Wool Works for Warm Weather

It's 80 plus degrees here today humid and generally beautiful. We don't have an air conditioner because of wiring problems and so all the windows are open and the fresh air is flowing through the house.

Me and the little man are sweating our butts off.

This morning I had him fully dressed in BumGenius 3.0, socks, pants and onesie. By noon he was down to a onesie and socks with diaper and by early afternoon it was just a onesie. But he was still sweating and cranky from the heat.

Finally it was nap time and I was dreading having to try to put him down.

I stripped him bare and upon taking off his diaper I found his entire diaper area to be soaked, not necessarily from pee but from sweat. He was so uncomfortable.

I needed a breathable option and what more breathable than my wool?

I put him in a hemp Crickett diaper and a Loveybums Crepe cover and laid him down for his nap with nothing but a light shirt.

In minutes he was fast asleep.

Two hours later I heard happy little chirps over the baby monitor and went to get him up. He was smiling and cooing and comfortably cool.

I left him in nothing but diaper and wool cover the rest of the day and he was back to his happy little self.

For those who are reserved to use wool in warm weather I urge you to reconsider. We've found it to be a lot more comfortable than PUL.

The Solution to Co-Sleeping Leaks

The wonderful thing about baby crib mattresses is that most of them already have a waterproof layer on them. You may have to change the sheets if your little one soils them but you don't really have to worry about the mattress.

Not so for the cosleeping family. Should an accident happen in bed you are left with worrying about the sheets and the mattress.

And it's not just those baby blowouts. It's also leaking milk from a breastfeeding mommy. Not to mention, my son drools in his sleep.. A LOT.

We went out and got a waterproof mattress pad and HATED it. It made all three of us sweat like crazy, was crunchy and I couldn't stand it. I needed something that was waterproof but breathable. I was sick of feeling like I was sleeping on a plastic bag.

I found a wool changing pad online.

Knowing the wonderful properties of wool and how breathable but water resistant it is I didn't hesitate to purchase it for our bed.

It's not huge but is perfect for the small area of the bed that Garrett and I take up.

At first I put it over the sheet on the bed but any one of the three of us would move it out of place so I started putting it under the fitted sheet and our problem has been solved. It is so soft and breathable as well leaving me feel comfortable all night.

Breast leaks, the occasional diaper leak, nothing has gotten through the wool pad.

Even my husband agrees that it's the best money we've spent.

Diaper Rash and Creams

As much as we would like to never have to deal with a single diaper rash the fact is they happen to everyone. In my experience they happen less when my son is in cloth than they do when he's in disposables and they are never as severe but we have had our share.

My first caution to those battling diaper rash would be to locate the cause of the rash and attempt to treat the cause instead of just covering up the problem with diaper creams.

Dr Sears has a fantastic website about cause/effect for diaper rashes.

Okay, that mumbo-jumbo having been said let's talk about cloth safe diaper creams.

A good majority of your main-stream and most popular diaper creams have ingredients that are very bad for cloth diapers; mainly fish oil. Once these ingredients are in the diaper they are very, very hard to get out and may need several rounds of vigorous stripping.

The same can be said of a majority of prescription creams.

Not to fear, however. If your doctor prescribes you a cream you don't have to ditch your cloth. There are liners available that you can put between your diaper and the cream that will protect it.

But for the run-of-the-mill, mysterious diaper rash, there are plenty of cloth diaper safe creams out there.

A word of warning: some diaper manufacturers' warranty will be voided if you use any diaper cream (despite how "safe" it may be) without a liner, so if you want to be really safe you could (and probably should) use a liner with those diapers as well.

What makes a diaper cream safe or not is how well it washes out of your cloth without undo or excessive staining or causing buildup. Obviously this is based on the ingredients and the type of cloth being used.

Some cloth fibers are more forgiving than others. For instance, it may be easier to wash cream from cotton prefolds than it is to wash it from microfiber inserts or synthetic suede cloth. What works well for one diaper may not work so well with another.

Again, it all depends on the ingredients of the cream and the diaper.

