If you have been a cloth diaper user for any amount of time, you know that no matter how diligent you are at prepping them and keeping them clean and using the right detergent, they eventually start to turn… sour. They can start to stink even after coming out of the wash, and they no longer absorb like they used to. This means that you have a buildup in your diapers of either detergent or urine and it is time to freshen them up.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to shell out hundreds of dollars for another diaper stash. There are some really simple and affordable ways to get your diapers back to pristine condition.
In some cases, washing your stash of diapers in hot water around three times without any soap or detergent should do the trick. Make sure that the water is rinsing off the diapers clean with no suds. This is particularly handy if you’re dealing with a detergent buildup in your cloth diapers.
When I strip my cloth diapers, I do two wash cycles with just hot water. The third time around, I add half a cup of white vinegar to the load (and sometimes a drop or two of tea tree oil). (I have never had any trouble with this method, but since vinegar is acidic, it could damage the waterproof PUL parts of your diapers).
Another really simple and cheap stripping method involves adding regular Dawn dish soap to your wash. Make sure that you add the soap drop by drop so that it does not get too sudsy in your wash. Less is better. After washing the diapers with Dawn, put the diapers through a couple more wash cycles (with no detergent) until they rinse clean. You may also consider hand washing the diapers with Dawn original dish soap.
The company that sells my favourite cloth diapers (Hipkiddo) recommends Rockin Green Funk Rock when stripping your diapers. This method definitely seems like the easiest (but perhaps not the cheapest) method. You just soak your diapers in hot water and Funk Rock for 30-60 minutes, rinse, and wash as usual. Easy peasy!
I believe that no matter how you care for your cloth diapers, you will have to strip them on occasion. But here are some really good tips for keeping stripping sessions few and far between:
- Use a cloth diaper approved laundry detergent.
- Never ever use fabric softener or dryer sheets.
- Be very wary of diaper rash creams.
The small print: I use Hipkiddo cloth diapers on Gavin. They’re an awesome cloth diaper choice if you’re looking for green, affordable diaper options. Be sure to Like Hipkiddo on Facebook and follow on Twitter to hear about chances to save and win. Hipkiddo provided cloth diapers for the purposes of this blog series but all opinions are my own.
Continue Reading the Cloth Diaper Series
Poop Happens
Let’s Start at the Beginning: How to Pre-Wash Cloth Diapers
Fluff in Numbers
Thanks for this post Laura! Meghan and I are now on our third child with cloth diaper making this our fourth year of using them.
Rocken’ Green is by far my favorite diaper detergent and it works really well. That being said one of the biggest challenges for us after we moved was losing our top loading washer and gaining a front loading HE washer. Granted the HE washer is great on the power and water bills but it takes a little more wrangling to get the diapers coming out clean.
For my washer I put the diapers on a double rinse on the ‘warm/warm’ setting with no spin twice before I wash them, I quite often use OxyClean in that phase of washing. We also have a sprayer connected to our toilet that looks a lot like the sprayer on a sink. These are great for poop filled diapers and a must use for newborn breast milk diapers.
Even with all of this I know we are coming up to a point where I will have to fill our bath tub (I wash our set tub was connected to a drain!) with a mixture of Funk Rock and hot water to let the diapers strip overnight. We used to do that in our top loading washer once every 6-9 months and we are getting to that point again.
If I could offer one tip to anyone using cloth diapers it wold be this; stick with it there is a learning curve that makes disposable seem very attractive early on. If I could offer two pieces of advice I would also say keep your less efficient top loading washer until your done washing diapers, you will use more water but save more time.
Good Post! I have stripped our diapers a few times with Dawn. I wet the diapers, squirt Dawn on to each and scrub with a soft toothbrush… good arm workout too. Then run 2 washes with no detergent and hang to dry. Voila – smell good and super absorbent. We use Allen’s All Natural Soap normally. I also find that cleaning my washing machine once a month helps – hot wash with a cup of vinegar to clear the gunk. Using good soap with the regular wash keeps the build up down as well. We use FuzziBunz AIO and FB suggests using Seventh Generation Free for all other washing. Totally helped!
We were starting to get some funky diapers. It got to the point that I could smell them when I opened the washing machine on a clean load! I used the Rockin’ Green Funk Rock and it worked after one go. I’ll also throw in some vinegar every once in a while. We have hard water so it just helps get them cleaner.
I can’t wait for it to be summer again for the sun to get rid of all the stains and brighten them up! Plus a hot sun works a lot faster than our indoor drying rack. I feel like I’m constantly surrounded by hanging diapers.
I can’t wait for summer to be able to sun my diapers either! They are starting to get a little dingy and I want those whites to be a bit whiter!
Laura, you didn’t mention the most fantastic stripping method – which is boiling the inserts! I always find that works best for me. I fill big pots with water, a drop of blue dawn (and I added a drop of bleach last time too because they were pretty dingy looking) and then bring the pots to a boil. Once boiling I add the clean inserts (I can add about 3-4 at a time depending on the size pot), let them boil for 20 minutes, and then dump the whole pot into the washing machine and start over. After all the inserts are done, I just run a long hot wash (with no detergent) in my washing machine.
They get so lovely and clean looking (and smelling). Dave couldn’t believe the difference last time! It is time consuming, but it isn’t very hands on as you have a lot of downtime, so I do it while working on other things!
I just boiled mine for the first time a month or so ago. They were pretty funky and I wanted them to be nice and clean for the new baby. It worked really well! I also started doing an extra rinse cycle after washing, so it goes cold rinse, hot wash/cold rinse, then one or two more cold rinses. So far so good :)