Cloth Diapering & Cleaning

I didn't read through all the responses, but now that the sun it here....let the sun do the bleaching for you. Do a couple covers one day and the next day do the others. Let them sit out all day and do it every chance you can. I was reluctant to use bleach because my daughter's skin is so sensitive. I use charlie's soap exclusively and through baking soda in my daiper pail at least once a day. No stains on NOTHING!!! It's great!

Bleach and very hot water and laundry soap, then rewash... worked for me 26 years ago.. I had the whitiest diapers

Hi J.,

I own a cloth diapering shop (Simple Cloth ~ www.simplecloth.com) and am a member of the Real Diaper Industry Association. I sell all of the diapers and covers you are using and the washing routine you are following is just right! If you're having trouble with stains, some people have better luck doing a full cold wash/rinse cycle with detergent followed by a hot wash with detergent/cold double rinse. You might want to try thoroughly washing the Charlie's soap from your diapers, then switching to a different detergent. Country Save is the one many of my customers and I swear by. It's also very gentle on skin and the environment. Laying wet diapers and covers in direct sun for a few hours also helps with stains.

To see the Real Diaper Industry Association washing instructions, follow this link: http://www.realdiaperindustry.org/guide-to-washing-cloth-...

I also need to point out that many diaper manufacturers strongly advise AGAINST using Bac-Out, especially on covers like Thirsties, because it can ruin the waterproofing.

It is normal to expect a small amount of staining at times, especially at the leg gussets on covers. Over time this will fade and does not affect the function of the covers. If they're working well, you're in business!

Finally, try using a fold that helps keeps the poo off of the covers in the first place. I recommend the Angel Fold for either gender or the Bikini Twist for girls. Both are really simple and help keep poo contained. You can read about these folds and see them on a website I've dedicated to this topic: www.howtofoldadiaper.com

Hope that helps. Happy cloth diapering! :)

we sprayed our dirty diapers and covers with bac-out by biokleen before placing them in the hamper. now that my son has more solid poops, we have a small wet pail in the bathroom with about 3Tbl. bac-out to approx. 1 1/2 gal of water. after washing the poop off in the toilet, we drop it in the wet pail and soak until we do a diaper load. spraying and/or soaking cuts down on the odor and staining, as we have very few stains and hardly ever smell the pail. i have used both bleached and unbleached prefolds and the bleached ones stain dramatically more than the unbleached.
good luck!

You aren't saying how old your children are who are in the dipes so I'm going to assume they are older than 1 and are not currently being breast fed. i don't know anything about Charlies Soap, I use Biokleen for my cleaning agents. They have a product called Bac-Out I spray that on my toddler's dipes and that takes care of any staining. If the stain is a slight yellow then I put it out in the sun to 'bleach' away. As for general washing, my dipes go through a presoak with the Bac-Out in cold water, then wash cycle with my soap in hot water, rinse with hot water to make sure all bacteria are killed.

Good luck

S.

First of all, kudos to you for using cloth diapers! I am using BumGenius with my daughter who is almost 7 weeks. Here's what I do, for whatever it's worth: spray the chunks off in the toilet (I have a sprayer I bought that hooks up to the toilet line). Wash them every other day religiously!! Wash them with soap on a cold/cold cycle, then add more soap and wash again on a hot/cold cycle with an extra rinse. Then throw them in the dryer. I hope this helps!

Biz..... but even before that, make sure that you're rinsing your diapers out as well as you can to remove all the bm and residue before you put them in the diaper pail. When you use a diaper service they prefer, no ask, that you not soak their diapers in the pail. When I washed my own, I had the diaper pail filled partially with water that had Biz added to the water. Then when I washed my diapers, the whole pail went into the washer, added more biz and did the the pre-wash cycle with hot water. Wash cycle at our house was hot water with Dreft detergent and Biz, 1st rinse with a quarter cup of white vinegar added, then a 2nd clear rinse. My diapers were never stained, same with the diaper wraps. My diapers and wraps came out just as clean after three kids as the first day I used them on my first born. I washed diapers every other day. I didn't leave things sit very long, just to stay on top of the laundry. I also worked outside the home from the time the kids were 2 months old, so my husband got very adept at the laundry routine (he worked evening shift, no daycare).

Best of luck!!! And the Biz/Dreft/white vinegar routine was used for all the baby laundry. Outer clothes (everything but diapers) were treated the same way, but they didn't soak in the diaper pail. Their hamper was a normal hamper, do the pre-soak cycle with the Biz and stop the washer to let them soak about 30 minutes for good measure, then start it up and continue to wash with Dreft/Biz.

Hang both the wipes and the diapers in the sun to bleach them out.

Spray-n-wash has a stain remover that is AWESOME. It is a squeeze bottle with two liquids that must be kept separate and not combine until they are treating the stain. I''ve been able to get anything out with it, and I've tried just about everything else on the market and home remedies over the years, since I'm a messy eater myself!

After you get the stains out, try using the little liner for diapers, that catches poop. They come on a roll and are flushable. They have them at babyworks.com. Then there won't be significant staining, and the presoak with borax or bac-out should keep them stain free.

I use Shaklee products. I love them and they are environmentally friendly, kid safe (no allergies or asthma using these products) and they get stains out like you wouldn't believe. They are awesome.

I would soak and use Nature Bright and Fresh laundry Liquid. Awesome stuff.