A good rule of thumb I have found to be true in my own diapering is, the more natural the cream and the more natural the diaper, the better it will all wash out (and usually the better and faster it will work).

There are plenty of "rash remedies" that have been used in this home that are as natural as you can get. We have used breastmilk (which works wonders on all sorts of cuts, scraps and other skin irritations (DO NOT use breastmilk on a yeast rash, though, it will only make it worse)), olive oil and coconut oil with great success. Our other favored rash remedies are baking soda soaks and the use of breatheable diapers for long periods like naps, car rides and overnight.

I have also found cotton and hemp to be the most forgiveable fabrics when it comes to washing out rash remidies. Not to mention that hemp and bamboo both have natural antibacterial properties to them that help combat diaper rash.

Now, FINALLY, to the actual store-bought creams.

I have only used two store-bought, designated diaper creams: Baby Bees (Burts Bees) Diaper Rash Ointment and Weleda Calendula Dipaer Care.

The Baby Bees (Burts Bees) cream had a very strong odor to it and stained my diapers pretty badly. Though it did wash out over time and the odor was tolerable I still was not thrilled with it and definetly could not use it on my synthetic cloth without heavy buildup.

The Weleda Cream has a very soothing smell to it and worked wonderfully. It caused no staining in my diapers and to be safe I always use a hemp liner when using it with my sythetic diapers.

Weleda's Baby Cream (pictured above), though not designated as a diaper cream, has also worked marvelously on mild skin irritations whether in the diaper area or elsewhere.

For more information on Cloth Diaper safe creams, check out Pinstripes and Polkadots.

Stripping

There is a term in the cloth diaper underworld (as that is what it is) that is referred to when diapers need to be cleansed of diaper cream or detergent build up, fabric softeners, cured of repelling and the like. This process is called stripping.

The purpose of stripping is to "strip" the diapers clean of anything and everything that might be inhibiting their function and getting them back to the most pure and original form--cloth plus nothing.

Some people are lucky enough to get their routine right the first time and never have to strip. In my humble opinion, stripping should be a solution to a problem, not a regular event. If you don't use diaper creams, use only as much detergent as is needed, rinse thoroughly and don't use any other additives or weird combinations then there should be no need to strip.

But we all know that life is not that simple. There is always those times when the husband unknowingly slathers diaper cream all over your baby's butt without putting down a liner. Your mother decides to be helpful and does a load of diaper laundry complete with fabric softener. A softener sheet was accidentally left in the drier with your diapers. It happens. And that is why stripping was invented.

While visiting my family in Wisconsin I had the rotten luck of using way too much detergent on my diapers. I got most of it out while I was there but unfortunately there was still some that needed to be stripped out upon my return home.

There are as many different "stripping" recipes as there are wash routines and detergent choices. You also want to make sure you understand why you are stripping in the first place.

For instance, if you have detergent build up you want to strip detergent out of your diapers so it would be foolish to add soap or detergent to your strip when soap is exactly what you are trying to remove.

When stripping things like softeners you will want a stripping agent that can cut through the additives and effectively strip them from the cloth. The favored stripping agent is Dawn Original dish detergent.

The amount of Dawn needed is minimal. A good rule to follow is to use the least amount and add more later if necessary.

Another general rule is that while stripping the hotter the water the better. Many people (myself included) boil a pot of water on the stove and add that to the washing machine first before the diapers and the regular hot water that the washing machine can provide. Hot, HOT water seems to work better at cutting through minerals and build up.

Thankfully, I've not had to strip much but I'll share the stripping experiences I have had.

Diaper Cream:
My husband and I bought six brand new BumGenius 3.0 pocket diapers, I prepped them and as it was a Saturday my husband was kind enough to do most of the diaper changes. During one such change I went into the nursery to discover that my husband was slathering on diaper cream without a liner. I asked him how many changes he had been doing that for and he replied with, "Ummm, all of them?"

I washed all of the diapers immediately but I could see the diaper cream stuck in the suede clothe of our beautiful, brand new diapers.

I got out an old toothbrush and my dish detergent. I put just a drop of Dawn on the toothbrush and went to work on the buildup. Once I could no longer see it I returned all of the diapers to the washing machine and washed on hot with no detergent until no suds were seen in any rinses.

