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| hey everyone. sorry for hogging the forums but have any of you found your dipes with alot of dark poo stains? my husband threw them in the washer yesterday and when they came out, there were still alot of dark poo stains on them. so he treated them with a stain stick and threw them back in for another round in the washer. after they came out, he said that the stains were considerably lighter. i wanted to sun them but he was worried that they might get ruined because he was mowing our jungle of a backyard and the lawn mower was kicking up grass and dirt. any easy suggestions to maintain stain free dipes? i use a dry pail method but might switch to wet pail if it keeps stains off. my husband says that i do not rince or scrub the dipes thuroughly enough . |
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So he's blaming that on you too?
Really, I rinse my diapers extensively with a diaper sprayer until there is nothing left and I have stains... I don't think there's any way out of it: you put poop on it. It stains. End of the story. And it really doesn't matter. Yes, sunning will help, so will rinsing right away instead of letting the poopy diapers sit in a bucket for a while until you get around to it, like I often do. Stain removers will help too, but they hurt the fabric. I prefer having diapers that are stained, but work just fine, than risk ending up with threadbare, white diapers that leak.
A wet pail *may* help (for some people it doesn't make a difference, though), but in my opinion it's not worth it. You'll end up carrying (most often by yourself, sounds like) heavy, wet diapers to the washing machine. And I have never tried, but many people have and see no difference in staining. If you are tempted by wet pailing, I would recommend getting just a small wet pail for the poopy diapers only, as this seems to be your concern. That way you can separate and the bulk of your diapers will still be dry pailed, only your poopy ones would be in a wet pail. But really, if I was you, with everything else you have to worry about, I would just embrace the stains as proof my little one is healthy!
And for someone who didn't want to have anything to do with cloth diapers, it sounds like your husband has a lot to say! Don't let him bring you down and think you're doing anything wrong. Staining is normal. It's not dirty or unhealthy. It doesn't affect function. It's just looks, and nobody sees the stains but the people who change the baby, so who cares?
Good luck! |
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| i am not really worried about the staining as much as my husband is. but yes, i see your point about having functional stained dipes vs threadbear nonfunctional ones. my husband definantly does have alot of input for me reguarding the dipes. he actually did suggest a wet pail. and it is notlike i am doing the diaper laundry by myself anymore. my husband is pitching in with it on a daily basis. can you blame him though for not being too cool with cloth? he did the cloth diaper thing on 2 of his siblings and did not want to repeat the experience. he wanted our son in disposables and i wanted him in cloth. i figured since he got to put our son in scratchy, hot, uncomfortable, and in my opinion, way too artificially fragrenced plastic for the first 5.5 months of his life that it was time for a change. so i was messaging with another blind mom who used cloth on her baby and i thought to myself, "you know, since she is asking me what i want for a late baby shower gift, why not request cloth dipes." i know that it was wrong to go over his head on that, but i was sick of disposables and all of the trash that goes with it. |
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I'm really sorry, I probably sound way too impatient with your husband. I am not in your situation so I cannot pass any judgment, I just feel for you because it seems like he keeps criticizing what you are doing when you are not doing anything wrong, far from it! You are doing what you consider best for your baby, and by the sounds of it, your baby agrees, so hang in there!
And I am sooo with you on the smell of diapers. It was one of the main reasons that we chose cloth diapers (with the environmental and health benefits): my hubby is sensitive to chemicals and especially perfumes, and even the "scent-free" disposables we had received a sample of gave him respiratory issues. So it was either cloth or expensive, environmental, smell-free diapers, which is what we use when camping for instance, but it would have been way too expensive to use full-time, so cloth it was!
As a side note, do you know why your husband is so worried about staining? Is it just for looks, or does he think it's unhealthy, or anything? Maybe if you know why he cares we can find arguments to change his mind so you can keep using a dry-pail, it's so much easier ;-) |
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The only benefit of the chemical smell of disposables is that I could smell it as soon as my boys peed . . .
Re. your DH's experience--I do think that those who used the old-style cloth diapers, especially if they were caring for siblings (I have a friend who did the same thing) often have really negative associations. Their thoughts are often pins, bleach, crisp plastic pants, boiling water, etc. When I show people my diapers, their reaction is usually WOW, are those ever better than what I used.
