Stripping Your Cloth Diapers

Erin BurtJan 26, 2018

My friend was talking to me about her cloth diapers the other day, and mentioned they were repelling and not absorbing as well as they did in the past.

Do you wonder if you’ve got hard water? Are your diapers repelling? You’re going to want to get your water hardness tested. Having hard water can cause mineral buildup in your diapers. You can get some water testing strips, or take a sample of your water into a pet store and they’ll test your water hardness.

Once you know your water’s hardness you can use that to figure out if you need a laundry booster or if your regular detergent will work for you. I’m a fan of the Fluff Love & CD Science facebook group for help with your wash routine and problems with washing.

Once you’ve determined your diapers need stripping, or you’ve got used diapers and you want to make sure they’re really clean you’re going to need to gather a couple of supplies. Check your bleach. If it’s older than six months old, you’re going to need to get a new bottle. Don’t buy fancy bleach--get the cheap normal stuff. You’re also going to need a special mineral wash. We used GroVia’s Mighty Bubbles, another great option is RLR Laundry Treatment. Either way, according to Fluff Love’s recommendations, you’re going to need three for your diaper strip.

Since she’s got an old style non-HE washer, we did the strip inside the washing machine. Otherwise you can use your bathtub.

We put the diapers and the inserts in a washer of hot water, along with 3 packets of Mighty Bubbles. Unless you’ve got absorbency issues, you don’t need to include the pockets or shells. They had to sit for 4-6 hours. We stirred occasionally to make sure they were all soaking well.

After that we did a hot water rinse and spin and filled the washer again to soak the diapers in bleach for 30 minutes. We did ¾ cup of bleach in her large washing machine. Make sure you move the diapers around again in the bleach so it gets in all over them.

Once the 30 minutes were up, it was time to drain that water out and do 2 of your main washes with regular detergent back-to-back and your diapers should be back to their original state. If you’ve still got some stains, just leave them wet and put them in the sun for a couple hours, and that should help those stains disappear.