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.