Washing cloth diapers in a Front Loading HE washing machine

Now that my twins are older, they have stronger urine and it has taken some adjusting to my wash routine to get their diapers ammonia free. I have not had another ammonia burn incident, but before the change in our routine, we had stinky ammonia smelling diapers after one use. Blech.

To start from a clean slate, I first boiled all my inserts as well as those that could be detached from our AIOs, for fifteen minutes in about 4 loads. Next I split all the diapers, including my AIO’s, into two loads (so as not to overload our washer) and stripped them. I stripped the diapers by rinsing them, washing them with a tablespoon of blue dawn dishsoap, and then rinsing until the water showed no evidence of suds. I used hot water for stripping. After stripping the diapers, I used them on my DD (for nap and night) and DS (more than just nap and night – more on this with a potty training update…) like normal.

After one day off from washing diapers, it was back to the grind (I now wash every other day because I only have one-ish in diapers). I switched detergents to Lulu’s in the fluff Glamour Wash and have had great results!

My normal diaper washing method with our LG front loader HE washing machine:

Day to day care: Rinse any soiled diapers with the diaper sprayer and place them in the dry pail. All AIO and diaper inserts go in this pail as well. (I keep diaper shells/covers in another bucket by the washer to be washed on warm).

1) Load diapers (separating all snap in inserts helps increase the life of the diapers) and push the rinse/spin button on the far right. This takes less than 20 minutes.

2) Add detergent (I use 2 Tablespoons of Lulu’s in the fluff – yes this is more than directed – and 1/2 scoop of the Oxiclean for baby) in the drawer designated for detergent (top left). I set my washer to a Normal wash cycle and adjust from there. I set the Wash/Rinse button to Hot/Cold, the Spin Speed button to Low (this keeps more water in the diapers for the extra rinse), Soil Level to Heavy and I then push the Extra Rinse and Water Plus buttons on the very right.

3) After the first cycle is complete, I repeat the above wash cycle without detergent, changing only the temperature on the Wash/Rinse to Warm/Warm. All other settings remain the same. This gives the diapers a thorough rinsing.

For more tips and troubleshooting, check out the bummis cloth diapering website. They have tons of science to back up their suggestions. As always, check with your manufacturer if you have any doubts as to how to wash your diapers. Many manufacturers recommend that you only wash in warm water. In my experience, warm water was just not hot enough to get the ammonia out of our diapers. I have found the cloth diapering community and any retailer I have dealt with, to be very kind and helpful. If they can’t answer your question they will generally refer you to someone who can answer you! Please feel free to send me specific questions by email or by comments on this post. I am in league with the RDA (Real Diaper Association) and they have tons of retailers, manufacturers, and experienced cloth diaper experts at their disposal to question!