General Care

General washing instructions:

1. Wash in cold water with ¼ cup detergent – this helps a lot in preventing stains. If you have a HE front loader, decrease the amount of detergent to 1/8 of a cup. If you do an initial wash with hot water, you will have a much harder time getting any stains out because the hot water sets the stains. However, there are also times when I don’t do a cold water rinse and things are just fine! If you decide to use baking soda, you can put ½ a cup in with this wash (very much optional and not recommended with bumGenius diapers).

2. Wash in hot water with ¼ cup detergent and an extra rinse . If you have a HE front loader, decrease the amount of detergent to 1/8 of a cup. That’s it! If there are still lots of suds from the cold wash, I don’t put any detergent in with the hot wash.

If your cloth diapers still smell after they are washed, you likely need to use a little more detergent. Occasionally, 1/8 of a cup in HE washing machines are not enough.

Drying Cloth Diapers:

The fastest and easiest way to dry cloth diapers is to throw them in the dryer on high heat. For some special types of diapers it’s important to follow the manufacture instructions. Line drying is also great when the weather permits, the sun is great for getting ride of bacteria and yeast build up, and bleaching out stains.

Cloth Diapering No-No’s:

Do not ever use fabric softner of any kind on your cloth diapers, dryer sheets or liquid softner. It will cause a waxy build up and cause your diapers to repel and decrease absorbency. It is better to use a ¼ of white vinegar in the rinse cycle of your wash in place of fabric softner. The vinegar can be added to the softner holder of your washing machine during the rinse cycle or to a Downey ball and just thrown in. It is important to not add it during the wash cycle and use vinegar in conjunction with Baking Soda – to help maintain ph balance preventing diaper rashes.

If you have new hemp diapers it is important to wash them several times by themselves, specifically away from cotton materials. Hemp contains natural oils that wash out in the first few washes and can coat anything being washed with them.

What detergents should I use?

You want to stay away from any detergents with lots of additives – so ones that say “brightens and whitens” or things along that line. They will greatly reduce the life of your diapers. Unfortunately you don’t want to use natural soaps because they have oils in them that will cause your pocket diapers to repel. So stay away from detergents like: Dr. Bronners Soap, 7th Generation, baby detergents such as Ivory Snow, Dreft and “free and clear” detergents. Good detergents: to use include: Tide (not the “free” Tide), Allen’s Powder or liquid detergent, Asta detergent (made by Alda), Country Save Detergent, Ecos Laundry Detergent, Mountain Green Ultra Laundry Detergent, Nature Clean Detergent, Planet Detergent, and Clout (Costco brand). If you have really hard water, you can try adding a little bit of calgon water softener to your wash.