Talk to me about baby's laundry...

shara3333

Thankfully I have laundry right in my apartment (which is all one floor), so that's great.   But I'm a FTM and I'm curious about a few things...

I am getting a hamper for the baby's room, but what really goes in there?  

I assume poop and pee leakage/accidents go right into the washer?  (FYI I am going to be using disposable diapers). Should I always rinse them first?

What about spit up? Do I just rinse (and maybe spray with stain stuff?) and put it in the hamper?  Or again, right in the washer?  

Should I expect I'll be doing a wash multiple times a day (like a onesie/outfit at a time?), or let it pile up in there and do it just once a day? 

I assume if there is an accident in the middle of the night where it leaks onto the sheets I put it right in the wash?  

Typing this out some of this now sounds silly to me...as I went through puppy stages not that long ago and did many washes of blankets and sheets, etc... due to accidents.   So why wouldn't I put stuff right in the wash?  

Not sure why this is on my mind so much right now...I'd love to hear what you guys do or what you have found works best.  (Obviously you don't have to answer each question, these are just the thoughts going through my head.)

 

SplashingFishy

If you EBF, the poop is water soluble, and I would assume the spit up would be too. I would just rinse I'm cold water if you're worried.

bobcee

We only put dry dirty clothes into DD's hamper. Then we have a separate bucket that we will put water and Oxy in for when DD had a poop explosion, spit up, pee, stain, etc and then just wash when we had a pretty full load. Otherwise you will spend A LOT of time doing laundry and only washing one/two things which doesn't make much sense. The Oxy works great getting out everything we need it to.

RumbleLina

Blowouts got rinsed even when I BF and pee was just thrown in the washer but rinsed if it had to sit. They both got washed right away or within 24 hours. I hardly ever washed just his stuff solo so that's why it was within 24 hours. I always washed it with other things or waited until end of day for at least our clothes.

I also had a massive reflux baby so unless he vomited then he didn't get changed...water dabbed into the shirt to get it off on small spots worked well enough. Most the time he wore a bib though since he was so massively spitty. I never pretreated or rinsed those. If I did it would have literally been every item he, and us, wore every single day to pretreat or rinse.

If pee happened mid night it was thrown in the sink and dealt with in the morning although still rinsed poos. At 3am you won't want to deal with laundry.

PrimRoseMama

SplashingFishy:

If you EBF, the poop is water soluble, and I would assume the spit up would be too. I would just rinse I'm cold water if you're worried.

Yep. Rinse in cold water and use oxiclean to soak. You can then ring it out and take it to get washed. I do wash every day, but I also have my own washer/dryer in my house. Basically, like dishes, get used to doing a load or two a day, if not more.

If you have to pay for your complex's machines I would rinse, wring right away. Then let it dry and let it pile up so you can do a lot at once.  

thegoodpotato

I mixed our daughter's stuff in with ours, and I probably washed every two to three days... But I had a REALLY Barfy baby and half of the laundry was receiving blankets from wiping up/catching spit up.

I wouldn't count on doing laundry every day.  Keep a bucket with some oxi clean in there, maybe, if spit up bothers you, but I would spray some spray n wash on there and dump it in with everything else.

Plus that saves you on both detergent and water.  I'm all for being environmentally friendly.  

ellewoodsSC

With our first we had a common laundry room situation so I would do laundry every 2-3 days.  With blow-outs or major spitups, I would pre-treat and wash out the stain as much as I could and let air dry before laundry day.  With  minor stuff I would just use a pre-treater and throw it in the laundry.  With big things like soiled sheets and towels where it's not practical to hand wash, I would try to wash them within a day.  At first I kept all the baby stuff separate, but after a while, I started mixing our laundry together for practical purposes and using Free and Clear detergent with an extra rinse cycle.

Now with a W/D in the house, gross things get washed within a day.