Washing Nappies

[lepaskilf]

I've read everywhere that you can dry or wet pail (soak) your nappies. I was hoping to soak them in a nappy wash and just put them on a rinse in the washing machine. Rather than wash them in the washing machine after a soak. Is this hygenically possible? If so does anyone know of a really good snaitizing nappy soak solution- bought or, even better, home made. I'm going to use pre-folds and muslins.

 

[Rachel_C]

Hmm I would be interested in knowing whether this is possible or not.

I've just looked at the instructions for my mothercare smart nappies but they definitely say that you have to wash them with detergent even after soaking. In fact, it says that you can soak them, then you rinse them and then wash on a normal wash. If pre-soaked, they recommend washing at 40 degrees, otherwise they say 60 to make sure all the germs are gone. Little lambs say they should be dry pailed and then washed on a normal warm wash with half the normal detergent or less.

I think I'll probably dry pail the nappies that are just wet and then wash them normally. For dirty nappies (of which I'm hoping there'll be less!) I'm going to try wet pailing them, then rinsing, then putting them in with another load of washing.

 

[mommyof3co]

I don't think that you could just soak them then rinse them out...I don't think it would be sanitary, wouldn't get rid of all the germs from the poop. There are some diapers you can't soak though, such as BumGenius, so it also depends on what you are using. I know some people just wash in cold though instead of hot water but I personally want to KNOW it's completely clean so I like to use the hot water to be safe. I do a cold rinse, hot wash with detergent, cold rinse, then dry.

 

[Shifter]

I dry pail and then do a short cold cycle before a normal 60 degree with extra rinse. We got nappy sanitizer/soak powder with the terry square starter kit we got and that can also be added to laundry detergent. Seeing as we don't soak and we had it anyway, I have been putting it in with the detergent. Not sure how much difference it makes though and probably won't bother buying more when it eventually runs out.