Washing Cloth Diapers

General Care and Washing Instructions
Choosing a Detergent
Front Loader/HE washers
Specific Brand Care Instructions
DOs and DON'Ts
Washing New Diapers
Care of Wool
Stains and Odors

General Care and Washing Instructions

• Put wet and soiled diapers directly into a dry diaper pail. (We do not recommend wet pails.) Some people choose to line their pail with a pail liner or waterproof bag. If you are past the exclusively breastfed stage, shake off any solids into the toilet, or rinse with a minishower.
• Wash every 2 or 3 days.
• Do a Hot Wash cycle with an extra rinse. If you use a pail liner, throw it in also. Use half the amount of detergent recommended by the manufacturer.
• If you have a bag or liner in the load, take it out before the final rinse, as it can hold water and prevent everything from rinsing completely.
• Put everything (diapers, covers, wet bags, liners, wipes, inserts*, doublers, pockets, all-in-ones) in the dryer for 60-80 minutes. You may wish to run a shorter dryer cycle, remove wet bags, covers, and pocket diapers (since they'll dry quickly) and then continue to dry everything else longer. Alternatively, hang everything outside for fresh air and sunshine!
  *NOTE: Microfiber inserts will stay absorbent longer if line dried or dried on low.

Choosing a Detergent

The only thing less convenient about using cloth diapers today as compared to 20 years ago, is that detergents all have so much *stuff* added to them that doesn't react well with diapers. Our favorite detergent is Country Save, but if it's hard to find environmentally-friendly detergents in your area, Tide works well on diapers for most people. Note for Des Moines area people: we order Country Save from amazon.com and have it available for sale in the store, both in sample packs and 10 lb boxes.

Click here for a summary of choosing a detergent from Happy Heiny's.

If you want to see if your current favorite detergent will work, check out these charts for top loader and front loader machines. Formulas change, so always look at the ingredients. You want the simplest detergent possible, which happily is often the cheapest.

Ingredients to avoid:

• optical brighteners
• fabric softener
• bleach, including color safe
• enzymes
• fragrance

Front Loader/HE Washers

High Efficiency washing machines are wonderful for the environment. The irony is, they're not optimal for washing cloth diapers. If you look inside a load of regular clothes in your front loader, you'll see 2-4 inches of water sloshing around the bottom of the drum. If you look in a load of diapers, chances are you will see no sloshing water. When you put in a load full of absorbent diapers, they tend to soak up a lot of the water, then they're just flopping around in there instead of washing!

What I do in my new front loader (the salesman told me I was nuts to want a new top loading machine, so I caved), is saturate the diapers before I start the wash cycle. After tossing the diapers in, I take a small pail of hot water and slowly pour it over the diapers. That way, the water the washer adds will actually wash the diapers!

Many front loaders have a Sanitary cycle with extra hot water. We don't recommend using this every time you wash your diapers, as it will shorten their useful life, but using it once a month or so when you wash will keep your diapers smelling fresh.

Choosing the right detergent is extra important with HE machines to avoid smelly and repelling diapers.

Specific Brand Care Instructions

Click on these links for instructions specific to these products:

Babykicks
Blueberry
bumGenius
Bumkins
Bummis
Fuzzi Bunz
Happy Heinys
Kissaluvs
Lana Wool
Stacinator
Thirsties

DOs and DON'Ts

DO fasten hook/loop closures onto fold back tabs to prevent diapers from getting stuck together into a "diaper chain". Diapers and covers that do not have fold back tabs should be turned inside out and fastened closed.

DO use the highest water level available in your machine to help rinse diapers completely.

DO unfold/unstuff diapers before placing in the washer to allow complete cleaning.

DO smell your diapers after washing. If they smell stinky or smell like detergent, do another hot rinse to get all the detergent out.

DON'T use bleach or fabric softener on any diapering products. Beware that "baby" detergents and "free & clear" or "natural" detergents can contain oils that leave a coating and affect absorbency.

DON'T use natural soaps, as the natural oils can leave a residue on microfleece causing it to repel liquid.

DON'T use Desitin or other diaper creams containing zinc oxide, as that is very difficult to wash out of diapers. You can use our olive oil-base Healing Salve safely with cloth diapers, or if you need to use stronger medicated creams, use a flushable liner.

Washing New Diapers

All new diapers need to be washed before use. Everything except new prefolds only needs to be washed once.

Brand new prefolds will be flat and stiff, not soft and quilted as you might expect. Don't worry, they will soften up! Bleached prefolds need to be washed in hot and dried on high 2-3 times before use. Unbleached prefolds need to be washed 4-5 times to remove the natural oils and waxes in the cotton. Or you may boil unbleached prefolds to remove the oils and waxes.

Hemp products will be ready to use after one wash, but they will continue to become more absorbent through the first 8-10 washes. They also may shrink about 10%.

NOTE: The first few times you wash hemp products or unbleached prefolds, you should not wash them together with microfleece products (like liners or pocket diapers). The natural oils in the hemp and cotton may stick to microfleece and cause it to repel moisture, which will cause leaks.

Care of Wool

Caring for your wool products is easy with LANA Lanolin Soap. The high lanolin content, 20%, is higher than in other wool-washes, and will help keep your wool products incredibly soft. If you use LANA Lanolin Soap, you do not have to lanolize your wool separately. Wash as seldom as possible, only when the wool begins to feel stiff, or has odors, or is soiled. With diaper covers, this may be only once every 2 weeks or so, or longer if they are not in constant use (only used at night, for example). Simply hand wash wool products in lukewarm water with just enough soap to make the water sudsy, do not rinse out the lanolin soap, roll in a towel to squeeze out excess moisture, and hang to dry.

If you do not use LANA Lanolin Soap, you will need to re-lanolize your wool every third washing or so. After washing with a mild soap in lukewarm water, melt about 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of lanolin per cover (out of a tube like Lansinoh) in some hot water. Add the melted lanolin to a sinkful of warm water, along with a drop or two of baby shampoo, then add your covers. Let your covers soak for at least 15 minutes, then roll in a towel and hang to dry as above.

NOTE: We recommend using lanolin or lanolin soap in a basin, then emptying the water outdoors. Over time, lanolin used in a sink can create a wax build up in your pipes.

Stains and Odors

For diaper pail odor, try deodorizers, or simply sprinkle baking soda in the bottom of the pail.

Some people don't mind stains, as these are diapers, but I find it very easy to avoid stains with the help of the sun! As I am moving diapers from the washer to the dryer, I check for stains. I take any stained diapers outside and hang in the sun (this works even on cloudy days). Usually the stain is gone in just an hour or two, then I throw it in the dryer with the rest of the clean diapers to fluff it up. Even in the winter, I have a drying rack that I put out on our deck and lay stained diapers on. Sometimes the rack sits in several feet of snow, but it's still out there!

Ammonia smell is a common problem with cloth diapers. (Urine gradually turns into ammonia as it sits.) The first thing to do is to check the ingredients in your detergent and possibly switch brands. Be sure you're using enough detergent to get the diapers clean, and that you're washing in hot water. If you have a front loader, read our tips. You can also try bumGenius Odor Remover Spray.

If you still have ammonia smell after trying the above, try stripping your diapers. This simply means running a full hot wash cycle without detergent, repeating until the water is free of suds. Then dry as usual.