Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Cloth Diapering-Stripping

Even with a good laundry routine, cloth diapers are bound to build up residue (mainly detergent) and will thus not be able to absorb liquids as well anymore.  Read: pee will leak out everywhere.  

I had my first experience with this when Mara was about six months old.  At first I thought that we were just going through a phase where we were struggling with fit.  With one size diapers, there are some points where you will struggle to get the area around legs tight as your child grows.  I played around with the snaps and still had a ton of leaks (something I had never had before).  After a quick google search I realized that it was time to strip!

You can strip diapers SO MANY ways.  I think I read something about Dawn blue soap and of course there is also specific products on the market just for stripping diapers.  I decided to go with RLR, a product originally on the market to get out dinge on white clothing.  Surprisingly it also works great for removing build up on diapers!

Getting ready to strip was a bit daunting.  I wanted to make the process simple yet I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible.  Basically I made sure all my diapers, wipes and inserts were clean before throwing them in my soaker tub.  You can do it in your washer if you have one of the old fashioned top loading agitator.  I do not so I did it in my bathtub.  

I filled the tub with extremely hot water and threw in two packets of RLR.  I'm not sure the exact ratio of RLR to diapers but I have a lot of diapers and insert and two packets just seemed right.  I then let the mixture soak, coming back to stir it around every couple of hours or so.  

After half a day I threw all the diapers into the washer and did my typical wash routine.  (hot soak, hot wash, rinse x 2).  Dry and voila stripped diapers!  

I just had to revisit this process a few weeks ago which isn't as bad as I originally thought.  I think I can definitely handle twice a year.  AND if I can get Mara potty trained by 2 that's only four times lol.  

Cloth diaper mamas.  How do you strip your diapers?

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