Washing Cloth Diapers

Washing cloth diapers can be a little intimidating but there are so many different ways to do it that you'll soon figure out what works best for you.

Here's my routine for my LG Wave Force WT5101H top loading HE Washer:

(I just copy and pasted from my sign posted by my washer for those that may be helping me with laundry once baby comes so let me know if you have any questions)

RINSE

1.    Put in all diapers & wet bags (check diaper bag)
*Make sure nothing with desitin, a&d, resinol, etc on it goes in*

2.    Take inserts out of diaper & fasten velcro tabs to laundry tabs on backside of diaper

3.    Add 1 T. of Country Save detergent in tray with a small amount of Rockin Green's Funk Rock

4.    Hit Special button (under screen) until on Rinse & Spin

5.    Start (Play button on right) (takes about 25 minutes)

WASH

1.    When that's done, add Country Save (to line on blue scoop in box) to tray

2.    Turn washer dial to Heavy Duty

3.    Push Wash/Rinse button to Hot/Cold

4.    Push Extra Rinse button TWICE

5.    Start (takes about 1 ½ hours- don’t let them sit in washer overnight!)

 There are many different ways you can wash your diapers but these specific cycles & times I've found to work best for me.  Basically I do a prewash in cold water - just rinse and spin and then a HOT wash with 2 extra rinses (3 rinses total).  

You do want to be sure to include a prewash, hot wash and most often at least 1 extra rinse.  If you have an HE washer, your wash routine tends to vary and get a little trickier since it uses less water and doesn't have the agitator in it.  I however haven't had any issues since I started this wash routine.  Some people say to add a soaked towel in with your diapers to trick your washer into adding more water - I haven't found the need to do this as long as you use either the Heavy Duty or Bulky/Bedding cycle.

DETERGENT

You don't want to use just any detergent when washing your cloth diapers.  As you can see above, I chose to use Country Save detergent - this is basically because it's so cheap that I can use it on all my clothes and not have the confusion or necessity of buying different kinds of soap for different needs.  I bought mine on Amazon a year ago and I got 4, 10 lb boxes (160 HE loads) and still have not run out.  As I said, I use it on ALL our clothes and still have 1 box that's not even open yet so I spent about $60 on all our detergent for the past year and still used cloth diaper safe detergent on our diapers.  (Pretty good deal I think!  I find this site to be an excellent reference on what detergents to use/not use.  Also if you look around it, there's tons of other helpful information there too!  

I started out using Rockin' Green Classic Rock and really liked it until I switched to the HE washer - then it didn't work well.  We also moved at the time though and got really hard water, so I'm sure that was part of the problem.  However, it's much more expensive than Country Save so I'm glad I switched anyway!  I've heard of lots of people using Charlie's Soap, Ecos, and the make your own detergent as well with good results.

Here's a make your own detergent that was shared on my cloth diaper group on Facebook: (I haven't used it so can't give you any helpful hints - sorry!)

Powder detergent

1/3 bar Fels Naptha 

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder

I  cut my bar into slices then ran through the blender or food  processor then when it looks smaller than rice I dumped it into a bowl and added the washing soda  and borax and mixed till it was combined really well.

Use 2 tablespoons per full load!

Liquid detergent

1/3 bar Fels Naptha 

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder 

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.  Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  You use ½ cup per load.

I hope that at least gives you a little overview of what to expect when it comes to washing. I tried to hit the basics but also give you a few tips along the way for those that might be trying to troubleshoot so hopefully it helps you out. If not, post a comment and I'll see if I be of any assistance!

OTHER TIPS 

You will want to wash about every other day - to cut down on number of diapers you need to buy and also to cut down on smelliness and chance of ammonia issues occuring.

The recommendation is to wash no more than 24 pieces in one load - but I usually wash about 16 pockets (plus 16-25 inserts) in each load and have not had problems - again I'm sure this depends on your washer.

ALSO - BE SURE TO FOLLOW YOUR DIAPER'S MANUFACTURER'S DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO WASH YOUR SPECIFIC TYPE/BRAND OF DIAPERS. THIS IS WHAT I GENERALLY USE ON MY DIAPERS BUT YOU MAY WANT TO ALTER THE ROUTINE SO THAT IT WORKS PROPERLY FOR YOU. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW YOUR MANUFACTURER'S DIRECTIONS, THE WARRANTY COULD BE VOID SO BE SURE TO CHECK THAT OUT PLEASE - THIS IS BY NO MEANS A REPLACEMENT ROUTINE.

Cloth Diapering 101: What you need to know before you begin

I'm going to start by giving you a very general overview of what cloth diapering is like these days.  I'm sure most people imagine big white cloths and pins sticking into baby's legs and that is definitely not what modern cloth is about!

I think the most popular style of modern cloth diapers is the one size pocket diaper.  This means that, generally, it will fit babies from 8-35 lbs or so.

