Doing the dirty work

Lets talk laundry.

When cleaning your diapers, the most important item to remember to use and use enough of is water. Good ol' H2O. Trapped odors, stiff diapers, redness on baby's skin can all be culprits of detergent build-up on your diapers. An adequate amount of water can help with these issues as well as staining.

When it is time to wash my Country Baby diapers and/or the other high quality diapers in my stash I generally follow the following wash schedule.

1)Set the water level of the washing machine to the highest level allowed.
2)Fill washer and pre-soak, 20 minutes in cold.
3)Add a sprinkle of Oxiclean to the water, and rinse and spin.
4)Re-fill the washer with hot water, add a small amount of All Free and Clear detergent, wash as normal.
5)Do an additional rinse for the diapers, cold. *Sometimes I will add a small amount of white vinegar to this rinse as it acts like a natural fabric softener, and it neutralizes the uric acid in any urine particles that may still be present.
6)Dry on low heat (sometimes takes two cycles). I always try to line dry when I can, but Maine weather can be tricky to predict and certainly isn't reliable.

If you ask 100 people how they wash their diapers you will likely get 99 different answers. I just use the method that works for me and my diapers. There is some controversy as to whether it is OK to dry PUL in the dryer. I always dry my PUL on 1 cycle of low heat and ALL of my diapers that my daughter wore from '05-'07 are in fully functioning great condition. I NEVER dry on hot heat with PUL in the dryer.

Should your diapers build up an odor it it likely due to a build-up of detergents which the odor is binding to. A proper regular wash routine which uses adequate water will help to combat this issue.