Love this, was considering it when me and my fiance decide to have our last child. Plus just incase we have twins it will come in handy, both our families have twins and its due in our generation so we have a 75% chance.
Found you blog through the blog hop over at mommymindspa
Hiya TJ! Thanks for this pragmatic, simple, and helpful page. Did you know “How to wash cloth diapers” puts this URL on the first page of results? 🙂 Anyways, I’ve finally purchased a few cloth diapers to use over night. My daughter is potty trained, but she’s only 2, and is still wetting when she’s asleep. I’m glad to know that the care of the diapers should be a lot easier than so many people make it out to be…
Great how-to for washing cloth diapers! I’m a veteran cloth diaper mama and this is the best I’ve seen 🙂
One thing though, you should put a disclaimer about using Dawn directly in your washing machine as it will void the warranty on most new machines. If you have a used machine with no warranty (as I do) then go for it!
I’ll definitely be bookmarking this to share with friends. I might even try your laundry soap and cloth diaper detergent recipes, although I’m skeptical about the effectiveness of homemade detergent for poop and pee. You’ve got me thinking about it!
This is the most comprehensive blog post I have been able to find about *HOW* to wash cloth diapers. Thank you SO MUCH for writing it!!! I did notice your disclaimer about Dawn dish-soap, but you wrote “dishwasher” instead of “washing machine.” Just wondering if that was intentional?
Lol, no, it was supposed to be washing machine! I oopsed. Probably thinking dishes since it’s dish soap, lol. Thanks for pointing it out, I’ll correct it right now. 🙂
Newb here. Ok….you say Warm, hot, warm. Are you saying that you have to wash 3x every diaper laundering cycle? Or is there some sort of magical diaper washing voodoo I’m unaware of. 😉 TIA
Lol, two rinse cycles and one wash cycle in between. So you throw the diapers in and rinse them with plain warm water (no detergent) to get the majority of the yuckies off; then wash on hot with cloth diaper safe detergent; then rinse with plain warm water. So there’s one rinse cycle that’s in addition to normal laundry. I’ve found, however, that if you spray the diapers off thoroughly as soon as the mess is made (like into the toilet with your diaper sprayer), you can skip the first rinse cycle except every couple weeks or so.
This is a REALLY stupid question, but-
I have one of the cheapest washing machines you can buy at lowes. It’s not bad, it’s just not “fancy.”
Maybe I’m just stupid and the answer is staring at me, but without all the bells and whistles, how do I get the machine to do a warm-hot-warm, rinse-wash-rinse?
I can tell it to do cold-cold, cool-cold, and then some variation of warm and hot (rarely used for us). And I have a normal cycle, some other cycle I forget that I don’t use and a a gentle/delicates cycle. It’s all turn-y nobs.
Am I making any sense? Lol
Do you have the instructions for it? If no, you might be able to find them online. Otherwise, just mess with the settings you do have and experiment to see what works. 🙂
I am about to jump in the cloth diaper world and realized I was missing some basic knowledge about the do and don’t…and this is the only article I needed to read to get started! Thanks for putting time into this and sharing!
Love this, was considering it when me and my fiance decide to have our last child. Plus just incase we have twins it will come in handy, both our families have twins and its due in our generation so we have a 75% chance.
Found you blog through the blog hop over at mommymindspa
Hiya TJ! Thanks for this pragmatic, simple, and helpful page. Did you know “How to wash cloth diapers” puts this URL on the first page of results? 🙂 Anyways, I’ve finally purchased a few cloth diapers to use over night. My daughter is potty trained, but she’s only 2, and is still wetting when she’s asleep. I’m glad to know that the care of the diapers should be a lot easier than so many people make it out to be…
Here goes nothing! 😉
Great how-to for washing cloth diapers! I’m a veteran cloth diaper mama and this is the best I’ve seen 🙂
One thing though, you should put a disclaimer about using Dawn directly in your washing machine as it will void the warranty on most new machines. If you have a used machine with no warranty (as I do) then go for it!
I’ll definitely be bookmarking this to share with friends. I might even try your laundry soap and cloth diaper detergent recipes, although I’m skeptical about the effectiveness of homemade detergent for poop and pee. You’ve got me thinking about it!
Oh, I didn’t even know about that! I’ll definitely add a note. 🙂 Thanks for pointing that out!
This is the most comprehensive blog post I have been able to find about *HOW* to wash cloth diapers. Thank you SO MUCH for writing it!!! I did notice your disclaimer about Dawn dish-soap, but you wrote “dishwasher” instead of “washing machine.” Just wondering if that was intentional?
Lol, no, it was supposed to be washing machine! I oopsed. Probably thinking dishes since it’s dish soap, lol. Thanks for pointing it out, I’ll correct it right now. 🙂
Newb here. Ok….you say Warm, hot, warm. Are you saying that you have to wash 3x every diaper laundering cycle? Or is there some sort of magical diaper washing voodoo I’m unaware of. 😉 TIA
Lol, two rinse cycles and one wash cycle in between. So you throw the diapers in and rinse them with plain warm water (no detergent) to get the majority of the yuckies off; then wash on hot with cloth diaper safe detergent; then rinse with plain warm water. So there’s one rinse cycle that’s in addition to normal laundry. I’ve found, however, that if you spray the diapers off thoroughly as soon as the mess is made (like into the toilet with your diaper sprayer), you can skip the first rinse cycle except every couple weeks or so.
This is a REALLY stupid question, but-
I have one of the cheapest washing machines you can buy at lowes. It’s not bad, it’s just not “fancy.”
Maybe I’m just stupid and the answer is staring at me, but without all the bells and whistles, how do I get the machine to do a warm-hot-warm, rinse-wash-rinse?
I can tell it to do cold-cold, cool-cold, and then some variation of warm and hot (rarely used for us). And I have a normal cycle, some other cycle I forget that I don’t use and a a gentle/delicates cycle. It’s all turn-y nobs.
Am I making any sense? Lol
Do you have the instructions for it? If no, you might be able to find them online. Otherwise, just mess with the settings you do have and experiment to see what works. 🙂
This is a good post on how to wash cloth diapers for a first time mother like me.
Hey, pretty good article.
Hi! I just sewed my own inserts. I was wondering if I need to “strip” them upfront or wash them just normally before use? Any thoughts?
Hi, Ukti! Great question. I’ll ask some of my crunchy friends and see if they know then get back to you. 🙂
I am about to jump in the cloth diaper world and realized I was missing some basic knowledge about the do and don’t…and this is the only article I needed to read to get started! Thanks for putting time into this and sharing!