To test the diapers to make sure all build up was gone I took a tablespoon of water and poured it on the area where the cream had been built up. It absorbed nicely meaning that all of the build up was gone. If any build up were present the water would bead up and roll off.

Detergent Build Up:
This happened when I used too much detergent in soft water.

The only thing to do in this case is rinse, Rinse, RINSE.

Again, hot water helps break through the build up so I boiled a pot of water, poured it in my washing machine, added the diapers, set my washing machine on "Hot" and "Super Wash" with an extra rinse and let it go. That effectively rinsed my diapers three times, once with hot water and twice with cold.

A quick glance during either of the rinse cycles will tell you how effective your strip is. If there are still suds repeat until there are no more suds.

There are a lot of great resources when it comes to stripping. One of my favorites is Pinstripes and Polkadots. She has a lot of fabulous information when it comes to stripping.

Now I'm off to check on my final rinse cycle to see if I stripped all of the detergent from my diapers.

Road Trip with Cloth

Previously, though I have been cloth diapering my son since his birth, I had not gotten up the courage to use cloth diapers while traveling. I also had not taken a trip longer than two or three days.

Then my mother sent me a birthday card with a post-script that said, "Tues Apr 7th all [of my family] are getting together... for 60th B-days for Dad, Kati + Bruce -- bring Garrett to meet everyone!"

After a brief conversation with my husband I was on the road heading toward home.

Though my diaper stash is respectable, it is by no means huge so I grabbed both of my wet bags, filled the one with every cloth diaper I owned that fit my son (including the prefolds and covers, wool and doublers) and left the other one empty to use as the true "wet bag."

The five and a half hour drive was the longest I'd ever taken by myself with a baby and I was thrilled with how well we did, stopping only three times to nurse and change diapers.

When we arrived at my parents' home we had as fantastic of a time as I could hope for. It was wonderful to meet my niece for the first time and for Garrett's aunts, cousins, great aunts and uncles and old friends to meet him, too.

My sister offered to change Garrett's diaper and later that evening I took off his clothes to find she had put his BumGenius AIO on backwards. It didn't leak and Garrett didn't seem to care so all was well.

The only real hiccup was when it came to washing. My parents have a water softener and I unintentionally used too much detergent in the wash which caused an array or suds and bubbles in the wash that took several rinses to clear. It was good that they have their own well water so I didn't have to feel guilty about doing multiple rinses.

I had a wonderful time and the experience taught me that it's not so scary to take cloth diapers on a trip.

In retrospect I have learned a few things I would like to pass on as advice:

• Unless prefolds and covers are your only and/or favorite means of diapering, leave them at home and take only fitted, one-size or AIO diapers. I found I used the prefolds only as changing pads and as they added bulk to an already overly-bulky luggage I wish I had left them at home. My BumGenius AIOs and Pockets were my go-to diapers for the entire trip as I was always on the go and famiy who offered to change my son's diapers found them easier to manage.
• When washing diapers in an unfamiliar washing machine, with unfamiliar water, start with 1/4 the recommended detergent and go from there. It's a lot easier to rewash a load of diapers than it is to do six rinses to get all of the excess detergent out.
• If you have a night-time system that works well for you don't try to change it while traveling. While in someone else's house, in someone else's bed, is not the time to discover leaks and mishaps in your diapering system.
• If you take wool, make sure it's good and lanolized and clean before you go. Take the minimum for wool cleaning. I didn't have to wash or lanolize any of my wool while I was gone but I was ready if I had needed to.
• Have fun and don't worry. If you discover that cloth diapers are getting in the way of you having a fun time then switch to disposables if you can and enjoy yourself. Agonizing about your baby's diapers is not cunducive to having a good time. A few days or disposables to give you the freedom to enjoy your time with friends, family or in a new place is well worth it.

I won't hesitate to take my cloth on another trip though I will be looking for more AIOs before I do. I had so much fun with my family and I was happy to not have to use a single disposable my entire trip.

Take a chance. Take a trip. Take your cloth!