In my opinion, the best way to get rid of stains (although I completely agree that they aren't important) is to prevent them by using a fleece liner. Cheap fleece, whatever is on sale, cut to whatever shape (either the shape of the diaper or the shape of the lay-in liners is what most people do). Most of the poop stays on the fleece, rather than the diaper. I find it also easier to dump and rinse from the fleece, and fleece doesn't stain, either. You'll likely still get some poop on the diapers, but not much. I do get as much poop off both fleece and diaper as possible, dry pail, pre-rinse, wash on hot with 1/4 recommended detergent, line-dry, and my diapers are virtually stain free. I used to dry them out in the sun, but haven't bothered this past year as my house is so dry, and they are still quite lovely without any bleach, stain stick, etc. |
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he does not like the dipes being stained because of the perceived asthetically unappealing look of stained dipes. hah! if anyone will see them anyway on the inside. i told him that all staining effects is the resale value. he did not respond. i guess i will worry about getting rid of the stains once we are finished having children.
Update on this post:
my dh and i just finished talking about the staining issue as we were putting our ds to bed and he said that i will not be able to get a resale on the dipes because once we are finished with them, they will have a yellowy-brown color to them. he says that they do not look bad, but they are already looking like they are getting a fair bit of use. we were talking about the laundry routine as well. with the prefold types of dipes, 48 come in a set so that you can do diaper laundry once a week or at most, every 4 days. he also said that i should have that many so that i only need to do laundry once a week. i told him that 12 more are coming thanks to a dear friend of mine, the blind mother whom i mentioned earlier. but honestly she CDed full time with 18 dipes and never worried or cared about stains. her SIL is now using her dipes for her own child. what i will do is get some fleace from walmart or something, use one of my liners as a template and cut the fleace to fit the dipe. this way, i will be able to hopefully prevent more stains. |
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| also ovd, i whole heartedly agree that the chems in disposables make the kid stink to high heaven. whenever my ds would have a tiny pittle in his diaper, i would smell a very strong urine smell. this smell smelled like simple strong pee with huggies pure and natural, and then when we switched to the regular huggies, his urine took on an extremely fowel amonia odor. you know the smell that you get when you first wake up and urinate for the first time that day. and with these dipes. i cannot smell a thing. love it love it! i so love that my baby does not smell like a public toilet constantly! |
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| i did not want to start a whole new topic about this, but i am curious about the soaker pannel in the os dipe. i noticed that when they first arrived, the soaker pannels were relatively flat. now, i can actually feel them prominantly through the 2 layers of the diaper. should this be cause for concern? also the dipes feel a bit rougher than they did when i first received them for some reason. the under sides of the liners that came in the package as well are feeling a bit different texturally also. kind of a bit fluffier with extremely slight pilling. am i washing too much? have to do them every day at the moment until i get the second half of the package which should be arriving any day now! |
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| I dry pail, put my dipes in dryer for 20 minutes, then dry on a rack rest of the way. I sun them when needed, and I dont have any stains. I also use fleece liners, but mainly for babies comfort. Sun them when he's not around! Put a little water on them, and they're gone in 30 minutes tops. Good luck! |
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FireDancer, I suspect that what you're feeling is just the normal feel for cloth getting into use.
As for resale concerns, my view is that it doesn't matter until such time as you want to resell. Sure, trying to stay on top of stains is fine, but worrying about it too much isn't really worth anything, and doing things like using additives (like oxiclean or bleach or whatever) in hopes of keeping your diapers beautiful may actually harm their resale value as it can degrade the fabric. An extra wash every now and again isn't the end of the world, but stain stick and a whole other round every time will eventually cause premature wear. I've had bad stains from the few times DS didn't have a fleece liner in, or had awful blueberry poops, etc., and they just go away over time. When my first son was exclusively breastfed, the inside of every single diaper was bright orange, this amazing shade. I couldn't hang them outside because it was winter, but when spring came, one sunning and my mother-in-law asked if I had new diapers because they were white again. Sun doesn't work quite as quickly on regular poop stains, but it really does do great things. |
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Also, you really wouldn't want to do laundry only once per week. The diapers don't do so well with that; they can get very smelly and even moldy if left for too long. I've generally had about 25 or 26 diapers and washed every 3, 3.5 days or so, probably every 2, 2.5 in the early days when babies used more diapers, but I do also line dry. If you are going to have 24 diapers, I think that you will be able to get into a very comfortable routine of doing the wash every few days. I had about 40 diapers when I had two in diapers at once, and sold a bunch after my first son potty trained because I wasn't using them all--*couldn't* use them all before they needed to be washed because the pail gets nasty if left too long. And really, you can fit only so many in the washer at once to have it wash effectively, anyway.
