Cloth Diaper Tips for Formula-fed Baby?

Hi,
I'm a mom of three children, both breast and bottle. I used cloth diapers for all three. My youngest daughter is 11 and her brother is 10 months older than her. Their older sibling is 2 1/2 yrs older than thae middle guy. Anyway, cloth diapers do save a bundle. I had a dipaer pail that was filled with water and Borax. (Follow directions on Borax box) In regards to poopy diapers,let the diaper sit in the toilet to loosen up a bit. Be careful not to flush. After a bit, hold by the very corner of the diaper while you flush the toilet. Again, be very careful that you don't lose hold....this will cause a huge clog! You will find that most of the solids are gone with one or two flushes. The dirty diapers will do fine for a few days with the borax and water. Before washing just empty the diaper pail fluid into the toilet. I always rinsed my diapers in the machine before i washed and also gave them an extra rinse after. I also used the HOT cycle and only washed dipaers alone. At the time I only used BOrax with Dreft or Ivory Snow. I am a 42yo mom of three great kids!!!
You need to change them more often but it is worth it! Email me if you'd like

We've been cd'ing for nearly 2yrs now and it has been way easier than I imagined.

We used prefolds & covers primarily in the first year. As our baby grew we started using more pocket dipes like the BumGenius, Mommystouch, and Fuzzibunz. The key to making the poo issue easier was to use some fleece liners which kept our baby a bit drier feeling, less stains, and poo usually came off very easily to the toilet. I purchased the fleece at the fabric store & cut into 5 by 11 inch strips and then put it between the baby and the diaper.

We keep the dirty dipes in a wetbag(liner) in a diaper medium waste covered can. The pocket diapers get separated and tossed in the dry pail. The icky liners if they really need it(as much dumped in toilet) then get tossed in to a designated wet bucket with a little water to soak with some Simple Green then wrung out(gloves) into the toilet and tossed back into the dry pail.

Wash day every 2/3days or earlier if needed.

We wash dipes separately from our clothing & do not use dryer sheets or bleach. Detergents that contain soap tend to cake up dipes(making them less absorbant) and Arm & Hammer detergents tend to fight little bums(prone to more rash). I found some really helpful info on pinstripesandpolkadots.com for detergent choices and diapering basics.

Our routine has been working for our HE Front loader thus far.
1 Cold rinse.
2 Hot wash(read tags) with Allens Naturally or Charlies Soap.Occasionally a couple drops of tea tree oil is added to the rinse dispenser.
3 Warm/Hot wash(shorter cycle) no soap.
4 Hang dry or tumble dry warm.

Make sure they smell fresh(almost like nothing at all before starting dry cycle). If they smell like urine or poo, run another cycle.

Hemp diapers or bamboo cloth sometimes needs a little more tlc, wash, rinse & dry time, to really get clean.

Lay washed dipes with stains out in the sun, it really does help.

HTH & happy cloth diapering! :)

I just finished cloth diapering my 2nd child (he potty learned), and washed cloth diapers in a front loader for about 5 years.

I agree with using a large washable bag in a garbage pail (w/a pop up lid). Just toss everything in.

We also used "minishowers", which are sprayers which attach to the cold water feed of the toilet (5min & no tools needed to install, very easy). We would spray the poop off w/those.

Also, I found after many years of trial & error that with my front loader, I had to use bleach to keep my diapers from stinking. It just uses so little water that they don't get clean otherwise. My washing routine was:
1. Toss everything including bag into washer
2. Hot rinse
3. Hot, heavy soil wash w/extra rinse (I use Ecos detergent from Costco)
4. Remove all the covers & hang to dry
5. Cold water wash w/maybe 1/3-1/2c bleach
6. either hang to dry or toss into dryer for 1 cycle (and then add the next wash to them so I don't use extra dryer time just for diapers).