Stay Dry

One advantage that disposables may have over cloth is their ability to keep a baby feeling drier, longer. While this may be an advantage of sorts the downside is the use of gels and chemicals as well as infrequent diaper changes due to the diaper not feeling wet.

While cloth diapers have the advantage of being chemical free, far too often, when soiled they can feel exactly like what they are: wet cloth.

I forget this every now and then and am invariably reminded in the middle of the night when my son starts to toss and turn and grunt, sputtering through a broken sleep.

A quick feel of his diaper reveals a cold, wet cloth. A quick change (which he hardly ever fully awakens from) is all that is needed to set him back to a deep, peaceful sleep.

It bothers me, however, that his sleep (and therefore mine) is disrupted by something as simple as a wet diaper.

Not to fear, however, as cloth diapers are not without their "stay dry" or at least dry feeling solutions.

There are certain fabrics that do not absorb moisture well and therefore even when wet they have a deceptively dry feel to them. Fleece is one of these fabrics. Cloth diapers all over (this one included) have taken to placing a thin, fleece liner in diapers to give the baby that "dry" feeling.

There are also other fabrics that do not feel as wet as others. Hemp has an amazing "dry" feel even when wet though it can get a little chilly.

Some diaper manufacturers even produce diapers with stay-dry liners built right in to keep a baby feeling dry and comfortable.

BumGenius has what is called a suede-cloth in all of their pocket diapers (except for the limited edition ones where they used fleece instead) and are amazingly dry-feeling.

If you have ever gotten your clothes wet and then tried to sleep without getting changed you may begin to understand what it feels like to try to sleep in a wet cloth diaper. I don't blame my son for having difficulties resting peacefully when I forget this little tid-bit, especially when all that is needed to fix the problem is a small piece of fleece.

Prepping Prefolds

I have been anxiously waiting for about six weeks for Green Mountain Diapers to restock their Unbleached prefolds. Finally! after much waiting and anticipating I was able to order a dozen of the red-edge unbleached prefolds for my son.

I love using prefolds at home as they are very easy to clean, quick and keeps the wear on my pockets and all-in-ones down to a minimum.

New prefolds, however, must be prepped.

When you get brand new prefolds they are almost comically huge.

I had to take a picture to represent just how big these things are when they are unprepped.

Prepping prefolds is as easy as doing laundry... again and again and again.

Bleached prefolds take about 3-4 washes to be fully prepped. Unbleached take about 6 washes to be useable but 10 + before they will reach their full absorbancy.

Brand new prefolds are large and very smooth (Sharpie is in the picture for size reference).


After prepping prefolds become very soft, fluffy and quilted, not to mention they skrink quite a bit.


To prep, I throw my prefolds in along with regular wash (if they will fit) and wash and dry, put them back in with the next load, wash and dry, wash and dry, etc, until the process has been repeated about six times. And that's it.

To recap on prefolds I will quote from one of my previous blogs: The Newbie's Guide to Being a Newbie.

A prefold is very simple a diaper. A diaper that replaced the flat, folded panels of yesteryear. Very simply they are made of absorbent material (usually cotton) pre-folded (hence the name) across itself for thickness and added absorption (with the thickest portion being in the center, where it is most needed) and stitched along the top and bottom.

Unbleached and Bleached prefolds.

As there are many brands of clothes and shoes, some better quality than others, there are many brands of prefolds, some of greater quality than others. If you go to the baby section of your local WalMart or Target you will likely find a pack of prefolds for pretty darned cheap. I know, I almost bought some, but luckily for me I did some research into what makes a good prefold. The big store brand prefolds are little better than taking a $1 cotton t-shirt, sewing it together and calling it a diaper. The cotton in those shirts has been stripped, bleached, dyed, processed and is usually so thin it will last you about 5 months (if you're careful) and won't absorb much more than you'd expect a cut up t-shirt would.

A quality prefold has cotton that is as unprocessed as possible. Unbleached is preferable as bleach (though it makes things nice and bright) breaks down the fibers and wears out the material faster. The prefolds I have heard about and read about as though they were sewn by the hand of God are Chinese made, commonly referred to as CPFs (Chinese PreFolds).

