Diaper laundry day...

A friend of mine recently asked me to write a post specifically about how I store and wash our dirty diapers.  Of course in our household it's just something that we do, so while I have written several general posts about cloth diapering I hadn't thought about going through my storage and wash routine.  How we store and wash our diapers has evolved over time to suit our needs, so I'll go through it all.

For the first two months we used disposable diapers on Addisyn and used our Diaper Genie II to store dirty diapers.  When we first converted to cloth (we immediately went from using disposables full-time to using cloth full-time) I continued to use our Diaper Genie just as I had before except instead of throwing the diapers out when it was full I'd take the bag out, cut it open, and dump it into the washer.  I used this method until the pail liner (a waterproof, cloth drawstring bag for dirty diaper storage) that I had ordered arrived.  After that we continued to use the Diaper Genie, but I modified one of the empty plastic inserts so that I was able to use my reusable pail liner instead of having to buy the refills.  I was pretty proud of my ingenuity, but the Diaper Genie didn't really hold enough, and it could be a pain to put the pail liner back in.

This brings us to our present set-up.  We currently use a Rubbermaid kitchen-sized trash can with a lid to store our diapers.  It easily holds 2-3 days worth of diapers, and the pail liner is a perfect fit.  We don't have any issues with smell when it's closed (when open it smells like a dirty hamster cage!), but people who do have diaper pail smell issues can put a few drops of tea tree oil on a cloth wipe and leave it in the pail.  Just a small amount of tea tree oil is a wonderful way to control odor, and it's safe for your diapers. We actually use a couple of drops of tea tree oil in our cloth wipe solution.  It has natural antiseptic properties and helps to prevent mildew and that "old wet" smell in the wipes.


We wash our diapers every 2-3 days using GroVia's Tiny Bubbles detergent that is specifically made for cloth diapers.  You do have to be careful which detergents you wash cloth diapers because of the additives that some detergents contain.  Here is a list of how some different detergents rank for use in cloth diapers.  Things like enzymes, brighteners, plant-based chemicals, etc. tend to not rinse out of diapers well and may diminish the diapers' absorbency, causing leaks and odor problems.  Detergent buildup is also a common cause of diaper rash in cloth-diapered babies.  We have "stripped" our diapers a couple of times, which involves washing them with 1/4 teaspoon of blue Dawn dish liquid, and then rinsing them like crazy to get out all of the detergent buildup.  Fortunately we have not had to do that since we started using Tiny Bubbles.  I use the recommended amount of our detergent because it was specifically made for cloth diapers.  With regular store-bought detergents you should use anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of the  specified amount for the load size.  If the diapers smell after they're washed, try using a little more.  Less detergent is required in HE washing machines because there is less water used.

So washing... I just pull out the pail liner full of diapers (cloth wipes and wetbags also go in in the pail), dump all of the diapers into the washing machine (the pail liner goes in, too) and do a warm wash.  I follow up with an extra rinse to get out any extra detergent that might be hanging around.  Most of the time I dry my diapers on a clothes line or drying rack, and then toss them in the dryer when they're still just a little damp to soften them up (air drying leaves the cotton stiff).  I do not put my diaper covers, wetbags, or pail liners into the dryer as they dry quickly on their own and don't need to be softened after hanging.  If I am just machine drying it helps to speed up drying time if I throw in a dry towel, or some homemade wool dryer balls.  And that's my wash routine!

I will add one other piece of information that I found useful when we used to use pocket diapers overnight that were stuffed with microfiber soaker pads.  Microfiber is extremely absorbent, and when microfiber stays on overnight there is A LOT of urine in there.  This large amount of urine may cause odor problems, it did in ours.  The solution: rinse the diaper with water before putting it into the diaper pail.  I used a cheap plastic bucket, rinsed the microfiber soaker over the bucket, and then poured the bucket contents into the toilet.