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Serious question(s) from a father of 2 under 2... How do you get the cloth diapers clean? Like, really clean so they don't still smell after they've been clean

Serious question(s) from a father of 2 under 2... How do you get the cloth diapers clean? Like, really clean so they don't still smell after they've been cleaned? My wife and I were planning on cloth diapering. We bought some high-end cloth diaper and liners and started on our merry way. We found that no matter what we did, our little guy smelled like piss all the time. My wife was washing diapers 2 or 3 times in between wearings, "stripping" them to remove remaining smells, etc., etc. Our water bill went up by literally $50 a month, we were buying all kinds of detergents to try and get the smells to go away, and we had already invested a ton of money actually buying diapers in the first place. Not to mention that my wife was spending all her time washing, re-washing, and folding diapers _and_ our kid still smelled like piss. In our case, disposables were a god-send. The little dude is happy, he doesn't smell, my wife doesn't spend half her day cleaning diapers, and (especially since we buy diapers in bulk on good sales), we've found disposable diapers to actually be far _cheaper_ than what we were paying for water, detergent, startup costs, etc. on cloth. I would never go back, just because of the time savings alone.

jetcata 9y ago
You need to soak them in something stronger before washing - something bleach based. Napisan is great for this (and also for any white shirts etc).
sailfast 9y ago
Have you tried putting them in the sun? Sunlight does a lot of good on diapers. If you have the option I'd put them on a line outside. As for the other stuff, we used a double-rinse with powdered detergent and things seemed to work pretty well. The time factor was _super_ annoying. Maintenance for cloth diapers is a full-time job sometimes, but it felt good not to add a billion pounds of waste to the landfill. Full disclosure: Now that we travel a lot more, we're pretty much only in disposables.
chevman 9y ago
We used cloth diapers on my son (who is now almost 4). Our technique was as follows: -One wash cycle in warm water using no soap. -One wash cycle in hot water using soap. -Dry Every couple weeks we would put white vinegar in the no-soap cycle. This helps cut the smell down. Every couple months we would put a small amount of bleach in the no-soap cycle. Any more frequent than this and we found the diapers then irritated our son's skin. If I had to do it all over again, not sure how I would choose. As you call out, there are additional costs to the cloth diaper approach (water, detergent, etc) that add up, plus it takes quite a bit of time. One advantage that we found is that our son, and other folks we know who used cloth diapers, all had kids who ended up potty training sooner (anywhere from a couple months to 6+ months earlier) than kids wearing disposables.
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Why do cloth diapers result in faster potty training? Is the urine/feces felt by the child (ie, all that fancy absorbent material in disposables is harmful to training)?
matheweis 9y ago
Yep, we had a similar experience trying to do it ourselves with our first two (also under two at the time!) - see my other comment for some of the reasons why this is a thing - but got back on the cloth diaper train when a relative exposed us to the magic that is cloth diaper service. Best of luck with two under two!
latortuga 9y ago
My wife is a member of a diaper science community on facebook group called fluff love. They have extensive information about how to get your diapers really clean, with targeted information for specific situations like water hardness, washing machine type, materials, etc. The folks there are very helpful and responsive to issues. What we ended up doing was 1 "power wash" cycle, followed by a regular wash cycle each time, and just regular ol Tide detergent. Sorry for the tide ad. Short answer: it's hard to say specifically, because it depends on a ton of factors.
steelbird 9y ago
Our routine: Warm wash with Oxi-clean, Hot wash with detergent, air dry the covers, tumble dry high the inserts. Baby is 8 months and so far no smell and very little stains on the inserts.
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what we did.

jetcata 9y ago

You need to soak them in something stronger before washing - something bleach based. Napisan is great for this (and also for any white shirts etc).

sailfast 9y ago

Have you tried putting them in the sun? Sunlight does a lot of good on diapers. If you have the option I'd put them on a line outside. As for the other stuff, we used a double-rinse with powdered detergent and things seemed to work pretty well. The time factor was _super_ annoying. Maintenance for cloth diapers is a full-time job sometimes, but it felt good not to add a billion pounds of waste to the landfill. Full disclosure: Now that we travel a lot more, we're pretty much only in disposables.

chevman 9y ago

We used cloth diapers on my son (who is now almost 4). Our technique was as follows: -One wash cycle in warm water using no soap. -One wash cycle in hot water using soap. -Dry Every couple weeks we would put white vinegar in the no-soap cycle. This helps cut the smell down. Every couple months we would put a small amount of bleach in the no-soap cycle. Any more frequent than this and we found the diapers then irritated our son's skin. If I had to do it all over again, not sure how I would choose. As you call out, there are additional costs to the cloth diaper approach (water, detergent, etc) that add up, plus it takes quite a bit of time. One advantage that we found is that our son, and other folks we know who used cloth diapers, all had kids who ended up potty training sooner (anywhere from a couple months to 6+ months earlier) than kids wearing disposables.

alistairSH 9y ago
Why do cloth diapers result in faster potty training? Is the urine/feces felt by the child (ie, all that fancy absorbent material in disposables is harmful to training)?

matheweis 9y ago

Yep, we had a similar experience trying to do it ourselves with our first two (also under two at the time!) - see my other comment for some of the reasons why this is a thing - but got back on the cloth diaper train when a relative exposed us to the magic that is cloth diaper service. Best of luck with two under two!

latortuga 9y ago

My wife is a member of a diaper science community on facebook group called fluff love. They have extensive information about how to get your diapers really clean, with targeted information for specific situations like water hardness, washing machine type, materials, etc. The folks there are very helpful and responsive to issues. What we ended up doing was 1 "power wash" cycle, followed by a regular wash cycle each time, and just regular ol Tide detergent. Sorry for the tide ad. Short answer: it's hard to say specifically, because it depends on a ton of factors.

steelbird 9y ago

Our routine: Warm wash with Oxi-clean, Hot wash with detergent, air dry the covers, tumble dry high the inserts. Baby is 8 months and so far no smell and very little stains on the inserts.

NoGravitas 9y ago
Yes, that's exactly what we did.