Easy Care for your Cloth Diapers

Never use Bleach or Fabric Softener on your cloth diapers. Bleach weakens cotton fibres and ruins elastics. Fabric softeners add a waxing coating that make things feel soft, but make them less absorbent. Use a laundry detergent that is free of perfumes, dyes and essential oils such as the Allens Naturally laundry detergent we carry.

We recommend using a dry diaper pail or pail liner on the floor for your diapers. When using a dry pail or pail liner alone, use something that seals and wash your diapers every 3-4 days (1 week at the most). Just turn the pail liner inside out and empty the contents into the washer, including the pail liner. For a dry pail just throw all the contents of diaper pail in the washer. We suggest doing a cold/cold prewash to remove urine & poopies, then a hot/cold wash with an extra cold rinse (or 2). Use only about 1/8 to 1/4 (at the most) of the soap you would use on a regular load of laundry to avoid detergent residue. It works best if you wash the diapers on the next load size up. So if there are enough diapers for a small load, but the washer setting on medium.

Then put everything in the dryer on high or hang them on the line. If there are some stains on the diapers, a couple times in the sun on the line will naturally bleach them away.

If your diapers are leaking and the the inserts are not full, it may be 'detergent residue'. Detergent residue can show up a number of ways.

Wicking and Leaking - when the liquid spreads over the fabric
Repelling - repels the urine off the diaper, like a ducks feathers
Stinky diapers - there could be a few reasons for stinky diapers, but detergent build-up is in the top few.
Rashes - if your baby has sensitive skin it may react to the build-up.

To get ride of the detergent residue run your diapers through a couple hot water rinses with no soap then dry then in the dryer. You may need to do this up to 4 or 5 times depending on the residue.

You can also do what is known as 'stripping' the diapers if the couple rinses do not work. There are a couple of methods of stripping depending on your water 'style' (hard or soft).

Method 1:

Run diapers through a hot water wash
Run them through another hot water wash with 1/2 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup vinegar
Put another 1/2 cup of vinegar in rinse cycle.
Run second rinse with hot water
Dry diapers in dryer on hot

Method 2:

Run diapers through a hot water wash
As the diapers are in the aggitation cycle, check for detergent bubbles.
If you see detergent bubbles, allow the cycle to finish, then run another cycle checking again during the aggitation cycle.
Continue this cycle until the only bubbles you see are those of the water aggitating (should be very few).
Sometimes it takes as many as 10 washes to stripp your diapers (it does for us)... but once you do, use less detergent during your regular washes.