Boiling Pre-Folds to Prep

RachelCA29

I just got 10 infant sized prefolds, 2 covers and 1 AI2 to prep. Since it's only 10 prefolds, I'm thinking it might save time and loads/water to just boil the prefolds and then do one wash in the machine.

I've seen online a few different "recipes" for prepping by boiling. Some use just plain water, some say to add blue dawn (but maybe that's for stripping?) and the amount of time seems to vary. What do you all recommend?

Also, if I boil the prefolds to prep them, can I do the one machine wash after wards with my other, non-natural fiber things? As I said I have 2 covers and 1 AI2 that just need one wash to prep, but since they are synthetic I'm not sure if I can throw them in the with the prefolds even after boiling. Can I?

THANKS!

CLLDLL

What I did with my flats was bring water to boil, add teeny tiny drop of blue dawn, add flats (3 at a time to allow lots of room for them to move around in the water.) Boil for 10 minutes.  Remove from water with tongs (be really careful not to burn yourself!) and cool.  Add next 3 flats, boil 10 minutes.  Dump the water.  Repeat process for remaining flats.  Then I boiled them all one more time w/out the blue dawn.  My water was still brownish from the processing oils, so I felt like I needed that second boiling.  Finally I did three rinses in my washer and dried in my dryer.  I needed all three rinses to get the blue dawn all the way out.

Long story short, I don't think I saved much water because I had to do so much rinsing to get the blue dawn out.  If I'd skipped the blue dawn, I don't think the processing oils would have gotten all the way out from just boiling.  So I'd still have had to do more rinses/washes in the machine.

So IMO you're gonna use lots of water & spend lots of time prepping either way.  It comes down to whether you want to spend the time restarting your washer/dryer or handling boiling water.

I think whichever route you choose, you can definitely put your synthetics in with the last rinse/wash of your prefolds. The whole point of segregating them is to avoid getting processing oils on your sythetics.  Those oils will be gone after the first couple washes/boils.

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RachelCA29

I'm not sure if the pot I have is big enough to boil all 10  prefolds at once, and the warnings of mega-steam are making me a big nervous. All my newborn stuff is prepped so I might just throw the infant ones in with towels and such over the next couple of weeks. At least I won't have to wash them on their own.

Thanks ladies!!