Aren't they cute?!?!

The pocket means that there is a slit in the back of the diaper where you can add or remove inserts depending on the absorbency you need for your specific child.  The majority of my fluff stash are BumGenius 4.0s (shown above) by Cotton Babies.  You can get them in velcro (known as aplix in the diapering world) or snaps.  Aplix is easier for sizing around the waist but also easier for a toddler to figure out how to take off - As I've recently learned with my just-turned 1 year old!

Styles
Now there are other styles of cloth as well - prefolds & covers would be the closest to what you were originally picturing in your mind and they are definitely the most budget friendly choice.

All In Ones (AIOs) - are the most like disposables in that the absorbent part of the diaper is built in to them.  No stuffing or unstuffing just wash, dry and put back on baby's bum.  Downfall is that you cannot add absorbency if you discover you need it (as I probably would with my heavy wetter)

Hybrids or All In Twos - are where you have a cover and an absorbent layer to go inside.  Sometimes the layer snaps in and sometimes it lays in the cover.  Examples of this would be the Flip Diaper or the Grovia.

These are the basic types of diapers.  I know I didn't cover all of them but these are what you will hear about most of the time.  Now back to the basics of cloth diapering....

Washing
This is probably the most daunting thing for first time cloth diaperers...but it doesn't have to be!  It really isn't that involved!  For starters, when baby's start our and are exclusively breast fed (EBF) you don't have to do anything to the poo diapers before putting them into your washing machine.  Once your baby starts solids, you will probably want to get the poo off the diapers before storing for wash day.  You can either do this the old fashioned way by swishing them in the toilet and flushing, a diaper sprayer (YAY!) or you can use either disposable or reusable diaper liners.  You'll want to wash about every 2 days - you can sometimes stretch it to 3 if you have to but I definitely recommend every 2.  Now you'll want to store your dirty diapers in a wet bag - they have a variety of kinds - either a zippered bag or one you can put as a liner in a trash can and then you can just throw the wet bag in the washer with the dirty diapers.  You'll want to do a cold prewash to rinse out all the excess poo (EBF poo is water soluble that's why you don't have to wash it off before putting into the washer) and then follow your specific diapers recommendations, but usually a warm or hot water wash with detergent followed by an extra rinse.  Sometimes your wash routine will have to very from this - it just depends on the type of machine you have, if you have soft or hard water, etc but this is a good starting point.  Then you throw your inserts into the dryer if you want and you will want to line dry your covers.  Wa-La - no harder than doing the rest of the laundry at your house right?!?

Traveling with Cloth
One of the other prevalent questions about cloth I've heard is "How do you take cloth out in public with you?"  This was intimidating for me as a newbie too but after I tried it the first time I was wondering 'what was I so worried about?!?'  So when you go out and about you'll want to take your diapers along with a small wet bag - I use something similar to this Planet Wise.  I think I have the medium size.  So when you change your diaper, it's just like at home, take out the new cloth diaper, put the dirty one in the wet bag and then put the wet bag back in your diaper bag.  This is also a handy reason to use cloth wipes because how often do you just wipe baby's bottom, stick the dirty wipe in the diaper and roll it up? (at least typically with disposables)  So if you also use cloth wipes you can do the same with your cloth diaper and throw it in the wash at home with your dipes!  (I have to admit though that I haven't gotten to doing this when traveling yet but I'm not sure why...I have found way too many washed disposable wipes in my dryer and had to pick out the little fibers that were left - you'd think that would be inspiration enough to get me to change huh?!  This is my goal in the near future...)

Why Cloth Diaper?
It's better for your baby.  It's better for the environment.  It's better on your wallet.  Do you need more reasons?!?  Studies have shown that it can take up to 500 years for ONE disposable diaper to decompose in the landfill...how crazy is that?  That means that if you use disposables on  your child, that that diaper will still be there when their great-great grandchildren's children are walking this earth!  Also studies have shown that cloth diapering can save you an average of $1000-2000 for ONE child.  So if you reuse the same cloth diapers for your second, third, fourth, etc child then that savings would multiply awful fast!  I obviously haven't done any of these studies first hand but I have found some pretty legitimate sites online (that I'll try to post) that have and it sure made me feel good for cloth diapering...not that I haven't also had to use a disposable or two once in awhile...

Well I think I've told you the basics of cloth diapering and hopefully you found it somewhat interesting.  Please post questions as comments and I will try to answer them as quickly as possible.  I always have people asking me about cloth diapering, so I'm glad I finally have a place I can refer them to instead of retyping my advice/info every time.  :)  Feel free to refer your friends, family or strangers who have asked you about cd'ing to this site as well.

Also want to note that I did not receive any compensation from the linked sites - I merely frequent those sites so I used them as reference points.  Also be sure to follow your cloth diaper manufacturer recommendations on proper usage and washing instructions.