How we wash (and take care of!) our Cloth Diapers

Hey Everyone!

I am going to post about how we wash our cloth diapers! Finding a great wash routine is really trial and error, everyone finds their own little “groove” when it comes to washing their diapers.

Throughout our process we have tried several different detergents:
All, Tide free & Clear, ECOS, and finally Rockin Green! Rockin Green has
worked the best, especially with our hard water. It did not break my daughter’s
butt out, and we haven’t had any ammonia build up since we started using it!

Rockin Green Hard rock (For hard water)

To store our dirty diapers I use an old metal trash can, and a GroVia Pail Liner! This storage works great for us as it was cheap, we got to reuse an old trash can, and it is easy clean up! Every week I wash out the inside of the trash can just in case any diaper bacteria has soaked through the Pail Liner. I have personally not tried just a hanging wet bag, but I feel like this is more likely to keep the smell in, and I’m not worried about diaper juice leaking all over our brand new carpet (Even though it is brown).

Diaper Pail with GroVia Pail liner

Our Pail almost full of dirty diapers

Now, to get to our actual wash routine. I will include as many pictures as I can to help you picture it better.

The first thing I do is make sure that all of the inserts are out of the pockets, it is disgusting to remove them, but it is a must do. Once the shells and inserts are separated I throw them all in the washer and run a COLD rinse cycle with NO DETERGENT. This is important to make sure that all of the pee and loose feces get out of the diapers, so they can be properly cleaned.

After the cold rinse, I do a HOT WASH/COLD RINSE WITH DETERGENT! This is the main wash that you need to do to get your diapers clean and sanitized. I use 3 tablespoons of Rockin Green Hard Rock detergent in “Bare Naked Babies” (Unscented).

I always do another COLD RINSE with NO DETERGENT to make sure all of the detergent is out, and that our diapers are 100% clean! If you still notice suds in the water with this rinse, do another one, until you no longer see bubbles.

So the three basic steps are:

1.) Cold rinse- no detergent

2.) Hot wash/Cold rinse with detergent

3.) Cold rinse- no detergent

Understand it better? It is not as complicated as it sounds!

Here are some pictures of our diaper laundry!

Our Dirty Diapers!

The option I use to do the additional cold rinse at the end

Diapers in the washer

The Hot/Cold wash cycle option I use.

Pouring Detergent into the washer.

After we wash, I hang our diapers outside on our apartment porch, or I throw the inserts in the dryer depending on how much time I have. I ALWAYS hang dry the covers, pocket shells, and fitteds. Please try really hard not to dry them in the dryer every time as it can break down the elastic and PUL. If you have any stains, Sun bleaching diapers works amazing to get stains out, especially if you add a drop or two of lemon juice! I do not have any pictures of us hang drying our diapers at this time, but once the weather gets better, I will definitely include some!

Remember, you SHOULD NOT use NON CLOTH DIAPER SAFE Diaper rash cream without using a liner of some type. It will cause your diapers to repel and you will need to strip them (more on that in another post !) which is a pain in the butt to do!

My daughter playing in her basket of freshly stuffed pockets!

This is all for today as I have to do some homework for school and go to bed before my daughter wakes up!

Have a great day everyone, and cloth diaper on!

– Marissa 🙂