Washing cloth diaper laundry is not as big of a deal as you may think!  I have a few friends who exclaimed about the amount of laundry I would have to do, what about the poop and let me know what a hippy I am.  To answer, when you have a newborn or multiple children, you are going to be doing laundry anyhow and what’s an extra load every day or so?  The poop, well technically you aren’t supposed to throw away poop in disposables so you should already be flushing that (not that I did with Nate) and if you breastfeed your baby the poop is water soluble so you just throw it in your diaper pail and straight into the washing machine.  Once the baby is eating solids, we are getting closer to that, you can use flushable liners or just shake the poo into the toilet and flush it like you would for yourself and then throw the diaper into the pail and into the washer.

Supplies you need to do things my way:  5 gallon buck, washing machine, drying rack/dryer, cloth diaper safe detergent (I use Rockin’ Green) and closepins.

Here’s how I do my diaper pail/laundry, I would have made you a little video but there are tons you can search on youtube and a not quite four year old makes a terrible cameraman, I’ve tried.

I use 5 gallon buckets with lids that I bought at Lowe’s for a couple bucks and I keep one upstairs and one downstairs.  They aren’t the prettiest to look at but who really sees them?  Right now they are next to my bookshelf and the crib but once we need to shake out the poo I will move them to the bathrooms.  I don’t do pail liners, wet pails or any of that.  I rinse the buckets out when needed and that is that.

When I notice that the clean diapers are getting a little low which happens every other day and sometimes every day because Abigail isn’t quite fitting into her small stash of OS (one size) diapers then it’s time to wash diapers!

You will find what works for you through trial and error but this is what works for me.  I set my washing machine to warm/cold, heavy wash and large load (I wish I had one of the fancy machines but I don’t…sadface), start it up and add 1-2 scoops of Rockin’ Green (what you add will depend on your soil level and brand of soap) and then I dump my diapers in.  I don’t pull my inserts out separately from my diapers because I just let my machine agitate them out.  After the machine has filled I turn it off.  Your machine may not require this but mine does.  My Aunts machine lets you set a soak and then you don’t have to come back and remember to turn it back on to finish.  Let them soak for 30-60 minutes or even overnight and when you are ready turn it back on and let it finish out.

this photo is from about a month ago when she only fit in her newborns, she fits in more now and most of these have been retired :[

You now (hopefully) have clean diapers and are ready to dry!  You can throw them in your dryer without softener but you can use wool dryer balls if you like or if you feel like saving some energy then you can hang them out to dry.  You save some money and the sun actually acts as a natural stain remover!  I put mine out on my drying rack when the sun is shining but otherwise I put them in the dryer.  You may notice that your line dryer diapers are a little stiff at times and you can throw them in an air fluff cycle for about ten minutes if that bothers you.

Now you have clean and dry diapers for your bebe and Abby fist bumps your eco consciousness!