higher than in other wool-washes, and will help keep your wool products incredibly soft. If you use LANA Lanolin Soap, you do not have to lanolize your wool separately. Wash as seldom as possible, only when the wool begins to feel stiff, or has odors, or is soiled. With diaper covers, this may be only once every 2 weeks or so, or longer if they are not in constant use (only used at night, for example). Simply hand wash wool products in lukewarm water with just enough soap to make the water sudsy, do not rinse out the lanolin soap, roll in a towel to squeeze out excess moisture, and hang to dry.
If you do not use LANA Lanolin Soap, you will need to re-lanolize your wool every third washing or so. After washing with a mild soap in lukewarm water, melt about 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of lanolin per cover (out of a tube like Lansinoh) in some hot water. Add the melted lanolin to a basin full of warm water, along with a drop or two of baby shampoo, then add your covers. Let your covers soak for at least 15 minutes, then roll in a towel and hang to dry as above.
NOTE: We recommend using lanolin or lanolin soap in a basin, then emptying the water outdoors. Over time, lanolin used in a sink can create a wax build up in your pipes.
Stains and Odors
For diaper pail odor, try deoderizers, or simply sprinkle baking soda in the bottom of the pail.
Some people don't mind stains, as these are diapers, but if you don't like stains you can avoid them with the help of the sun! Just check your diapers for stains as you take them out of the washer. Take any stained diapers outside and hang in the sun (this works even on cloudy days and in the winter). Usually the stain is gone in just an hour or two, then throw it in the dryer with the rest of the clean diapers to fluff it up.
Ammonia smell is a common problem with cloth diapers. (Urine gradually turns into ammonia as it sits.) The first thing to do is to check the ingredients in your detergent and possibly switch brands. You can also try BumGenius Odor Remover Spray.
If you still have ammonia smell after trying the above, try stripping your diapers. This simply means running several hot wash cycles in a row without detergent, until the water is free of suds. Then dry as usual. |
