Ways to wash and dry cloth diapers

I bought an all-in-one cloth diaper through ebay. I tried and I think I like it, it's strange but cloth dipers never really felt like diapers to me at least the prefold ones with pins and plastic pants as opposed to disposables. However the one I bought is similar to modern pocket diapers that babies use and it really makes me feel babyish.

So now I'm determined to use them as well as disposables and I would like some advice how to wash and dry them. I live in T0 apartment, I don't have a washing machine or a dryer and can't buy neither, I do however have an oil heater, which I've used to dry clothes, and a dehumidifer.

Any advice and/or tips?

Invest in some good detergent designed for washing diapers, make sure you rinse them out fully in the shower and put them in a bucket with detergent to soak for a little bit. You will need to agitate the diaper to clean it thoroughly and also rinse all the detergent out thoroughly.

Drying over the heater will work, but I believe it might make the cloth stiff... Do you ever go to a laundromat? Maybe running it through a cool tumble dryer every so oven will help.

At the end of the day nothing cleans them as thoroughly as a machine, but you may have to just make do.

Good Luck, and congrats on giving cloth a try. I love cloth personally, and prefer to not be throwing away tonnes of disposables. The only hassle is washing, if you eventually own a few cloth diapers then it's easier to do one load every few days.

How do you usually do your laundry? Is there really no washer or dryer in the picture, or are you concerned about using shared laundry machines and being caught with diapers? In any case, machine-drying cloth diapers will not only make things a zillion times faster, the tumbling action will make your diapers thicker and much softer. You've surely experienced the crispiness of bath towels that have been allowed to simply dry on a towel rack, yes? Well, the same thing happens to wet cloth diapers. If you are using shared laundry machines for your clothes, I'd suggest at least using the dryers to dry your hand-washed diapers. That's probably what I would do, just as a courtesy to the other users (even if the laundry facility doesn't expressly forbid washing of diapers).

And again, there's the matter of time. When you first receive your new diaper, it won't have been "prepped" yet, which means it isn't really ready to wear. New cloth diapers should generally be washed and dried a minimum of three times in order to get the natural, water-repelling oils off the fabric. Prefolds, flats, and other non-AIO cloth diapers will often shrink a lot during the first few washes, so prepping also helps to ensure a proper fit. Prepping cloth diapers without laundry machines is going to be a week-long process, so... yeah. Prefolds are sometimes turbo-prepped by boiling them along with some dish soap or some other harsh, grease-cutting detergent, but you certainly can't do that with anything that's got a plastic cover.

Laundry machines! Really, I would never recommend cloth to somebody who doesn't have access to laundry machines, or else a large number of cloth diapers to rotate through. Otherwise, the chore of washing means you're just not likely to get all that much use out of your cloth diapers. I suppose if you're mostly wearing and not wetting, but otherwise... :shrug:

Thanks everyone for all the advice so far.

The seller was very kind to send a letter with instructions so some of the things related to the washing is already covered. As for drying I have no way to dry outside.

I live fairly nearby my family so I go visit them on weekends and that's when I do my laundry and because of that if I were to buy a washing and/or drying machine besides being a investment for an apartment that I'm renting it would also prompt questions from my family that sometimes visit me of why did I needed to buy that.

What Cottontail said however made search for laundry shops in Lisbon, which is where I live and because it's the capital and biggest city of my country it ought to have some.

I knew already about laundry shops where you leave your clothes the staff does everything and you comeback later to pick them up.

What's interesting though is that I found since 2012 the self-service laundry, also called american or american style laundry shops, have been booming with more shops opening and more people using them. I'm tempted to try them tbh, I'm afraid however that I'll have to show what clothes I'm gonna wash and all that but if I was to try it for the first time I wouldn't bring any diapers of course.



Edit: I forgot to mention that my apartment has a drying rack in the bathroom the problem is that it takes a long time to dry diapers and probably not well dried, it's ok for bath towels and clothes but absorbent cloth diapers I'm not sure but maybe I'm fairly new to cloth diapering so we'll see.

Sounds like your in an interesting situation re. parents and washing machines

You shouldnt have to show what your washing at a self service laundromat! The last time I used one (many years ago, when my house didn't have a machine) they had the biggest washers and dryers you have ever seen. Nobody will notice your diapers in there, then again, who is going to care?

For good measure (as I share our washing machine with others), I throw my towels in with the diapers, if anyone looks in the glass window of the washing machine, im just doing a load of towels!

I'd suggest a self-service Laundromat since you don't have access to a washer personally. Since you can't air dry, I strongly suggest you put them in the dryer on a low heat and don't overdo it.

They make portable rv washing machines easy go is one 45.00 us check them out on ebay.
Mite have to do one at a time but could work for you.

