Washing Messy Cloth Diapers?

[cutepamperboy]

Hello everyone, I have a concern about cloth diapers. Well I ordered a cloth diaper recently cause I want to try and it and I really like them, I think they would just be so nice to have. The thing about that is I don't have any clue how to wash or launder one when its messy. I have seen some stuff about it, but nothing really that clear. I mess diapers often so this could be an issue If I do this wrong. I want to know the best way I can wash a messy cloth diaper. I would also like to know how to wash plastic pants as well. I ordered some with my cloth diapers cause I have been told they tend to leak.

Thanks

[willnotwill]

Dump as much of the feces into the toilet as you can. I use the HE detergent (used to use ivory snow in the old machine) and a healthy dose of oxyclean on the diapers. Do the diapers separately in hot water.

If you've got plastic pants (or AIOs with plastic) their enemy is heat. I wash them cold and use the EXTRA SPIN mode of the washer. Use the air dry only mode of the drier or just hang them up.

[wetman]

Well, what I can add to that is that you should, if you can get them, use nappy liners. They are thin sheets of compressed fibre, think of a big dry baby wipe. They go in the cloth nappy to catch the main amount of poo and get discarded. You can flush them down the loo with the load.

If you don't wash every day (who wants to?) then dump the soiled nappies into a bucket with some bleachy water. First of all that will ensure that bacteria will not breed and secondly it stops the stains from setting in the fabric. If your nappies don't have any plastic backing, wash them at the hottest setting every third or fourth time, again to kill bacteria.

With plastic pants follow the instructions that were hopefully included, the makers use different types of plastic and i don't think you can generalise about that, except that none of them like heat all that much, so don't tumble dry hot.

[oznl]

As Wetman has said, use a nappy/diaper liner. Use a couple if you need to cover more real estate. You won't notice them there and they will make clean-up much easier.

If you prefer to go natural, a hand-held shower head can help a lot in rinsing off whatever won't shake off into the toilet and let the washing machine deal with the rest. This also kind of pre-rinses a lot of pee out of the nappy which makes the subsequent washing machine cycle more effective. A hand-held shower head is pretty useful for cleaning YOU also in dirty-nappy play.

Another trick is to use a flat baby's nappy as a liner. They're cheap, readily available and serve to increase the absorbency of your nappy. They're also small enough (and dispensable enough) to be dropped into a bleach solution more easily than a whole adult nappy.

Assuming you've had some kind of liner in place, they wash just fine conventionally. Drying them in the sun helps kill bacteria.

Don't bleach or sun-dry plastic pants though. They don't like the chemicals or the UV.

[babykeiff]

Washing soiled / messy diapers in hot water is one of the worse things you can do. The problem is that the hot water will expand the fibres of the material, causing the mess to become lodged between the fibres. This tears the fibres and significantly reduces the life of the diaper.

Cleaning Messy Cloth Diapers

1 - Scrape / shake off the loose mess. If it is sticking to the diaper, use a disposable knife (smooth side) to scrape as much of it off as you can.

2 - Using cold water, hand rinse the diaper until the rest of the mess is off - it is usually better to use a shower head or something like that.

3 - Using cold water only, soak the diaper in this for about 8-10 hours.

4 - Hand rinse the diaper again in cold water. There should be no mess left on the diaper.

5 - Place in a washing machine on a luke-warm wash.

6 - Rewash the diaper in a washing machine on a hot wash - no powder.

7 - Rinse well and hang out to dry - preferably on a sunny day - the sun will bleach the diaper white again.