Cloth Diapers - Washing?

Question

I really want to cloth diaper my baby when he comes (end of January/beginning of February).

The sites I have been to that sell them all talk about running them through a cold rinse cycle and then washing them in hot water and then running them through a rinse cycle again.
Is this necessary or can you just wash them?

The reason I ask is because we live in an apartment and have to pay $1.50 to wash and $1.50 to dry. I'd really rather not spend $4.50 every other day just on washing alone, especially since we can't hang dry them.


Is there any other way to do it so I don't have to do more than one wash cycle? rinsing in the toilet maybe? Its my first baby so I'm new to it all. Please let me know if you have ideas or what worked for you if you've done it.

Thanks

Answer 1

Listen, hon, when I had my babies there were no disposable diapers. So, take it from an old hand....you rinse the diaper out in the toilet, if it's soiled. If it is just wet, don't bother. Wash diapers in hot water with any good laundry soap (I wouldn't use any with perfumes, though) and put about a cup of vinegar in the wash water, too (gets rid of odor). Once through the washer is fine. You are going to get all sorts of answers about being sure all the soap is out, or using diaper services, or how disposable are "better" for the baby, etc. Many generations grew up before disposable diapers and diaper services, and a lot of diapers got washed in lye soap, too. Babies are tough little birds. My kids lived through diapers rinsed in the toilet and washed in one cycle. Yours will, too.

Answer 2

Claudiacake, Nursekasey, Mom2jjorion, Eatmynipple, and Skludo gave some great advice that I will also take into consideration.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm still using disposable. This morning I realized that I have probably made more of a landfill contribution in the last three months since my daughter was born than what I have in the last three years. Last year, when my husband was doing his pastoral internship, we lived in the parsonage. With that came the city's curbside recycling service. We would have an overflowing bin once a week (I think it was a mental challenge game for my husband to see how he could arrange the refuse in the bin to get it so the lid would stay on) and take out our trash once a month. Now, we're back in the seminary apartments where we have to take out the trash and the recyclables to separate Dumpsters and we're doing them both, it seems, once a week. Yikes.

I'm just impressed that you're willing to try cloth while living in an apartment and having to go to the basement laundry room. Before our baby (who was conceived when we were away) we lived in the couples/singles apartments. The building has a community coin laundry room as well. Even though I could easily leave my clothes in a machine and get to them when I had time, it was still a bother at times.

Here are a couple of sites that might be of help. On the Mothering site, just scroll down to Natural Family Wearing, then to the subcategory of Diapering. There's a closed thread there that is essentially Cloth Diapering 101. If you want to ask questions, you will, of course, have to register. However, I have found the women there to be quite helpful.

The Dr. Spock section is also helpful and just something I've stumbled upon. I think that if you do a search for "cloth diapering", you will also get some good results. Unfortunately, I don't have time to search and share as I want to do some searching on it myself. I've come this close to convincing my husband that we can start cloth diapering, at least mostly at home. There are CD liners that are actually flushable. I found them on the Wal-Mart site (of all places), but I'm sure they are available elsewhere.

I hope I've been of some help.

Answer 3

It's a lot of work to wash diapers by hand. I watched my mother do it a few times and I had to do it once myself when my son was a baby. Not something I would want to do on a regular basis. While I think it's wonderful that you want to use cloth diapers, without a washer and dryer in your home, I wouldn't advise it. Not only would it be inconvenient to have to use the public laundry, but I never thought the diapers were as clean as when I washed them at home. I didn't really realize with my first child because I was using public machines all the time, but while my second was still in diapers my home washer quit working and I had to go to the laundry for a couple of weeks. The diapers had changed colors by the time I got my washer repaired. It was a bit of an eye opener.

Answer 4

I rinse them out in the sink after they are soiled, then I just wash them in the machine like normal. I wash my diapers every 2-3 days, and when I wash them I do a diaper-only load that's not too full so that the diapers have plenty of room to float around in the water.

I know those diaper-sites say that you must do all those special washing cycles, etc., for "hygiene" reasons, but I think that's being just a bit too impractical, and too expensive. My baby's diapers come out perfectly clean everytime and I trust that they aren't laden with bacteria, or stains, etc. Also, if the washing machine you use has a setting for 'extra soiled' clothes, or a heavy duty wash, etc., you could use that.

