Follow washing instructions on sewn in labels.
Follow washing instructions on sewn in labels.
Newborn poo is liquidy or pasty and water-soluble, so the soiled reusable insert can be easily washed in the washer. Use a diaper pail and wash your reusable inserts in the washer every other day or so. Using a soaking solution in the diaper pail is your choice. For example, just soapy water, but please no bleach when soaking. Many parents do not soak the reusable inserts. Instead, they use a liner in the pail and lift the filled liner out of the pail and put the entire bag in the washer. Older babies, when they start eating solids around 6 months, will have solid poop. Shake solid stool into the toilet or use a bio-liner on top of insert and use the bio-liner to move stool to toilet. Might sound gross, but parents tell us all the time that it's not that big a deal and it’s easy to do when caring for your sweet baby.
1. Dump any solids into the toilet (this won’t apply to newborn poop), close the hook and loop tabs, then put cover and insert in a “wet bag” or pail with liner.
2. Every couple days put all diapers (covers with tabs closed and inserts) into washing machine (toss in the wet bag or pail liner as well).
3. Run a rinse cycle first.
4. Soak and wash cycle (if you have the type of washer that will hold water in it, you can even soak overnight)
5. Double rinse (want to make sure all detergent is out).
6. You may hang the diapers to dry (in the sun when possible), but they tumble dry just fine as well.
Use an old toothbrush and brush on lemon juice and let dry in the sun.
Or
Use a cotton swab and paint on bleach ONLY on discolored elastic and let dry for 20-30 min before washing
Rinse excess poop off into toilet or utility sink in laundry room or tub.
Next, put the dirty diaper cover and insert into a waterproof nappy holder.
I use a hanging waterproof hamper with two separate compartments - one for pee-only diaper covers and inserts, and the other for poopy inserts (sometimes poop gets on the elastic and I pretreat by painting on some bleach just to the elastic before washing. Lemon juice and sun is also great for getting stains out of baby clothes).
Depending how many dirty diapers I have - I'll do two separate loads, since I typically have more pee-only diapers I do those in a larger load, and I do the poop diapers in a smaller load, but I increase the 'soil' level on the washer.
When my baby got older and had regular bowel movements around the same time every day, I used a disposable insert to make clean up even easier and used reusables the rest of the day and night.
Washing cloth diapers can take some trial and error, as the type of water and washing machines vary from person to person. Detergent also is a big personal preference. The very best wash I ever got was before I had a HE washer and could use non HE Tide powder detergent and soak overnight. With my front loader, I used Seventh Generation Ultra Power Plus detergent for the diapers the most. I also liked the Norwex powder detergent. Front loaders are a little trickier to find the right combo because they don't use as much water to clean, so using the prewash, soak and then extra rinse after the wash cycle helps! I touch up stains with lemon juice and sun.