We used a LOT of different brands in the beginning with my daughter, but by the time we got to my son, we used Angel Wraps QD AIOs & doublers nearly 100% of the time.

good luck!!

can you just rinse the diapers out in clean toilet water and then flush after each use?

Sarah B suggested exactly what I was going to: use a dry pail and add a little baking soda/essential oil after each diaper. Lavender and tea tree are popular choices with anti-bacterial properties. You can even get pail liners that have pockets for scent disks and make your own by adding some water to the baking soda/essential oil mixture. Add that thick paste to muffin tins that are lined with paper liners. After they are dry, add one to your pail liner until it seems to have absorbed as much odor as it can. Also, I know it seems weird, but if the diapers are able to get air they will get less stinky (although if they're really smelly to begin with, you will probably want them covered). After baby poops, shake what you can into the toilet, and you can even keep an old spatula nearby if any gets stuck on. Then just throw it in. It's much easier to do this before putting them in the pail, sorting after sounds pretty gross to me, and I tried dunking once but found that pretty nasty.
Since you have a front load washer, you need very little detergent. A natural detergent like Charlies or Itsa Greener Clean will help ensure that you don't get build up. Also, all the baking soda in with the diapers will only make them softer after washing :)
Best of luck! If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me.

First of all, FuzziBunz recommends that you NOT soak the diapers, therefore eliminating your problem of dumping the bucket. Why wouldn't you dump it down the toilet anyway? For breastfed or I guess formula-fed babies just use about 1 Tablespoon or 2 of perfume-dye free detergent in the wash with hot water (use more water than the size of the load) on the longest cycle and with a extra rinse cycle this should get it all out! The Chinese fold cotton diapers I found were much harder to get clean but FuzziBunz is made of a microfleece and comes clean really well. If you feel like you need to rinse them first, I got a hose attachment for my bathroom sink and sprayed off excess, but this was after he started eating baby food. It sounds crazy but I found the diapers smelled much less if I left them in an open container without a lid, with a lid it just traps the stink and ferments it, try it you won't believe the difference. I bought my diapers from thefuzzibunzstore.com and they have a lot of information and products on their website. I should really sell them myself because I loved them so much. I hope this was helpful. I am 40, have a 2 year-old and I am expecting my 2nd in June and have the Fuzzibunz from my first ready to use again. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

I use cloth with my two-year-old and my 2-month-old. The baby is breastfed, but my daughter eats all solids so she has plenty stinky diapers. If you use a fleece-lined pocket diaper such as hugga buns, happy heinys, or fuzzybunz you can use a dry pail. Wet diapers go into the pail as is, dirty ones you dump what you can into the toilet first and then stick the dirty diaper in the pail without rinsing. You then dump the diapers straight into the washer, run a cold rinse (I add some baking soda into the rinse to cut out smells), and then wash them in hot water with some oxyclean and detergent. I prefer the snap diapers over velcro because then you don't have problems with forgetting to fold in the velcro tabs and the velcro snagging things in the wash.

Get a diaper soak pail,add bizz. Soak diapers overnight. Then wring diapers out by hand with rubber gloves of course.Be sure to dump all you can in to toilet before you put them in the soak pail.When you wring them out puit in washing machine and wash as normal. Dump rinse water from pail down the toilet. I did it this way for my first two,and believe me it is not worth it. diaper rash is a big problem. Thank God they came out with disposables before I had my last three.I hope this helped.

Hi R.: I used cloth diapers in the eighties, yes ladies over twenty years ago and they were not the rage then. I preferred them over pampers or other disposable diapers because of cost and I also felt they would be kinder to my son's bottom.

What I did was purchased a pail with a cover and put a little powdered bleach along with gentle detergent and water. They would soak in there and when it was time to wash them in the machine, I would put on rubber gloves and wring them out and throw them in the washer. I also line dried them as I prefer the smell of clothes dried on the line to clothes dried in the dryer. But this was only when weather permitted.

I hope this is helpful to you and I wish you well as you turn back the clock on disposable diapers.