I used disposable diapers for the first month, and I'm so much happier using cloth with my 8 week old. It's not a hassle, and it saves a bundle, and, most importantly, my baby's skin never gets diaper rash.

Cloth-diapering is wonderful... just don't get discouraged about it! Also, congrats on the baby!

Answer 5

Check around your area their maybe a diaper washing service in your area. Other wise the first cold rinse is to rinse out any poop and the extra rinse at the end is to make sure all the soap is out. If you rinse the diaper off in the sink before hand and store in a bucket of soapy water until you go down for a wash plus use baby laundry soap in the laundry you should be fine. I would if you have the money do the double rinse at the end but if money is tight just use baby laundry soap. Most new front loading washer have the option of a double rinse.

Answer 6

My friend used to wash her diapers in the bathtub because she couldn't afford the laundromat (she was a college student).

No, you don't have to do all that. For one thing, the hot water in your apartment building is likely VERY hot. In most homes, the heater has been turned down (keep this in mind when bathing baby). The result is that it is harder to get diapers cleaned. With hot water, it is a nonproblem.

I recommend getting diaper liners. They are reusable and when baby poops you can throw it away (if you are breastfeeding, that won't really help until you start solids.

Finally, if you are doing diapers as a cost saving measure, spend some time spinning the numbers. Many women who have to use a coin-op are spending the same as they would if they used Target brand diapers. On average, you can wash 24 diapers in a large washer; it may be less for yours. Figure out your cost per wash (including detergent, coinage) and then multiply it over a few months. You need the cost of the diapers and covers somewhere in there. Then get REAL estimates of how many disposables you'd be using daily. Compare costs. My cousin and his GF found that they would actually spend more (including the gas getting to the laundromat) than getting disposables, so they went that way. She used cloth diapers for her first child (who is now in his 20s). Spreadsheets are great for this.

Answer 7

Now you know why everyone uses disposable diapers. Cloth diapers are an enormous pain. That having been said, the reason people recommend cold rinse hot wash is that if you hot wash a poopy diaper there will be a poop stain in it forever * 8 pee/poops a day * 300 days / the number of diapers you have = total number of poop stains per diaper. Assuming you are breast feeding the poop of a breast fed baby is pretty inoffensive. Really I know that sounds crazy but it's true. I have two kids and when they were only getting breast milk I can say with no reservation that their poop smelled roughly like some kind of hot cereal or something. Therefore I would say you could devise a, scrape, soak, hand wash method of dealing with diapers. I would use a plastic board scraper/ spatula to scrape poo poo into the toilet then soak in a bucket of a 5% bleach solution (changed daily) then quickly hand wash/rinse. Then you could toss them into the laundry. I would reccommend buying enough cloth diapers that you could toss a bunch of them in the washer at the same time. so that you only had to do laundry every other day. Also keep in mind this is not an all or nothing thing. Just becuase you prefer to use cloth diapers doesn't mean you can NEVER use a dispossable. Buy some dispossables for use when you're out in town. Carrying around a bag of crappy diapers is a sure way to put dinners at your favorite lunch spot off their soup.

Answer 8

I wash with one cold rinse to spin out the urine and solids. Then I run a hot wash with a cold rinse. You don't neccessarily need to do a thrid rinse. Make sure you are not using too much detergent, I use 1/4 the recommended amount of Tide Free. If you run into a problem with your diapers "wicking" ie pee is running out of them, then you may have a detergent build up problem. I have never had a wicking problem though and I don't do the extra rinse cycle. You should be fine.

Answer 9

Don't listen to the dum dums saying cloth diapers are so much work. They aren't! Especially when they're apart of your normal routine. You are making a great choice starting out with cloth and I wish I had done so from the get go.

Rinsing the diapers in the sink is good suggestion to help eliminate that extra rinse. Using a little bit of baking soda and vinegar will also help produce squeaky clean diapers.

Although, I would suggest you estimate the costs of using the provided machines and then the cost of a service. I never recommend using a service, but in this case, it may be more economical for you.

Answer 10

You could probably get by without the extra rinse if you wash them out in the sink or toilet. Is there any way that you could get a stackable apartment style washer and dryer?

I always do it the way you described so I'm not much help. I DO know though that they sell things that you can attach to your toilet tank that will spray the diapers so that you don't have to actually dunk.