First, if you haven't already, I encourage you to check out my cloth diapering journey. This post is especially helpful for those of you looking to start cloth diapering. Other posts that here helpful in my research process include:
- Sherry and John's post about cloth diapering Clara
- All of Rachel's incredible advice at Intentionally Simple
- Heather's review of cloth diapers
- Diana's cloth diapering experiences
One of the biggest problems we've had cloth diapering is loss of absorbency. It might not happen if we used fancy cloth diaper detergent, which we are currently exploring, but it happens every few months and it's annoying. A few days ago Wesley peed through diapers, clothes, jammies, and sheets before I decided it was time to strip the inserts.
We've done this before - we put all the inserts in the dishwasher because it gets hotter than the washer...or at least I heard it does. That worked for a while but after a few months we needed to strip them again. This time I decided to try a few other things.
First I placed the (clean but not absorbent) inserts in a huge pot of hot water. I let them soak for about 30 minutes. Then I ran them through two or three super hot rise cycles in the washer. No detergent.
After the rinse cycles, I put the inserts in the dryer. I typically dry the inserts on the drying rack outside, but when stripping them, I put them in the dryer. When they were dry, they had gotten their absorbency back and were good as new!
I know there are a variety of ways to strip inserts and help them get back their absorbency again, but I've found that this is the most effective and efficient.
How do you keep your diapers clean and absorbent? Leave your questions here so I can answer them on day 5 of cloth diaper week!
This is definitely the biggest pain with cloth diapers so far--they change from week to week! :) I haven't necessarily had absorbency problems, but I think I get detergent build-up which gives my poor little guy a rash. When that starts happening, I give it the regular wash, and then two or three "light" washes with no detergent. And I've wondered if an occasional dry in the dryer would help absorbency--I guess it does!
ReplyDeleteAh the changing! One day a diaper is perfection and the next it leaks everywhere or causes diaper rash! We're still figuring out what the troubles are with absorbency and the best ways to fix them.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a Facebook group for cloth diapering moms in Memphis. Some of them had mentioned a product called RLR Laundry Treatment, and since no local stores carry it, I purchased it to carry in my store. I haven't had a need to strip my diapers yet, but we had some nasty dog laundry to do and I used the RLR on it - amazing results!! What kind of water do you have in Duncanville? I never even paid attention to the type of water we had when we lived there, but in Memphis we have very soft water, so fortunately there isn't that factor to complicate things, so around here, if diapers need to be stripped it's usually just because they haven't been rinsed enough. I tell my customers to peek in the washing machine on the final rinse and if there are still suds, do another rinse.
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