How I Wash Cloth Diapers

Despite what other moms may claim, I find cloth diapering to be laborious. I'm not going to lie. It isn't easy. But I do believe it is totally worth it.

When changing JFJ, we drop the prefold diaper into the diaper pail (which always has a liner in it), wipe the diaper cover, and hang the diaper cover to dry/air out until its next use or wash. Poopy diapers require a little shaking or scraping into the toilet (I just use some toilet paper to "scrape"). If it's a wetter poop, I run the diaper under cold water to get some of the stickier parts off then drop it into the diaper pail. (Please see this previous post for more information on our set-up.)

We own a Samsung front-loading HE washer/dryer set. After some experimentation, this is how I wash JFJ's diapers:
1. I throw the diapers, cloth wipes, diaper pail liner, and diaper covers into the washer all together. First a Quick Wash Cold with Charlie's Soap (and the occasional Booster), with Medium or High Spin at Heavy Soil Level. Takes about 32 minutes.
2. Then a Heavy Duty Wash Hot with Charlie's Soap (and the occasional Booster), with Extra High Spin at Heavy Soil Level. I also add a Pre-Wash cycle, an Extra Rinse, and an Extra Spin. Takes 2 hours and 8 minutes.
3. I pull out the diaper pail liner and the diaper covers to hang dry. The prefolds and cloth wipes I toss into the dryer. I read somewhere not to use the Sanitize setting on HE machines for diapers. But I use our Sanitize setting (Very Dry Dry Level, High Temp) to dry the diapers only. Takes 1 hour 2 minutes.
4. I hang the diapers after the dry cycle. Usually the dryer will do its job, but I like to hang them out in the sun for a bit to make sure they are completely dry before folding and stowing them.

We have 2 dozen diapers for JFJ at 9.5 months. We wash every 2-3 days. If we ever have baby #2, I will most likely buy at least 3 dozen of the Infant size/Size 1 (we use Osocozy prefolds).

Here's a link to the Osocozy Care and Use webpage for some more tips from the maker of our cloth diapers.

And that's it! Easy. Not really.

Notes on Cloth Diapering

JFJ is a proudly cloth-diapered baby. In addition to my concerns for his carbon footprint, JFJ's atopic dermatitis has us doing all sorts of things to keep his skin happy. So far, he's had rashes all over but never a diaper rash in the diaper area. If that's not a testament to the benefits of cloth diapering, I don't know what is.

We were living in an apartment for JFJ's months 0-8 and then busy settling into our house for month 9. We used Dy-Dee Diaper Service for these months and were very satisfied with their prefold diapers, prorap covers, and weekly delivery service. We used the infant size for the first few months and then switched to regular, which was still fitting fine when we stopped just shy of 9 months old. We started with 80 diapers per week then lowered it to 60 when he got a little older and didn't need as many diaper changes. Even 60 was a lot for us though. We could have easily gotten by with 50.

We do use disposables when we go out, however. I know hard core cloth diapering parents carry wetbags and use cloth diapers exclusively. We opt to use disposables when we go out. Even so, we have only had to get one large box of each size so far (usually 200+ diapers in each box). We had received two boxes of size 2, in fact, from our baby shower, and only went through one box before JFJ grew out of that size. His growth has tapered off a bit so I anticipate possibly having to buy another box of size 3 before he grows out of that size. The current box of size 3 diposables we are using right now is the first and only we've had to buy so far since we got the others as gifts!

We also have used disposable wipes while we were using the diaper service. I bought some cloth wipes when we started using our own cloth diapers. We currently use a combination of the disposables and the cloth. Our use of wipes has decreased signficantly as JFJ has gotten older since he poops much less often than in early infancy (although the quantity with each poopy diaper is another matter).

At 9 months, I bought JFJ two dozen OsoCozy Better Fit Prefolds made of unbleached cotton (lined with red) from Diapers.com. I wash a load every 2 days, and so far this has worked out nicely. We are still using three medium size Prorap covers we had bought from Dy-Dee and two Thirsties Duo Wrap Snaps size 2 that we had received from our baby shower (we've gone through size xs and s in the proraps as well as size 1 of Thirsties). We got to keep the diaper pail from Dy-Dee, and we use reusable Planet Wise Diaper Pail Liners (rotating two liners).

There are ample resources on the internet about cloth diapering. I've taken advice and instructions from a variety of Pinterest pins, Amazon reviews, and friends with experience.

To remember for baby #2...

1. Cloth diapers (and wipes) need to be treated to achieve absorbency before use. Especially cloth diapers made of natural materials (like cotton and bamboo) need to be prewashed many times. I read somewhere online to prewash three times. It turned out that our unbleached cotton OsoCozy Better Fit Prefolds didn't really absorb until wash 5 or 6. We went through an unpleasant couple days (nights especially) of leaky diapers before they started absorbing well. Once properly treated, however, the diapers absorb very well and are supposed to absorb even better with more washes.
2. Better Fits, although smaller, are no less absorbent than Regular Prefolds as far as I can tell. Dy-Dee's were regular prefolds so we folded the diaper horizontally before making the angel trifold. This made the diaper really bulky. I think we'll go for Better Fits when we have to buy Infant sized cloth diapers for baby #2 and stick to Toddler sized Better Fits for JFJ if he needs them that far.
3. Leg gussets are a must. We had a lot of poop leak onto the diaper cover, to be honest, but very rarely beyond the gussets. (Diaper blasts and projectile poo spreading up the back are a wholly different matter, which of course also happens with disposables.) OxiClean for baby works wonders in getting stains out of those diaper covers, thankfully!

I will post separately the details about washing our cloth diapers shortly.