If you are doing small loads of cloth diapers, I recently saw a show where they took a 5 gallon pail with a lid, poked a hole in the lid the size of a bathroom plunger . The plunger had holes drilled into it for water to come out of the plunger. Put the handle of the plunger through the lid of the pail, fill about 1/2 of the bucket with your soapy water and use the plunger for an agatater. I don't know long you would have to plunge up and down, they didn't give any time frame. I don't know how well it works as I have a washer and dryer.

Good luck

So several people mentioned Laundromat, I didn't knew if it was a laundry franchise or something else, I googled it and apparently they exist in my city! What's interesting while I was checking the website of a franchised shop near my apartment is that they have prices differentiated for washing and drying, so I'm thinking I can just go there for drying right? Btw drying is way cheaper and quicker than washing.

The washing I have it pretty much covered, I can just hand wash it I believe, it's the drying that's more problematic. Last year I bought a cloth prefold diaper from baby-pants that ended being too big but works great as an adult baby blanket, I hand washed it and it took so long to dry that it got moldy and I had to wash it again and dry on top of the oil heater. My problem with the AIO is that it might get damaged if I dry it the same way even if at low heat, besides it being a very inefficient way as well.

So I might have to try the Laundromat. Thanks to all who replied so far.

It never occurred to me that there were so many laundry services, then again I'm not sure what a laundry franchise is. Where I live a laundromat is where they have a lot of machines and you buy tokens to use them, you load it all yourself, use your own detergent and sit there with a magazine waiting till its done!

Tumble drying your AIO on low heat shouldn't be an issue, it might pay to check how warm the machine gets on a low heat setting first. We have a very small tumble dryer and I use low heat setting, my diaps are usually dry in an hour.

43goofball43 said:

If you are doing small loads of cloth diapers, I recently saw a show where they took a 5 gallon pail with a lid, poked a hole in the lid the size of a bathroom plunger . The plunger had holes drilled into it for water to come out of the plunger. Put the handle of the plunger through the lid of the pail, fill about 1/2 of the bucket with your soapy water and use the plunger for an agatater. I don't know long you would have to plunge up and down, they didn't give any time frame. I don't know how well it works as I have a washer and dryer.

Good luck

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I saw that show also. Some of the hacks were a weird, but I though most of them were interesting.

PaddedPaddler said:

Tumble drying your AIO on low heat shouldn't be an issue, it might pay to check how warm the machine gets on a low heat setting first. We have a very small tumble dryer and I use low heat setting, my diaps are usually dry in an hour.

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Definitely go by what the label says, but in general, there's no reason to be so cautious with your PUL AIOs. Medium and even high heat are usually fine. That's what makes PUL so great when compared to vinyl and other options. Realize that PUL was developed for medical and industrial applications, and to withstand autoclaving (ultra-hot disinfecting steam baths). We used PUL AIOs on our kids when they were babies, and those diapers went right into the dryer on high heat. Never an issue.

...'cause cloth diapers take long enough to try on medium+. No reason to torture yourself with low.

On the other hand, if you have one of those old ABU AIOs that used a PVC cover, definitely never put it on the dryer, even on low heat. For that matter, never buy an AIO that can't just get tossed in the dryer on some regular setting.

What you can do, is get a thing that goes over a door for hanging stuff on
Bit like this thingy:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Bathroo...owel-Hanger-/301356707929?hash=item462a427059

Chuck diapers on that, point a fan at it, turn on and leave for a while.
Mine take about 2 days to dry without the fan on

I think I decided to wash them by hand and dry indoors for now since I don't have many cloth diapers it doesn't seem pratical to use a laundromat. I have a hanger for clothes, towels, etc, in the bathroom and can finish drying by putting them near the oil heater.

This is unrelated to the topic of washing, but the AIOs that I have bought that are from the same seller, they both leak through the sides. I've tested by pouring just a bit of water and what happens is that the liquid seems to wick through the sewing on the sides wetting the outer cover.
Could anyone more experienced with cloth diapers help me to figure out if I'm doing something wrong or if it's a case of poor product?

You might check with the seller, but I believe that for some AIOs, it is actually recommended to dry them on high heat at least once before regular use in order to seal the stitching at the leg cuffs. (The poly actually melts somewhat and wicks into the threads and thread-holes.) I know this isn't exactly easy for you to try, but... :shrug:

Cottontail said:

You might check with the seller, but I believe that for some AIOs, it is actually recommended to dry them on high heat at least once before regular use in order to seal the stitching at the leg cuffs. (The poly actually melts somewhat and wicks into the threads and thread-holes.) I know this isn't exactly easy for you to try, but... :shrug:

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I sent a message to the seller right before I posted here, still waiting for a response. Although you might be right, I think I've read something like that before... ok I'm gonna try drying it directly in the oil heater with a medium/high temperature to see how it works.

One thing I have heard about cloth diapers, is its not the best idea to use fabric softener.
The reason being is it may make them less absorbent.