They run about $2-$3 a diaper depending on size and whether the diaper is bleached or unbleached but they are the foundation upon which the whole prefold, cloth diapering system is build so they must have good quality and can be used for life, even after the baby has potty-trained and moved on. They make great kitchen towels, cleaning rags, burp clothes, you name it. Anything you can think of needing an absorbent cloth for you can use them for. Best yet, the resale value is phenomenal! Used Chinese Prefolds on eBay still sell for about $1.50 if not higher and sell like hot cakes. So even if your baby outgrows his or her size of prefold and you can't think of a reason for keeping them around you can always sell them and get almost all your money back to either reinvest in the next size prefold, keep, or buy the next size covers for your baby.

And I also talk more about prefolds in Absorbancy Test .

Washing, Lanolizing Wool (A Picture Tutorial)

Finally, I need to wash and lanolize some wool. I figured I'd take you along for the short, but fun ride.

First, the kit!

Above you see the picture of my "wool kit." It sits on my kitchen counter at all times and only gets used sparingly as wool does not need to be washed or lanolized often.

I have the following:

• One bottle of Unscented Eucalan Wool Wash
• One mason jar (complete with lid)
• One hug a dub dub Wool Wash Soap bar (used only for spot cleaning)
  
• One tube of PureLan 100 Lanolin (though any lanolin will work)
  

Now, let us commence the washing of the wool.

First!

Fill your sink with enough tepid (think baby bath temperature) water to cover your wool item.

Second!

Squeeze out about a pea-sized amount of lanolin and put it in your mason jar.

Third!

Add the wool wash of your choice. I like Eucalan because it is a no-rinse wash. You can use baby soap for this part if you would like as the baby soap, or wool wash, serves only to break up the lanolin and help it distribute in the water better. It's only my preference to use Eucalan. The choice is yours.

I use about 1/2 tsp (sometimes less). If it's a serious wash I will use more. The recommended amount is 1 tsp per gallon (for Eucalan).

Fourth!

Fill the jar about half-way with HOT water. It doesn't have to be super hot, like boiling or anything, just hot enough to melt the lanolin. Your hottest tap water should suffice.

Fifth!

Shake until all of the lanolin is dissolved and the water is cloudy.

Sixth!

Pour the lanolin mixture into the tepid water in the sink. Don't worry, there shouldn't be enough hot water in your jar to seriously screw with the temperature of your waiting water.

Seventh!

Stir the water until it, too, is cloudy and a bit sudsy.

Eighth!

Add the wool item (in this case, a wool changing pad). Keep in mind that wool is naturally water resistant so it may seem to "float" and not absorb the water very well. This is normal.

Ninth!

Gently squeeze the item to encourage the fibers to absorb the wash and lanolin. If spots are needed to be removed, gently work the area. Vigorous scrubbing is usually unnecessary and can cause felting or damage to the wool. Gentle is best and usually all that is required.

Tenth!

Allow the item to soak for 15-30 minutes. Just enough time to nurse a hungry baby!

Eleventh!

Pull the plug and allow the item to act as a drain filter. This way it forces all of the wash and lanolin to pass through its fibers before escaping down the drain.

Twelfth!

Press out (do NOT wring) any excess water to the best of your ability.

Thirteenth!

Roll the item in a towel, pressing (not wringing) as you go.

Fourteen!

Lay flat to dry on a drying rack and allow 24-hours to dry before using.

And You're Done!

To Tide or Not To Tide

I'm pretty sure that Tide must be one of the most popular detergents out there and with good reason: it works!

Apparently it works on cloth diapers too... or so many other cloth-diapering mothers have told me.

I was actually relieved to hear this at first because, in the good ol' days, I was a Tide user myself. I bought it by the gallons and never gave a thought to what kind of additives or enzymes or softeners or bleaches it contained.

It got my clothes clean. What did I care?

Enter young, cloth-diapering mother with a laundry fetish (read my profile) and slight obsession with research.

Suddenly I'm finding out that additives can cause build up! enzymes can cause burn-like rashes! bleaches can damage fibers and void warranties!

