Washing cloth diapers

[Bailey]

I haven't had my baby yet, but this is a question that just occurred to me.

The cloth diapers we've purchased have instructions on them to wash in cold water only and to line dry or tumble dry with no heat. I have no problem with this as far as it would probably save a tremendous amount of money on hot water and electric bills over time (I'm cloth diapering just as much for economic reasons as I am for health ones). But I am a little concerned for whether the diapers will actually get clean this way.

Do I need to take extra steps to make sure I'm not putting a diaper on my baby that is riddled with bacteria and who knows what else? Or will a normal cold-water detergent do the job just fine and I'm worrying for nothing? I mean, with grown-up clothes, I normally wash in cold water anyways because I'm more concerned with the stains and smell than I am about bacteria because... well, I'm not pooping in my shirts! Anything that might have gotten dirty enough to make someone sick (ie, dropping raw meat on myself while preparing dinner) I've washed in hot water to be sure.

Anyways, the short of it is - will cold water washing disinfect the diapers sufficiently, or do I need to buy special products or take extra steps?

 

[duffers]

What kind of nappies have you bought? I use a pretty big mix and I bung everything on a cold rinse then 50 degree wash. Haven't had any problems so far. I've not heard of any nappies that you could only cold wash but I'm not sure you'd get everything out that way. Perhaps somebody else will enlighten us.

 

[sezzlebum]

never come accross cold water wash only nappies, even when i did a nappy trial with prefolds they got took to be washed to hospital standards,
i have a wide mix now and other they all say wash on a 60 or 40

what nappies are they?

 

[anothersquish]

Ive not come across cold wash only nappies either, only 40 or 60 (I wash all mine at 60). What make are they?

 

[Rachel_C]

I wash at 30 degrees with a normal non-bio detergent but I have two nappy buckets - one for dry pailing wet nappies, one for wet pailing dirty nappies. I use Napisan in the dirty nappy bucket, which kills the nasties I think. Then I bung everything in the wash together on 30 degrees but I assume all the germs have been killed by the Napisan by then, and the nappies that have been wet pailed must add some Napisan to the rest of the wash too.

I do give all the nappies a wash on 40 degrees every now and then, but I've never gone up to 60 degrees.

 

[Vici]

I would wash at 30 if my machine had a 30degree wash longer than 30 mins As it hasn't I wash at 40 and strip wash every so often at 60 Never washed on cold though x

 

[Bailey]

Thanks for the feedback, ladies! I've got Rainbow BB diapers, which are a chinese brand that I found on eBay. Some of the other mothers I've talked to that bought them said that they used warm water without issue, so I think I'll put a few through a test wash on that setting to make sure they don't shrink or anything.

My machine only has "cold-warm-hot" and doesn't tell me exactly what temp it uses