That's just gross

One thing that almost prevented me from cloth diapering is washing soiled diapers.

That's just gross.

Thankfully, like I said before, we use diaper liners like these that make this a lot less yucky. These soak up a lot of the "wet" diapers and given that he hasn't wiggled it all out of control, it catches the "dirty" diapers too. Just give that little thing a pinch and toss it in the toilet and bing bang boom, you're done.

There are some people that use things like this:

Looks too complex for me and I just can't imagine any splashing. That's just gross.

With the diaper liners, that takes away the mess and leaves the diaper minimally soiled before throwing it into the washer.

We also use this:

Again, I linked the exact one we use on the previous post. We also use a trash can with a lid so contain as much odor as possible. The greatest part about this liner is that I can just flip it inside out directly into my washer without touching a single diaper, then tossing the liner in there with it. Awesome. Not Gross.

There are some people that cloth diaper that swear by certain methods, and they probably work fine, but I try to keep it as simple and cheap as possible. Let's face it, the main reason most of us use cloth diapers is saving money. It doesn't save much money if you're buying crazy expensive "cloth diaper detergent".

So here's my step-by-step on washing cloth diapers:

1. Empty the contents (which include cloth wipes for us) into the washer
2. Put a small scoop (barely up the first line) of Oxiclean
3. Run the rinse cycle 
4. After they are rinsed, put in a small amount of Tide Free & Gentle. While everyone is different on whether or not to use liquid detergent, one thing is for sure: do not use anything with perfumes or softeners!
5. Settings of the washer: Extra Rinse, Hot water to wash and cold water to rinse, Regular cycle with Normal soil level
6. Hang outside to dry. 

I've used a make-shift clothing line or one of the drying rack stands to put the diapers outside. One downside of living in Indiana is there is no telling what the weather is doing. When it's raining/snowing or just plain crappy out...I have to put them in the dryer. I don't like doing that for a few reasons: 

1. The sun "bleaches" the diapers and I feel that they look cleaner if I hang them outside 
2. When they hang outside all day it really airs them out from any odors 
3. You're not really supposed to put them in the dryer. If you do put them in the dryer, make sure it's on extra low heat for the shortest amount of time. Dry them in intervals to make sure you don't "over-dry" them.

That's all! Not so bad, huh? If I can do it, you can do it!

I'm on CLOUD NINE because our cloth diaper inventory just went from 6 to 14 diapers! Josiah just had a birthday (I'll post about the party later!) and got some birthday money and gift cards. I don't know how I just discovered this, but Target has a bunch of cloth diapers on their website, including Fuzzibunz! Are ya kidding me? AMAZING. So I ordered 4 Fuzzi's, 3 Thirsties (Trying these out for the first time) and a Charlie Banana (also trying this for the first time). They won't arrive til next week, but I can't wait to try them and let you know how they turn out!