To be safe I went with the additive, softener, enzyme, bleach free, biodegradable, rinses clean, save the planet, worship my purity detergent.

It got my clothes clean. What did I care?

Finally, the Tide rave got to me. I had run out of detergent and needed to do laundry. I took my list of the top five diaper-safe detergents, walked to the local grocery store (as my husband had stolen my Jeep) and looked at what was on the shelf.

Tide powder, Tide with bleach, Tide with bleach and fabric softener, Tide Sensitive Skin and Clean, Purex, Sunlight, Ultra, Woolite... I'm sure you are getting the picture that there was a lot of choices. But, of course, not one of my "diaper-safe" detergents was present.

I grabbed the bottle of Tide Sensitive Skin and headed home to launder my laundry.

I used only 1/2 the recommended amount and, yes, it got my diapers very clean.

But the next day there was a rash on my son's butt. Knowing that enzymes could be (and probably were) the culprit I ran an extra "quick wash" at the end of the regular wash to rinse out any remaining detergent and enzymes and even added 1/4 cup vinegar to the mix.

Rash: not so bad but still present.

I used 1/4 the recommended 'Tide'al dose.

Rash: still present.

I used 1/4 the recommended amount with the extra quick wash (now people with water shortages around the country are ready to tar and feather me).

Rash: hanging on for dear life.

Switch back to "ultra-biodegradable-I-save-lives-I'm-so-green" detergent and WELLA... no more rash.

I now use the Tide on just mine and my husband's clothes.

Obviously it works for some mothers, babies and their diapers. I'd really hoped it'd work on mine, and while it got things clean, so does the other stuff. They cost about the same, they work about the same (sans the rash, of course), and they get my clothes clean.

What do I care?

Washing Wool or Baby?

With the purchase of my red-edge prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers, I decided to try their wool wash soap for spot cleaning my wool covers.

I had read about this soap and liked that its natural ingredients included lanolin, coconut and soybean oils along with other gentle oils to make for a soft soap that wouldn't require relanolizing my covers for every spot wash.

The description on their website said it was also a favorite hand soap or even as baby soap for children with dry skin issues.

There are a total of three things I will use on my son if he gets any kind of rash (be it on the diaper area or else-where). First, if it is a particularly dry-looking rash and is going to go on just before bedtime, I will apply a generous amount of coconut oil. I've never woken him up to find the rash still persisting. My husband has also used coconut oil on persistant and painful rashes and found them to be greatly soothed and cleared quickly with its use. Second, if it's just a tiny spot of redness or dry skin during the day I will apply a dab of Weleda Baby Cream which contains lanolin. Third, if it's a bad rash I will use Weleda Diaper Care Cream which is basically the Weleda Baby Cream with Zinc Oxide in it.

Lanolin is very popular with nursing mothers to sooth sore nipples and it provides superb water-proofing to wool diaper covers.

Two of my favorite, rash-fighting, soothing, moisturizing ingredients, combined in one bar of soap? It seemed too good to be true.

I received my wool wash and waited for my wool to need it.

In the mean time I decided to try it for myself, on myself (because if you are a mother who changes diapers as much as I do it means you wash your hands as much as I do which means you have dry, flaky, cracked hands that you would try to repair with lotion if there was time so you just live with the dry, flaky hands).

I'll admit. It did leave my hands feeling silky smooth and a lot less dry with every wash. I have found my new post-diaper-change hand soap.

My husband, who has problems with his hands on a regular basis, tried it as well and experienced no burning.

Bath time rolled around and still no wool needed to be washed so I threw the bar into the bath and slathered up my babies' butt. I think we both appreciate how smooth and moist it left his tush at the end of his bath.

So, here we have a wool wash bar that has YET to be used to actually wash wool. I fully intend to use it for its designated purpose but I might just have to purchase another bar just for family use.

Stains

My son got his first ear infection.

It's not bad, a minor ache he told me about by cleverly pulling on his ear which led to the doctor's office and prescribed antibiotics for ten days.

The pharmacist warned me there may be an increase in poopy diapers and they might be a little more nasty.

