A good wash routine is essential to making sure your diapers have a long life. One of the questions I get most often is how on earth do I wash these things? It’s truly an easy process that requires minimal prep and time. Here is how to wash your cloth diapers.

How To Wash Your Cloth Diapers

1 // A cold rinse (use your longest, heaviest washer setting)

For this you don’t want to use detergent.  So, my washer and dryer has options for me to choose how many times it rinses, how heavy the soil is, and how hot the water goes. You want the longest wash setting, heaviest soil setting, and cold water. It’s mainly just to get all of the gunk off of the diapers before washing them with detergent.

2 // A good wash on your longest, hottest setting (with detergent)

This is the only cycle you use detergent for. I do one scoop of the Country Save detergent and it’s worked well for me. For this cycle you’ll do the same as the first, longest wash setting, heaviest soil, but hot water instead. This really sanitizes the diapers.

3 // Another rinse with your longest, hottest setting (no detergent)

Lastly, you need to do an extra rinse to ensure you’ve gotten all of the detergent out of the diapers. You won’t use any detergent for this cycle. You want a the longest wash setting, the heaviest soil, and hot water again.

4 // Hang dry the pockets, tumble dry the inserts

After the diapers are washed, you’ll hang dry the inserts on a drying rack and throw the inserts into the dryer on low. It isn’t a good idea to dry your pocket covers because the elastics will wear down quicker.

Pro tip: when hang drying your pockets. Place them horizontally on the rack, not vertically. (See photo below). This ensures they have a longer life 🙂

A Few Things to Note

Hard vs. Soft Water

If you have soft water, you’re okay. If you don’t. You have hard water, which means you might have to add in something like Borax or Calgon to help keep your diapers free of build-up. I found an organic version of Borax on Amazon that I like so I am currently using that with my Country Save detergent. I have heard that if you use a powder detergent vs. a liquid, it does better at stopping that build-up.

Sunning Your Diapers

Sometimes your diapers will stain from poo. All you have to do is hang them or set them on a towel outside in the sun to naturally bleach them, and therefore, take the stains out! It’s a great pro-tip that many cloth mamas use!

I hope that this post on how to wash your cloth diapers was helpful to you! Thank you so much for reading!