I have been cloth diapering since my first was born, and had a large stash of one size pocket diapers (30). So I washed the diaper laundry seperately. Then my oldest outgrew the one size and moved to pullups about the time my second came along, so I bought a smaller stash of pullups (12) but continued to wash seperately because I had 2 kiddos and both sets of diapers going through. Now, my oldest is potty trained and my youngest has outgrown the one-size and is using the pullups, but at 15 months, is no where near being ready to potty train. SO .. . . I now only have 12 diapers in rotation and have to do diaper laundry almost every night. I don't mind the every night thing, but it seems so wasteful to run a load with only 6 to 8 diapers in it. I can either (a) increase my stash of pullups or (b) wash clothes with the diapers for a more reasonable load or (c) keep doing these tiny diaper loads.
What do you other cloth diapering mamas do? We don't plan on having any more kiddos, so I hate to invest a ton more into diapers at this point, but I just sold the one size, so I could buy some more if needed. I just don't want to waste water and such, but I want to be sanitary too. Any thoughts and opinions?
@ Bug - we use cold water cycles and air dry, so while we are cleaning, I don't know that much sanitizing is going on. Also, I don't use bleach as this breaks down your water proof layer. Lots of disease is transmitted by fecal/oral contamination so I am not sure that this is an unreasonable issue to consider. - I was not offended :) Just thought I should highlight the lack of hot water!
I always washed separately because I washed diapers differently. Quick rinse first, then washed on hot with soap and an extra rinse. Also hot dryer. Clothes are washed in cool water with a low heat on the dryer.
I would do smaller loads with fewer diapers. Maybe you want to add white socks or underwear to these loads, but I would not do clothes with them.
I didn't do a separate wash for diapers. I washed them with other white/lights. I have always washed everything in cold water, and I don't do bleach. IMO, washing diapers with other clothes is no different than washing my underwear with other clothes. I've never worried about whether my panties were being sufficiently sanitized.
If you run it as a smaller load, it's not wasting water ;)
I could not put them in with other clothes.
i would not wash it with clothes, just do smaller water load.....just MO:)
I've been dabbling with cloth diapering, and have a few in cycle, and like you have debated whether to wash with my little guys clothes. What I ended up doing was a medium/large sized load with everyone's underwear on a very hot wash. To me it was all the same so why not right? I felt way more comfortable that way, and with all the potty training going on I sure had an excess of underoos needing to be washed anyway. Don't know if that would work for you, if not, I probably would lean towards increasing my stock of pull ups!
I always washed them separately, and being that you use cold water to launder them I'd advise you do the same : )
I honestly can smell the feces in my clothes even after they come I out of the dryer and hang in the closet for a week. I would have to run hot water and add a lot of bleach in the washing machine and run it with nothing in it after each load of diapers.
So for me it was easier to just do disposable. My time is worth something too.
I washed diapers by themselves. I washed diapers at a warmer temp than the rest of our clothes. Also, I was advised to use more water/less detergent than I would with a normal load.
