Cloth Diaper Update Part 3 - How We Clean
When I was looking into cloth nappies I wasn't sure about the cleaning or how to even go about it. After watching numerous youtube videos and reading up on it, we figured out what worked for us with our washing machine and setup.
Day time
In the downstairs powder room we have a changing station with:
Chest of drawers - I chose a chest of drawers instead of a change station as I find the open shelving cluttery and clutter is a source of anxiety for me, they are also single use - with the chest of drawers I will use this in the baby's bedroom once he is older.
The top drawer has nappy supplies (shells, inserts, boosters, wipes, nappy cream, muslin cloths) and other baby items like thermometer, nasal aspirator etc
middle has clothes (sleepers, vests, shirts, pants, hats, bibs and socks
bottom has baby bath and towel
Changing pad - easy to wipe down
Potty - we use for elimination communication (other post to follow)
Mirror - baby likes to look at himself in the mirror when getting changed or using the potty - it helps to keep him calm
Wet bags - this is where we put the dirty nappies and wipes until they are ready to be cleaned, they zip shut to contain odour
Nappy sprayer toilet attachment - we got this to help spray off the nappies into the toilet, it saves an extra rinse cycle in the wash and also doubles as a bidet for me (the cloth thing on the toilet contains the little towels I use to dry off)
Sink - in the corner within arms reach is a small sink which I use to wet the wipes with warm water and obviously wash up afterwards
Night time
For night time changes - beside our bed and co-sleeper I have a nightstand which contains:
nappy supplies and outfits
a wipe warmer - we fill this up each night so that baby isn't shocked awake with cold wipes, it also acts as a dim night light so I can see what I'm doing. I cover the light with a scarf when we are done
footstool with towel on it as a change table
humidifier - to help with air dryness in winter and also acts as a white noise machine to help us sleep
Most of the time I put the dirty nappies and wipes on the floor and bring them down in the morning. I could bring up one of the wet bags but don't bother.
Frequency
The 30 inserts and 8 shells would last us about 3 days but I usually end up throwing on a wash once the wet bags are full which is every 2 days. This also keeps ahead of running out.
Washing
On wash day, I go through the wet bags and rinse off the dirty nappies into the toilet with the sprayer. The wet bags need to be washed at 40 degrees max so I wash those with our normal wash.
I then throw the nappies and wipes into the washing machine with the following settings:
Cotton setting, 60 degrees, 1400 spin, 2 hours 20 minutes - nappies need longer cycles and higher spins to get fully clean, 60 degrees is recommended for babies under 3 months or who are sick at any age to kill germs and thrush
Soap wise you are not supposed to use soaps with bleaches, bi-carbonate soda or perfumes etc and no fabric softener as it can damage the waterproof linings and absorbability of liners. As our homemade laundry soap is made of bicarb soda we tried out the unscented eco-egg as recommended by the nappy loan we used. It works well - you can read up on them here
That said, now that we are doing elimination communication we are mostly getting only pee in the nappies and are trialling lower shorter cycles. The last wash I did had only 2 dirty nappies and I ran it on 40 degrees, 1400 spin, 1 hour 17 minutes and they seemed to come out as clean as before. The other benefit of this is we can now throw the wet bags in with this wash instead of keeping aside for our normal wash.
Drying
The inserts and shells I opted for dry so quickly I can hang them up on a clothes horse and they dry overnight which saves on energy. The bamboo boosters take longer to try so I usually throw them in with our normal clothes in the dryer if I'm doing normal wash that day. Otherwise I leave them on the clothes horse a bit longer.
If there are stains left over from the wash you can line-dry in the sun as the sun is a natural bleach and also kills bacteria and fungus.
So there you have it. The washing up takes a bit of effort but you do get into a routine of it. Eventually with elimination communication we should be able to cut down on this as well. Stay tuned for a post on our progress with that.
