New to cloth- need help getting stains out

[bright_eyes]

I have just started cding and washed my first diaper load yesterday. I'm using pre-folds. I just tossed everything into my dry pail as I changed diapers and then when I washed them I did a cold pre-wash and a hot wash with Nellie's laundry detergent. This is what a friend of mine does and she never gets stains. Well my diapers that had a lot of poop on them are stained and my white t-shirt that got a ton of newborn poop on it has a nice big stain on it. I had thought this method was a fool proof way to not get stains???

What am I doing wrong? How do you prevent stains from getting on your diapers? I know that the sun will take out stains but I would love to be able to get them out before they come out of the washing machine. Or is that not always possible?

[Ruthla]

I personally never worried about staining on diapers or cloth pads. Diapers are designed to be pooped on- who cares if they're stained? As long as they're CLEAN (dont' smell like poop after washing), I wouldn't worry.

For the t-shirt, I'd recomend mixing oxygen bleach with some soap (ivory soap works well, or whatever bar soap you have in the house) and treat the spot with the stain. Wash the shirt again (don't put it in the dryer!) and repeat this process if needed. you may even have luck with the oxygen bleach without the soap- sometimes I can see the stain dissapear as the bleach sits there on the fabric! Other times I need to treat a few times before the stain is completely gone.

[bright_eyes]

I'm not super worried about stained diapers, either. I'm just surprised by the stains because I was told this will get out all stains. And I was hoping it would so that I could throw in cloths that get pooped on and have the stains come out. I spent hours (or so it felt) with ds1's clothes when he was a baby trying to get poop stained clothes to come clean, so I was hoping for an easier method of getting the stains out.