On top of that I put him on probiotics to replace the good human bacteria killed by the antibiotics and I was warned that they could also make an increase in poopy, colorful diapers.

Normally, exclusively-breast-fed poopies are a bit like seedy mustard. There can be some color variation but that's about it. It's water soluble so it doesn't have to be pre-rinsed or dunked or sprayed, it just goes right into the diaper pail and then into the washing machine and comes out clean on the other side.

But BOY oh BOY did my baby's diapers take a radical change in the last week.

I went from one to two big poops a day to five or six and from small amounts of yellowy poop to whole diapers saturated in what looked like green and yellow slime. Yeah, just the mental image you wanted, huh? (Well, get used to it!)

Anyway, they still were going directly into the washing machine and while everything was washing out cleanly I noticed an increase in staining.

Normally I don't give a rat's butt about stains on a diaper. After all, it IS a diaper. You know, kids poop in it, daily. I was and am prepared for some stains to occur.

But this was different. One of my diapers went from a soft vanilla cotton color to green! These are serious stains.

Now, since bleach and other stain removal products can be harmful to babies' delicate skin, damage diaper fibers and void diaper warranties there is a limit to what a laundry obsessed mother (that would be me) can do.

The first option is the sun.

That's right, folks, the sun. "Sunning" an item is one of the most effective ways to remove stains. Just lay the item out for some time on a sunny afternoon and watch the stains fade away. I've done this successfully on many a hemp doubler and bamboo diaper.

My rescuer in this case... Du da-da dunt da-da...

OxiClean Baby!

Gentle enough for baby but with the stain fighting power of OxiClean.

I was prepping new prefolds anyhow so I took my four most stained diapers and threw them in with the prepping prefolds, added a 3/4 scoop of OxiClean Baby, one scoop of Charlie's Soap (since everything is technically "clean" I didn't have to use my high-powered Planet), set my washing machine to "hot" and "regular load" and let it go. (I didn't even put in my water softener pellets.)

I was (and am) extremely impressed with how well it removed the stains on my diapers. The green diaper has gone back to vanila in color, and everything else looks as clean and bright as new.

I already use 1/2 scoop of OxiClean Baby as a detergent booster in my regular wash of diapers but now I know I can use it as a powerful stain removal in my moment of over-stained need.

Soft Water, Hard Water

Water is the most important part of cleaning... pretty much anything. Without water we don't get suds, we don't wash, we don't rinse and things don't get clean.

But water can also be a source of grief.

I once asked someone if they had hard water. They said they didn't know. That means it's probably soft. People with hard water know they have hard water. The evidence is everywhere: the calcium and lime build up around faucet heads, the rings in glasses and the toilet, the dingy, gray-looking clothes, the mass amounts of soap needed to get a good clean.

And for diapers you can start to get those same build-ups in clothes that effect absorbency, etc.

I grew up in hard water but had a short reprieve when I moved to Virginia where the water was nice and soft. My clothes and diapers came clean the first time with my Charlie's Soap and I didn't have a very difficult time with laundry or diaper care.

Then we moved.

Hello Iowa. Hello hard water!

My Charlie's Soap became inefficient.

So, I started the search for the perfect, hard water combination.

My first stop was to try the water softener additive Calgon. It certainly helped the laundering process but it was very expensive. The amount of water I was using to wash, plus the Calgon, plus the detergent was just getting too expensive of a combination.

I was willing to do it until my son started getting a little bit of a rash. Upon research I found that Calgon can be rash inducing on some babies.

I was getting a little discouraged.

Then a friend of mine gave me a tip.

She went out and bought a $6, 50 lbs bag or Morton's Water Softener salt pellets. She puts 6-10 pellets in each load of laundry and VIOLA, no Calgon, the bag lasts forever and clean laundry is her only result.

I figured it certainly wouldn't hurt to try. After all, it's only $6.

It's the greatest hard water tip I've ever gotten.

I also switched from Charlie's Soap to Planet Laundry Detergent and while I loved my Charlie's in soft water it just wasn't enough for the hard water conditions here.

It helps get the diapers (and our regular clothes) clean, clean, clean, without the dingy build up and with no rashes.