What am I doing wrong?

akflutterby

We bought the BumGenius AIOs and this is our first time with cd. We did all the pre washing we were instructed to do and when she has a dirty diaper I usually rinse it off its hot water, put it in the wet bag, and then wash them (usually less than 24hrs later) in hot water with a tide pod at the highest water setting. All of her diapers are poop stained, which I didn't think would happen. Am I just naive, or am I missing a crucial step here that I've just ignored from instructions?

PipSqueak0313

Hang diaper in sun to dry and sun out poop stains.

akflutterby

Thanks for the tip. My only concern is that I live in Alaska so they'd likely freeze this time of year before they'd dry. (Though we are looking at 40s this week - I don't know of it's sunny or warm enough to get away with that)

PipSqueak0313

Hang in sunny window when sunny but too cold outside or wait until warm enough, or for AK sunny enough after winter.

CLLDLL

You don't have to sun every wash either. Sunning during the summer should get out most if not all stains that accumulate from the winter.

akflutterby

So the sun will kind of bleach it out?

CLLDLL

Exactly. Anything organic will fade or disappear with exposure to the sun, while wet.

blondolphn

also, tide pods are  a no go i believe

mrshudson618

I agree that tide pods are not recommended.

unaveragejane

I always spray/rinse poop out with cold water. I thought hot water was bad to set stains.

mrshudson618

mrshudson618 said:

I agree that tide pods are not recommended.

Not saying that is causing staining, but you could end up with build up issues after a while.

Unknown

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akflutterby

Thank you all. LO is 11 days, ebf. I totally missed that pods were bad, I'll buy the powder tonight. (I guess I just thought it was all the same.) I'm sure I'll get the hang of it...eventually.

akflutterby

Ooh, and cold water. Apparently there are lots of things I've been doing wrong.

mrshudson618

Yup, nb poop stains really easily, but comes out really easily too. You will find that it fades after a few washes, but even weeks of stains will come out in a few hours in the sun.

runningyogimama

Also, stains =/= dirty. You don't NEED to get stains out.

CLLDLL

unaveragejane said:

I always spray/rinse poop out with cold water. I thought hot water was bad to set stains.

In general hot will set stains, but some ladies on here do do a warm pre-rinse instead of cold and it's fine. I think the warm helps get more urine/poop out in certain water type/washer type conditions. Cold works way better for me.

YellowLily2013

What's your wash cycle?

A typical one is cold rinse, hot wash with detergent, cold rinse.

Since lo is 11 days old as EBF you don't need to spray the diapers, the cold rinse cycle will take care of it.

Also, a first warm rinse is usually recommended if your having ammonia issues (which happens with older kiddos) this shouldn't be an issue for you.

Bemyselfandi

K

unaveragejane

CLLDLL said:

I always spray/rinse poop out with cold water. I thought hot water was bad to set stains.

In general hot will set stains, but some ladies on here do do a warm pre-rinse instead of cold and it's fine. I think the warm helps get more urine/poop out in certain water type/washer type conditions. Cold works way better for me.

My pre-rinse is warm, but my diaper sprayer only uses cold water so I think that helps reduce the staining. I'm not sure. I do have several diapers with natural fibers that have stains despite being in the sun most of the day yesterday.

CLLDLL

unaveragejane said:

CLLDLL said:

unaveragejane said:

I always spray/rinse poop out with cold water. I thought hot water was bad to set stains.

In general hot will set stains, but some ladies on here do do a warm pre-rinse instead of cold and it's fine. I think the warm helps get more urine/poop out in certain water type/washer type conditions. Cold works way better for me.

My pre-rinse is warm, but my diaper sprayer only uses cold water so I think that helps reduce the staining. I'm not sure. I do have several diapers with natural fibers that have stains despite being in the sun most of the day yesterday.


Boo!! I have one BB hemp/cotton blend insert that I cannot get unstained. Everything else gets nice and white though. Annoying.

akflutterby

I don't think I have a pre rinse. I'll have to check so that I'm not setting the stain myself with all the hot water I'm using initially (and no more rinsing them off in hot water, obvs). The weather should be picking up this week so I'll try the line drying in the sun thing too. Thanks so much ladies!!

unaveragejane

akflutterby said:

I don't think I have a pre rinse. I'll have to check so that I'm not setting the stain myself with all the hot water I'm using initially (and no more rinsing them off in hot water, obvs). The weather should be picking up this week so I'll try the line drying in the sun thing too. Thanks so much ladies!!

It doesn't have to specifically be called pre-rinse cycle on your machine. Just pick a short-ish cycle that uses a generous amount of water, and be sure it rinses and spins. Don't put soap in this cycle. This gets the majority of the pee and poo water out of the diapers so that the detergent in your regular wash cycle can actually get the diapers clean. I have found that my machine seems to use the most water on the Delicate cycle but still does a decent rinse and spin, so I use that instead of the actual Pre-rinse option.

Chichigo

I set the rinse cycle only on the delicate wash for my prerinse. It's the shortest cycle on my machine. Then I do a full heavy duty wash on hot/cold with an additional rinse.

I have used two types of CD specific detergent and Tide powder and haven't had any problems. (Except for that beast, yeast.)

akflutterby

AFwip said:

What kind of machine do you have?

Uhm...random top loader. "Fisher & Paykel ecosmart"

freezorburn

akflutterby said:

What kind of machine do you have?

Uhm...random top loader. "Fisher & Paykel ecosmart"

I think that's the same as my MIL's machine. We washed our diapers in it when we visited them in Jan. I can't remember what settings I ended up using, but the manual was super helpful in describing what all the different cycles do.

I remember that I had one insert (Nicki's AIO) that still stank after the first wash cycle I put the load through. I figured it was because that insert was thicker than most and I wasn't used to dealing with MIL's slightly soft water. I adjusted detergent and did one more cycle.