"STOP washing my diapers! Please!"

[Comtessa]

To all of my very helpful and loving family members:

Please STOP washing my diapers!

I know you want to help.  I appreciate your desire to help.  I would be delighted if you turned your helpful cleaning impulses towards nearly anything else in my filthy house.   My windows, floors, t-shirts and children would all benefit from a good scrubbing. 

But please, for the love of all that's holy,

leave the diapers alone!

Mom, I know you're concerned about your grandchildren's delicate bottoms, but fabric softener will Never Come Out of my diapers and they will never absorb anything again. 

MIL, I know they're stained, but they're diapers.  Poop stains are OK.  Please, please, for heaven's sake, do not soak my brand new FuzziBunz in bleach! 

Dad, thank you for wanting the diapers to smell nice, but that flowery-smelly laundry detergent gives me migraines and gives the babies rashes.  Diapers don't HAVE to smell nice.  They just have to be clean. 

Everybody, just put the diapers in the pail and back away.  I'll clean them.  It's OK.  You don't have to help with this one.  My dishes, however, are all yours. 

Love,

    Me.

[Galatea]

I don't let anyone near my washer.  I am so particular about all laundry.  OMG I would be livid were I you.

[HopefulJo]

My mom would have totally washed my diapers- and offered a few times- but I gave her a lecture on more than one occasion, trying to make washing sound complex and intricate, as to intimidate her from trying, lest the diapers be ruined. So far it has worked, save a few prefolds that have been used as burp cloths at her house and gotten thrown in her wash.

Now, as for the rest of our clothes, she's still "helpful" and washes these if she gets a chance, and they come out smelling like scented detergent- not my preference 

[BananaBreadGirl]

:( Sorry you had those problems. Do they know how much cloth diapers cost!!!! Maybe politely tell them that unfortunately some of your things were ruined and you understand that mistakes happen, but if they ruin any more of your things by not following the washing instructions, you will expect them to replace them?

I have specific diaper washing instructions taped on my washing machine, maybe that would help you too?

Or just have them stick to dishes, haha. I too would much rather do the diapers myself and someone else do dishes.

[Comtessa]

Originally Posted by BananaBreadGirl 

I have specific diaper washing instructions taped on my washing machine, maybe that would help you too?

That's a great idea!  It would also solve another problem -- it would (perhaps) prevent the inevitable conversation in which DH stands in front of the washing machine in the basement shouting upstairs to me: "wait, was that soak hot, wash cold?  Or wash cold, rinse hot?  And is it half the recommended detergent, or double?"   
 

[crystal_buffaloe]

LOL

OMG. Spot on, sister!

[littlegreenlady]

I let my mom wash the diapers in the beginning thinking, we only have one kind of soap and they are flats what could go wrong.

She put them in the dryer dirty because she didn't notice that the wash cycle never ran (the water got turned off somehow).

That is correct she dried the diapers even though they were still dirty.

In our very first ever brand new drier.

My husband lost it (it had been a pretty stressful month for him).

Neither the diapers or the dryer have been the same since.