Deoderizing Diapers

My second son is my 'real' first attempt at cloth diapers. It was a big decision to choose to use the cloth diapers and then considering the job they can be. My husband wasn't too sure about using them, my family thought I would try them and not stick with them, but I knew different. I used good old Huggies for most of Luke's babyhood and I was determined to do something better for our environment with Alex. So after researching all the cloth diapers out there I settled on Bum Genius 2.0 with the Egyptian Cotton insert. After 9 months of using them I have come to really love them and am the biggest advocate for them to other mothers. One little hitch to these diapers is that they do start to get a build up of detergent and whatnot and need to be deodorized once in a while. So here is how I keep mine smelling and looking good.

*A first step in keeping your diapers clean is making sure that before you toss them into the diaper pale you rinse them the best you can. I always make sure that when I am rinsing my diapers that the water runs clear before I put them in the pale.

*Always make sure to never wash more than 15 diapers at a time.

*Once a month I soak my diapers (cover and all) in a hot bath with baking soda for about 1 hour. This takes out the smell and whitens them at the same time. You could probably even add a few drops of lavender essential oil to the bath and it wouldn't hurt.

*After the soak the diapers I toss them right into the washer on the two rinse cyle and 1/4 the amount of detergent.

*Also when cleaning the diapers on a daily basis I use Hydrogen Peroxide for badly soiled diapers and that gets most (if not all) the stains out.

*Sun bleaching is good also, if you don't live where there are bugs flying everywhere like I do.

*After running the diapers through the wash it is always good to dry them for at least 60 minutes in the dryer.