Stains from solid-food poop

[Kelly1101]

My daughter is eating solids full-time now. Her diapers are stained stained stained. Very gross. What do I do? For BM poo the sun always worked, I tried that and NOTHING, it didn't help at all. How do I get out these stains out?

We use GMD regular prefolds, Thirsties fab fitted, and Bumgenius bamboo fitted.


For whatever reason the BG fitteds have the worst stains. Don't know if that's coincidence.

[Katie T]

When you do your hot wash put a scoop of oxygen cleaner ( I use sun oxygen cause it is cheap) and stop the washer after it has agitated a little while and let them soak over night. Then start the washer up again in the morning and finish your wash routine. It may not get them all out the first time but it will eventually get them clean.

[lifeguard]

I find the stains will get better with time as well. For example: ds had a lot of blueberries the other day (which stain!) & a couple of his diapers were still quite purple after washing but after 3 or 4 more uses/washes they will be stain free again.

Plus, they're diapers - as long as they're clean does it really matter?

[jessemoon]

Unfortunately, IME, stains are a fact of life once they start eating food! You can minimize them, help them fade over time etc....but really, poop just stains stuff.

I don't mean this as a criticism of the OP, but I've always found the discussion of stained diapers a little funny. I once turned down the offer of a loan of a lovely stash of diapers because the mama who (quite kindly) offered them to me specifically asked that I return them without stains. Yikes! I was too intimidated to even try that.

Unless you are willing to go the bleach route, an item that a toddler wears every day and poops into is going to stain....especially if your kids eat exciting things like blueberries and beets.

I figure, if it's clean and soft and doesn't stink, then it's good enough for me.

[Kelly1101]

Yeah, maybe stains aren't that huge a deal, but they creep me out. I don't like putting them on her because even though they are "clean", it seems dirty. Guess that's just me, haha.


What IS the deal with bleach? My husband said to just bleach them, but does that mess up the cloth of the diaper? Or is it just a concern that the chemical could get on the baby's skin? What if they were washed many times after?

[Adsullata]

Funny cause I had more trouble with stains when dd was ebf. I haven't seen a stain in many, many moons. I'm like you OP, stains bug me- I feel like it's not really cleaned off of there if it's stained. We toilet dunk our poopie dipes and sometimes leave them sitting in there for a few. The cold water really gets stains out. Then I squirt them with a little bac-out before tossing in pail. Additionally, I do a cold wash cycle before my hot wash (fl washer) to rinse everything. Some people do a cold soak in their washer. And, since dd LOVES blueberries more than just about anything, we've had more than our share of blueberry bombs. And I mean BOMB. But no stains that I can see at present. If you don't like dunking, do you have a diaper sprayer?

A little bleach every now and then will not immediately "mess up" your dipes, although it's harder on pul. Bleach wears any fabric out faster, so the more you use it the shorter the fabric lifespan. I rarely use it in any of my laundry unless absolutely necessary because it's not very environmentally friendly and it's hard for me to get it rinsed out thoroughly, and I'm overly sensitive to it. But if you just used a little on the rare occasion and rinsed it thoroughly, there shouldn't be any problem. Me, I prefer to try other techniques, like more cold water, before bleach- unless we had like a staph outbreak or something serious like that.