Washing Diapers 101 – The Best Way To Wash Cloth Diapers

Washing cloth diapers should be simple. Really. You shouldn’t need lots of special rules or excessive rinsing or additives or stripping on a regular basis to keep your diapers clean and functional. Follow these quick and easy steps to worry free cloth diaper washing. With a good wash routine, your diapers should come out clean and smelling fresh every time.

#1) Rinse – Do an initial rinse, pre-rinse or short wash cycle without detergent or with a small amount of detergent. Any temperature is fine. Our goal here is to flush out as much urine as we can before the main wash cycle. Many heavy duty wash cycles already have a pre-rinse type function build into the cycle which makes it super easy.

#2) Wash – A HOT heavy duty wash with detergent. Use the proper amount of detergent for your load size and type of washing machine as recommended on the detergent package regardless of whether you use a commercially available brand or a cloth diaper specific brand. What detergent should I use.

#3) Rinse – This additional rinse is optional as all wash cycles are followed by a rinse anyway. So, this ends up being a rinse on top of that rinse if you feel it's necessary. If you aren’t having smell, repelling or rash issues, then don’t worry about it.

*The above applies to any washing machine whether it be a top loader, front loader, high efficiency (HE) machine or not.

There you have it. Easy peasy.

IF you have leak, smell or rash issues then reference the linked articles to troubleshoot.