I wonder with the thought of washing pre/flat fold diapers once per week if that would work if they were being soaked in bleach. I know that my mom used to soak them in bleach-water, and that's the only way I can think of they could go that long without getting icky (commercial diaper services use bleach, too). Although it's going to cause them to break down faster, you can do that with flat and prefolds, but not with fitteds like the OS, as the bleach would destroy the elastic (besides the fact that it's unnecessasry for home diapers, and bad for baby's skin and the environment). I know you're not contemplating soaking your diapers in bleach, but I was just trying to think about how one could go a week between washes, and trust me, you don't want to go there. :-) |
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| i was thinking about this, and once i get the other part of my package, i am going to sun out these dipes with stains on them. my friend is getting me 6 stay dry and 6 bamboo dipes. if i like those, will it be possible to resell my 12 cotton ones and get the stay dry and bamboo? |
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| hey gatorgal. i cannot help wondering if you live in FL judging by your username? also when i go to sun these 12 dipes that i have, can i simply take them from the washer and put them in the sun? i am going to lay them out on a towel since i do not have a clothesline. also to anyone who knows, are the stay dry and bamboo ones stain resistant? |
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Yes, you can just take the diapers straight from the washer and lay them out in the sun. They may get a bit crisp from that, so you can put them in the dryer for a few minutes to soften them up if you want. Babies don't seem to mind the crisper diapers, though; I think it's more moms that do!
The stay dry diapers have a polyester lining on the inside that does what a fleece liner would do, so that lining does not get stained easily (if you are planning on using fleece liners, don't use them in those diapers as it would be overkill). I have only one bamboo, but would imagine that they would stain similarly to the cotton. |
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| thanks. i am about to put these diapers in the sun right now. and unfortunately this is not ebf poop anymore. how long should i leav the dipes out to get the stains out? |
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| also, they are currently hanging over the fence. are they still in direct sunlight even though they are hanging over it? they have been hanging out there for about half an hour now. i am planning on bringing them in at 2 or so. it is currently 11 EST right now. |
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Hello,
I have no idea how long it would take to sun diapers, I'm afraid you're going to have to ask your husband or dad if the diapers look any different after a few hours. But I don't think there's any downside to leaving them in the sun for longer. Of course, if you need to use them, you'll have to bring them in, but if not, you can leave them out there as long as you want, the sun won't damage them.
I just have another comment about switching your stash... You'll see which fabric you like best, but even though some people do use exclusively stay-dry diapers and like them, there are potential downsides to be careful about. I heard that they are more prone to buildup, as there is one extra layer. Also, the polyester can cause irritation or allergies in some very sensitive kids, so there is a perk to having it in a different layer (like a fleece liner) that can be removed if your child starts reacting to it. We actually had that problem, our son had a persistent rash, and when we stopped using the stay-dry liners, the rash stopped. It could be a coincidence, but it is something to consider. Finally, a lot of moms like to be able to stop using fleece when they are potty-training so that their toddler can feel the wetness better. So that's another perk of having a fleece liner separate from the diaper.
Of course, some people use it with great success and like not having to worry about an extra layer, which is nice. And many people claim the stay-dry is less prone to staining, although in my case it didn't prove true at all, they are even more stained than the diapers themselves. So it's good that you'll be able to try the three different styles and just get more of what you like best.
Bamboo is softer and trimmer than cotton, but takes longer to dry, which can be an issue if your stash is small. I don't think there's any difference in stain resistance.
Good luck! |
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