N.
SAH Wife, mom, grandma, Wellness Coach
www.shaklee.net/a_leading_edge

As others have mentioned, the best thing that gets out the stains is to put them in the sun to bleach them.

I'm not very familiar with those diapers (I used prefolds and home-made fitted diapers), but I have just learned to ignore the stained look. After all, the diapers are clean.

However, there is an almost surefire way to get the stains out--harder to do here in Oregon, but you can sometimes--and that is hang them in the sun to dry. Sunlight will bleach out stains better than bleach! I never dried diapers in the dryer when I lived in TX, unless it happened to be pouring rain (which it rarely did), and my diapers were almost always stain free.

so I don't do much sometimes a quick cold wash with some oxyclean if they are really dirty, then the hot wash. I've only had to sun twice but I was told to spray some lemon juice on the area then lay out to sun you will have to rewash if you do it that way. there is also a stick stain remover for the fold over elastic that I've heard works great. I'll try to get back with the name...I know that someone on diaper decisions would know what it is..

We make our own laundry soap. We add or don't add scents. This helps with me families allergies and reactions to some laundry soap here is the Site:
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html

I also use Bio Clean Bac-out. I use a spray bottle with water and one capful of Bac-out. I spray the dirty diapers before I put them in the wetbag. For my wash routine I do a rinse cycle with 1/2 the recommended amount of Charlies (sometimes I also use 3 capfuls of Bac-out. Then I run a hot wash with 1/2 the recommeded amount of Charlies, then an extra rinse to make sure all the detergent is out of the diapers.

If you still find a stain, Sun It Out! Just wash your diapers and lay them in the sun to dry. It works like magic!

I just sprayed the stains on my covers with oxy-clean pre-treat. that seemed to work for me.

Hi J.,

here is what I found to work best for us:
- a cold prewash with detergent
- a full hot cycle without detergent

It depends a bit on your washer, our washer has a prewash setting, where at the end, it just pumps out the water but does not spin or rinse, so there is plenty of detergent left in the diapers for the full hot cycle, but no so much that it leaves residue.

Drying your dipes in the sun will get rid of the stains, microfiber inserts tend to hang on to stains a bit more stubbornly, but they will eventually come out.

Good luck!

Hi J.,
I use Bac-out by BIOKLEEN. I like to double rinse my diapers and then hang them on the line outside. Luckily it's summer.
If I notice a stain when I am getting the diapers out of the washer I throw them back in to soak. It's a organic soak so it doesn't hurt my little one.
Hope some of this helps.
Take care
R.

I'm not entirely sure about those brands. I have Fuzzi Bunz for my son. But the instructions for care for those are 1)cold water rinse, no detergent 2)hot water wash with a cold water rinse, with detergent. If your washer doesn't have an automatic rinse cycle, just do another quick cold water rinse. Also, the sun is great for bleaching whites and has disinfectant properties. You can't beat nature! :) God bless!

Hi J.,

All the advice for the most part is correct. Sounds like you are doing fine with your wash routine as well, but one thing I would consider is doing some spot treatments on the areas of concern. The least expensive and easiest option, especially with our weather right now is using the lemon juice and sunshine as recommended by others.

Many manufacturers will have their own detergent recommendations and those that they say not to use, but the key is to make sure you are using something gentle yet effective. Many manufacturers have their own brands of detergents that they market or get marketing credit from certain companies which them makes them imply that the competition's detergent is harmful or not recommended. Mainly stay away from bleach, Dreft or other softener filled detergents (these will coat your diapers and cause them to repel), and any super strong or abrasive detergents for extreme cleaning. Charlie's is a great soap and loved by many parents. But beware that occassionally children have received severe burns from the residue of the soap, so it is prudent to make sure you do an extra rinse on your diapers with every wash. If you notice redness where the skin looks wrinkled or burned or blisters, switch detergents as a build-up or skin reaction is developing. But, most cases you will be just fine! And this can happen with ANY detergent!

When you do not have the sun at your disposal, my favorite method for dealing with stains is to use some Oxygen Bleach and Bac Out on the stained areas. If dealing with greasy food stains, I also mix in some Dawn liquid dish soap or Biokleen Hand Dish Soap. This helps break up the grease and the natural enzymes in the Bac Out and the whitening power of the Oxygen Bleach all work to remove the separate elements of the stains. I've gotten spaghetti sauce out of white shirts, blueberry stains out clothing, and other impossible to very difficult stains out. The key is to pretreat as quickly as possible. Wash the clothes and before you put them in the dryer, inspect them. Any stains remaining, simply treat them some more and rewash. Once dried, it's an uphill battle to get those stains out!

For the diapers especially on the legs, I like to rinse out the tough areas to clean like the gussets as much as possible. I use a little liquid hand soap and that usually removes it completely right away. If there is some staining starting, then I pretreat with Bac Out and Oxygen Bleach and throw them in the pail. Do not soak your diapers and covers. This actually pulls bacteria deep into the layers and encourages mold and mildew growth inbetween the layers of the covers.

Throw everything in the washer and do a cold water rinse and wash as usual. Make sure you inspect before drying. I look at and smell the diapers before they go in the dryer. If they clean and have no odor, they are good to go. They can look clean but stink indicating bacteria still in the diapers or detergent residue molding in the inner layers. So smell is a great way to ensure they are clean and your baby is healthy!

Good Luck and Feel Free to Call or stop by for help! Advice is always free!

A.
www.punkinbutt.com