I Have a Laundry Question Too! :)

The only thing I ever use (well, 2 things) are Tide w/ Bleach Alternative and if there is a bad stain I put some Original (blue stuff) Dawn dish soap on it to pre-treat for a little while. Gets everything out.

Oxy Clean and Clorox's Oxy Spray something-or-another are my go-to stain fighters. Also, if I don't know what the stain is or if it's greasy I pre treat with Dawn dish soap and it gets it out every time. Usually I just spray some stuff on it as soon as I take it off my kids and by laundry day it's pre treated! I keep a stain stick upstairs and in the basement.

try oxyclean in with it.
or a detergent with oxy in it,

I spray my son's clothes with oxy stain spray when he takes them off at night. He's almost 3 and we haven't lost a piece of clothing to a stain yet! The great thing about the oxy is you can spray it on and the item can sit in the basket for days before being washed.

If you don't use the dryer you have a second (and third) chance to get stains out. I stopped using the dryer as an energy saving choice, but it has been fantastic for our clothes.

I love Oxy spray. My hubby is famous for those spot stains..grease, condiments...I don't even want to know what else (the man will admit he needs a bib and there must be a food magnet 8 inches below his chin??!!).....and I started with this stuff a few years ago...in desperation and going thru all the products. And this stuff actually worked! I spray it on and let it "marinate" till maybe the next day and most things come out.

I also use for the occasional daycare issue (I do childcare) that comes up....its my "go to" product....

One thing to consider--- decide which clothes you *really* want to keep clean, and which can be playclothes. I don't ever donate stained clothes to charities, but friends with youngsters are often happy to receive well-used playclothes, so that their newer purchases can be for nicer occasions.

Try Country Save Oxygen Bleach. (You have to buy it from a store like Whole Foods, or buy it online.) It's nice and gentle and effective. I soak my son's really stained shirts in that. Last week my son got raspberry juice, blood, and grass stains on a shirt. The stains came right out!

When our kids were little, I pretreated as I took their clothes off. Then I threw them in the hamper. I used a stain stick by spray n wash. It was too overwhelming trying to treat everything at once.
I still try to pretreat as they take off their clothes but I don't always catch things since they take care of putting dirty clothes in their hampers.

I got some oily food stains out by soaking in a pot of hot water with a couple good squirts of dishwasher detergent, the chemical liquid gel kind that has bleach in it. I let it soak for about an hour and most of the stain came out.

Oh, and the stuff is toxic so be careful with it, and wash clothes thoroughly after soaking.

Children and stains walk hand in hand. As long as it's just a small stain or used for play clothes (which the next one will also stain), passing things along will be fine and should be appreciated.

Blessings....

personally I use Shout right before putting them in the wash and then I use Tide. Most of my stains always come out. make sure she wears a bib that covers her entire top. They have ones that go over their arms now to cover shoulders too. Use the ones that you can rinse or wipe clean, they are great and better than washing all of them.

We use MelaPower 6 and Mela Soft. For stains we use PreSpot and it is a tough one Sol-U-Mel.

I actually got soak in, dried on R. icing off a white shirt and it was cleaner than ever.

you can make a paste out of baking soda and vinegar and apply to the stain, or soak the clothing over night. Also borax does a good job of getting stains out.

I use to presoak overnight in biz, agitating it whenever i passed. It really helped.

I'm a huge fan of Shout for pre treating. Yes, it is time consuming when they are that little but it does get better as they get older!! I also use Borax powder in my wash as a laundry booster and I think that helps too. My son is prone to nose bleeds and one day I forgot to spray Windex on his bed sheets for a bleed and only used the boarx and method laundry soap and all the blood came out!! I was really shocked!! I honestly think the borax helped with it!! I have also noticed certain brands of laundry soap do make a difference. Tide is great, method seems to work well too. My least fav are some of the low end ones like surf. I used to be a fan of all free and clear till I noticed how dingy it was leaving my clothes:( Play around and see what works for you!

Good luck
S.

ADD ON: I tried the Tide stain release and it isn't worth the money. It is nothing more than hydrogen peroxide and it actually caused irritation to my husbands skin!! I had to go back an rewash all his clothes!!! And I don't feel like it did any better job either.

I use Zout spray cleaner when I can find. It has been sold at Wal-Mart and Target but lately I only found it at Walgreens in the laundry aisle. It works great! I had hand-me-downs that were stained I tried the Zout - let it sit a little- and 90% of the set in stains were gone. I try to only use it on things that will truly stain (tomato based stains, poop, etc.).

zout!! its a life saver

mix equal parts of powedered bleach and liquid detergent. Use that to pretreat a stain ( overnight is best). Launder as usual in cool water ( safe for all stains, warm or hot water will set a stain). If you have an old stain and the garment has not been in the drier you can mix a gallon of warm water with 1/2 cup of powdered bleach and 1/2 cup of liquid detergent and soak the garment overnight and then launder in warm water. This ususally gets out a stain, even fruit and formular stains and takes care of " stain shaddows". Good luck.