My 7 month old son is doing a combination of breastmilk, formula, and solid food so the poops are also VERY stinky. We have been doing cloth diapering since he was 1 month old, and I find it very easy. I also have a front loader, so what I do is this... I store the dirty diapers in a dry diaper pail with bag liner. After each dirty diaper goes in, I sprinkle some Pail Powder (a mix of baking soda and essential oils) over it. I also use a deodorizing disc. The smell is contained pretty well. I do laundry every 2-3 days, and on laundry day, I cart the pail downstairs, and sort through the diapers. Poopy diapers get rinsed in the toilet before getting tossed in the washer. I dunk to get the majority of the solids off the diaper. Pee diapers go right in the washer. The liner bag also goes in. Then I used the hot water setting on my washer, with the pre-rinse and 2nd rinse selected. I use Charlie's Soap to wash the diapers and it works really well. The poop diapers end up being stained, but they're clean and don't smell and I don't really worry about the stains. Plus, if I hang the diapers out in the sun, the sun will bleach the stains away. It's very low maintenance, and I use a combination of AIO's, fitteds with covers, and pre-folds.

my daughter was also formula fed when we decide to switch to cloth. we've never used a wet pail, only dry which makes it so simple. basically shake any poo off in the toilet that you can (don't worry if it doesn't all come off)and then put it in a dry pail. my mom dunked one of the diapers in the toilet once and quite frankly it grossed me out. it's really not necessary. we use the type of kitchen garbage pail that has a lid with a button to open it... just got it at target i think. you can put some baking soda in if it gets too smelly or try sticking one of those fridge baking soda packs to the inside of the lid. we really don't have an odor problem though, the lid seals pretty good. i only smell the diapers when i open the pail.
every few days i dump all the diapers in the washer with maybe a teaspoon of vinegar if they are extra stinky. first i do a rinse and spin on cold (that's what gets any poo residue off) and then a regular wash with charlie's soap on hot and then if they still have any odor left, i'll either do a second wash or another rinse and spin. when they're done being washed they don't smell and really only a couple diapers have very very minimal stains probably from days she ate beets.
oh, and we tried g diapers...not worth it anyway. the inserts are so expensive and they shift around in the diaper and just make a mess. the covers themselves do work with cloth diapers though.

If you keep a clean toilet dunking the diaper in the toilet for a quick soak before transfering it to a pail to await the washing. (that is the way my Mom did it) I used a diaper service and they provided us with the most amazing deoderizer disk that fit in the top of the pail--it kept a weeks worth of diapers poop and all from stinking up the house.

I think some companies make disposable inserts that go in the diaper which you can throw away. Mother-ease makes them I think. Can you dump the pail water down your toilet?

I have found that the absolutely easiest thing to do is to attach a kitchen-type sprayer (available at any hardware store or Home Depot for only a few bucks) to the base of your toilet. My husband did this by simply installing a "fork in the road" where the water goes into the toilet. When my daughter has a poop, I hold the diaper in the toilet and spray the poop into the toilet and flush it away. The diaper goes into a dry pail--there is no need to use a wet pail. Even better is to get a big dry bag (available at most cloth diaper stores) and store them in there. When you do a wash, put them in the wash WITH the bag and then the odors don't build up in the bag either.

Hope that helps!
A.

an option is for you to rinse diapers in the toilet, and then ringing them out by hand before adding them to the washer.
Congratulations on your new baby!!

If cost is not an issue, the most low-impact, environmentally speaking, might be compostable diapers, if you compost anyway. they are about twice as expensive as regular disposable diapers..They sell them at Whole Foods market but I bet you could get them online.

We tried using cloth diapers, but eventually ended up using Seventh Generation diapers. They are not compostable as far as I know, but chlorine-free and fragrance free and my son is 8 mo. old and so far no diaper rash. Diapers.com is the best way to buy them. Get a seventh gen card and they take 15% off each order, so they end up less expensive than pampers at the grocery store.