Cleaning cloth diapers?

[coffeegirl]

Just wondering about the cloth diaper cleaning thing. We have a couple of thirsties covers and some prefold diapers. My baby has been in the NICU since she was born, hopefully she'll be home this weekend. So I'm trying to get everything figured out before she comes home.

How do you clean them? Like, you take off a poopy diaper and then what? Do you dump the contents into the toilet? And then do you rinse off at any point or just throw them in a diaper pail or right into the laundry? And as for diaper pails, do you put any kind of liquid cleanser/disinfectant in there or just leave it dry?

I'm just trying to figure all this out, how to rinse/de-gross the diapers before they go in the wash. I don't want to wash really gross diapers in the washer and then wash regular clothes in there, you know? Or...am I being unreasonable and is that just how it's done? Just seems kind of icky to me.

[jeminijad]

For exclusively breastfed babies, you can toss a poo diaper straight into the washer. That poo is water soluble.

That said, for anyone who plans to CD till potty learning, I recommend a diaper sprayer. What most people do it either spray, scrape or shake the bulk of the waste into the toilet and flush it. Then toss the dirty diaper into a pail or hanging wet bag. Wash every other day.

The wash cycle itself is a cold prewash, then a hot wash with detergent, then an extra rinse. The poop is gone by the end of the first prewash, and your washer is totally clean by the end of the rinses.

ETA: some people still use a "wet pail," which has water + bleach or vinegar or something else for disinfecting, but it is harder on diapers and can be a drowning hazard for mobile babies. I use a dry pail, which is a Planetwise hanging pail that goes straight into the wash w/the diapers. Seems cleaner to me.

[cristeen]

Until she starts solids after 6 mos, theres nothing to dump in the toilet. Poo is liquid in anybody on a purely liquid diet. Once they start solids though, then you need to do something or wind up w detritus in the machine.

[coffeegirl]

Originally Posted by jeminijad

The wash cycle itself is a cold prewash, then a hot wash with detergent, then an extra rinse. The poop is gone by the end of the first prewash, and your washer is totally clean by the end of the rinses.

Sorry, this is probably a silly question, but I saw a post similar to this on another thread and ust wanted to clarify. What kind of cycle are you talking about? Just a regular wash cycle with a regular washing machine? Or when you say "cold wash" to start with do you mean you run the clothes (diapers) through an entire cold wash cycle first, then a second hot cycle with detergent, and then add an extra rinse?

[jeminijad]

Originally Posted by coffeegirl

Sorry, this is probably a silly question, but I saw a post similar to this on another thread and ust wanted to clarify. What kind of cycle are you talking about? Just a regular wash cycle with a regular washing machine? Or when you say "cold wash" to start with do you mean you run the clothes (diapers) through an entire cold wash cycle first, then a second hot cycle with detergent, and then add an extra rinse?

I personally run a cold "prewash" first, because that is the setting on my washer that works best. It is basically just a rinse- fill, agitate, spin.

Then I run a normal heavy duty cycle with hot water + detergent. The machine automatically does one cold rinse as part of this.

If I have used a lot of detergent (extra poopy or big load,) I run a hot Prewash at the end. Otherwise, I just crank the knob back to the rinse cycle and do once more rinse.