How To Wash Cloth Diapers at Home
Many of my family and friends are surprised to learn that we wash Lila's dirty diapers at home. In fact, I was skeptical before we tried it. So I have put together this pictorial guide. It's ridiculously easy to wash cloth diapers if your baby is only fed breastmilk and you have your own washer and dryer.
Not everyone has seen what cloth diapers and diaper covers look like. Here's an unfolded "Chinese prefold” beside an empty cover:
You fold the insert and place it in the cover. There are many ways to fold the insert. We fold ours the way you do a letter and that works well for our girl.
The baby wears the diaper and soils it with either urine or breastmilk poo.
Put the soiled insert into a medium sized garbage bin with a washable bag. If the cover is dirty, put that in too. The size of the bin should accommodate about two days worth of diapers.
When you're ready to wash the diapers, empty the bag directly into the washer. That's right! Just dump them in. You do not have to rinse the poo diapers of breastfed babies. Breastmilk poo is 100% water soluble! (Wash the bag with the diapers.)
The diapers really do come out clean.
Put the wet diapers in the dryer. You might need to run your dryer longer than usual. (I'm in Houston where nothing is ever truly dry.)
If you follow these simple steps, you will have accomplished a feat that many people think is disgusting, vile, and beneath them. In case you are wondering, our water and electricity bills have not gone up by a noticeable amount. We use cloth diapers in combination with elimination communication. I highly recommend this combination if you can manage it. You save money, you save environmental resources, and you're more emotionally connected with the baby.
Labels: diapers, elimination communication, recycling and waste
posted by GreenDaddy at 9:09 PM
12 Comments:
I am a huge cloth diaper fan but I must add the cleaning process gets a little trickier with stinky toddler poop!
12:20 AM
what kind of diapers do you use and where did you buy them? do you use regular detergent? i have high hopes for doing my own but i'm very nervous about it.
12:03 PM
I find that for baby poop from a toddler the best thing is a handheld bidet (about 30 dollars) just spray them out over the toilet no need to dunk your hand!!!
I get my diapers from cottontailbaby.com...
7:39 PM
What about the issue of harsh detergent chemicals in the water system? That kind of negates the 'green' idea, doesn't it?
5:37 PM
we use chinese prefold diapers that we bought at a local children's consignment shop calld young and restless (you can order them online). we bought some used, some new.
i liked the imse vimse organic cotton bumpy diaper covers, though i also bought the majority of the covers used at young and restless, as well. my friends who didn't ec like tighter fitting diapers, however...whatever brand it is that has all the snaps. but they're so expensive!
we are now into training pants and i buy the over the nile ones.
on the other point about harsh chemicals, i can only answer that we didn't call the blog pristine parenting for a reason. i wish my tap water was spring water...but it isn't. the nice thing about elimination communication, however, has been that in the last four months or so, we do very few loads of diaper laundrey. we have used far less diapers than people who rely soley on diapering of any sort. i'm fairly certain the only greener way would be to ec without diapers from birth...which we weren't ready to do.
many of the decisions made for me by industry, government, etc, and that effect my water, air, etc. are daunting. but it doesn't stop me from making green choices where i can.
magreen
7:46 AM
I also want to add to MaGreen's response that we spend a little extra on Ecover laundry detergent which, I believe, is less harsh on the environment than other brinds. According to their website, they use: plant based ingredients that lead to quick and complete iodegradability (OECD-test 301F, full product), no optical brighteners, ingredients that cause minimum impact on aquatic life (OECD-test 201 & 202, full product), no animal testing, non-ionic and anionic tensio-active surfactants, water, citric acid, citrate, plant based ethanol and plant based fragrance (lavender type).
8:09 AM
We use Charlie's Soap to wash our diapers. It is natural, biodegradable, non-toxic, etc. And cheap! It is much more green to wash your own diapers than to use a diaper service, which do use harsh chemicals. And there is no comparison to disposables, which take water to produce and in transit (over and over again, several thousand per baby), and of course are the third largest item overflowing landfills.
6:33 PM
I have tried washing my diapers this way. I use prefolds. I soak and do a prewash in cold with baking soda. Then I wash in hot. All of the diapers come out with poo stains ( my baby is only breastfed). Any suggestions????
8:27 AM
Marcy:
For stains, try line drying in the sun. I've also heard of spritzing lemon juice on particularly stubborn spots, but so far sunning has worked for me. You might need to use more detergent, where I live the water is hard so it takes a bit more soap to really clean my dipes. HTH!
10:42 PM
i put my daughter in the tub for a bath when she goes #2 and i hose down the diapers (and her) with a handheld nozzle ($10 bucks someplaces). i scrub poop diapers by hand while the water runs over them and soak them in hot water and baking soda over night, then wash... i only ever use baking soda in the wash never detergent. safe. naturAl. chemical free. and no stains!
12:39 PM
Hello, I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old and I've just started learning about green parenting. My question is this. What would I do about poopie diapers when you're out in public? Keep in mind he's 2 years old. Trying to potty train, but not there yet. You can't hose him down (which I'm sure he would love), and a tottler #2 is pretty yucky. Any suggestions?
4:22 PM
We have a 19 mon. old at home and we use cloth diapers for him. We do use the gerber premium pre-folds I found at Target and Wal*Mart. I also cloth diaper my 16 mon. old step-son when he comes over for his visits. I love it.
I use Charlies soap to wash all of my laundry. It's green and cost effiecient. One 2.65 lb. container washes 80 loads of laundry. At a tablespoon per load, it doesn't add a bunch of weight if you take your stuff to the laundromat either.
We are still looking for some more cost efficient diaper covers (right now the gerber vinyls work but we're looking toward long-term)
4:51 PM
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