Tips For Getting Fitted Diapers Clean

Fitted diapers are fantastic for overnight. They are the most absorbent cloth diaper option and offer dependable peace of mind for a leak-free slumber. They achieve this with 360 degrees of absorbent fabric all around baby and lots of layers.

Because they are thicker, they take longer to dry and have more layers of fabric to clean within the diaper. Without a good wash routine, if they don't get fully clean, they can be prone to smells and ammonia buildup.

Here's the easiest ways to get your fitteds clean and sparkly every time.

Laundry Agitators
Add laundry agitators into your wash cycle (you can add them to the dryer for more efficient drying too). Agitators bump the fabric around helping to beat out soil and facilitate the movement of soapy water through the layers. Adding a small towel or two into your load can help as well providing more agitation for corners and gussets to get cleaner as well.

Pre-Rinsing
When you take off a nighttime fitted in the morning it will be heavy and fully saturated with pee. The easiest way to discourage all that urine from breaking down into ammonia is to dilute it. Run those diapers over with a diaper sprayer or even easier, rinse and wring them out under the bathtub faucet to get a lot of pee out of them before tossing them in the wet bag to wait for wash day. This really helps a lot, especially with toddler pee or if you have stubborn ammonia issues.

Vinegar In The Rinse

Once in a while adding a cup or so of plain white vinegar to the softener tray of your washing machine can help neutralize any odours or lingering ammonia. It also helps loosen and wash away detergent residue and break up mineral deposits that can get lodged in the fabric and hold onto waste particles from harder water.

Detergent Tweaks
Sometimes a bit more detergent is needed as babies get older. If your routine was going fine with a newborn, but now you're getting leftover pee smells with your toddler, you might just need a little more power in the wash. Adjust a bit and see if there's improvement.
*Remember, no homemade, soap-based or plant detergents. It's best to use real, good quality detergent especially for fitteds and AIO style diapers for the most efficient and clean rinsing wash.

Wash Regularly
Washing regularly is important, especially as babies start to potty learn. If you were washing every 2 days, but now with a toddler, it's every 3 days, maybe 4 and you have heavily soiled nighttime fitteds waiting 4 days to wash, that's a recipe for trouble. Stick to washing as regularly as possible and bulk up the load with some small hand towels if you need to make a fuller load.

Use The Sun
The sun works wonders on fabrics and line drying once in a while in the summer can brighten and freshen your fitteds very nicely. Don't have a line? No worries, laying flat in the sun works just as well too.

Hopefully some of those suggestions make a difference for your fitteds. Having 3 or 4 in your stash is always so nice, especially when you have a supersoaker baby on your hands.