How to Wash Cloth Diapers
at the Laundry Mat

Early on in our cloth diapering, we lived in an apartment with a shared laundry room (that was 2 floors down!). Yes, there were times when washing our diapers was a pain in the you know what, but I found that a good washing routine really helped.

Tips for washing your diapers at the laundry mat:

• Have enough diapers so you only need to go to the laundromat once or twice per week. Yes, this will cost a bit more up front, but you will still save so much more money than if you use disposables.

• Use a cloth pail liner lined with PUL to store your dirty diapers. This is a great thing to haul your dirty diapers around in, goes right into the wash with the dipes, and can then be used to bring the clean diapers home.

• Make sure to rinse out the poopy diapers before putting into the diaper pail, and you may consider using flushable liners. This will help keep the stink down between washes.

• Sprinkle a little baking soda into the pail liner everyday to help eliminate odors.

• One good thing about using a laundromat is that you can usually wash quite a few more diapers in one load than a home machine. AND they set their water temperatures very high, which helps get your diapers rinsed out really well.

• You can wash most of your diapers and covers in the same load. Just make sure to read the manufactures instructions first.

• Do a cold wash with a cold rinse first, without detergent. Then do a hot wash with a cold rinse with detergent. If you feel the diapers are not getting rinsed out well enough, do a second hot wash/cold rinse.

• Throw everything together into the dryer and dry on a high setting.

• Make sure to pull any covers or diapers out that need to be air dried. This is a good thing to think about if you know that washing at the laundry mat is your fate when purchasing your cloth diapers. If you do end up with quite a few covers that need to be air dried, get a second pail liner to carry these wet covers home in. Then, lay them out somewhere at home to dry.

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