Incorporating cloth diapering into your life is easier than you anticipate. They don’t require fancy pins and cumbersome covers like they used to. My husband and I used cloth diapers with our son from the time he was a newborn until he potty trained. We have developed our diaper washing skills so that it has become easy. Here are my favorite tips!

The benefits of cloth diapering for baby

There’s no debate that cloth diapering has many benefits for your babies. Here are a few of my favorites:

• No exposure to chemicals = Healthier for baby’s skin
• Decreased incidence of diaper rash
• Baby’s potty train earlier
• They’re better for the environment…ok, maybe I’m a bit of a hippie
• Cloth diapers leak LESS than disposables
• One time expense – They’ll fit your baby from birth until they potty train
• They retain their value and can easily be resold when you no longer need them!

Washing cloth diapers is easy!

Washing cloth diapers generally involves 4 steps:

1) Dump any solid waste.
This step is easy when babies are exclusively breastfed. Their poo is water soluble, which means you can just throw all of the pieces into the wash with no extra rinsing. Once your babes begin eating solids, you simply dump any solid waste into the toilet and then throw all pieces into the wash. We never really had to do any extra spraying and chose not to invest in a diaper sprayer and this worked well for us.

2) Pre-Soak the Diapers
Soak the diapers in cold water for a few hours in your washing machine. Be sure not to overstuff the washer so that the diapers have room to agitate. After they soak, let the rinse cycle run as well.

3) Wash the Diapers
Run regular wash cycle with hot water (unless your diaper labels show otherwise) and add your soap. Be sure to use a soap with no fabric softeners or perfumes. These things can significantly change the absorbency of your diapers. Here is a comparison chart of detergents. After the diapers rinse, they should be completely free of soap and smell fresh. If they’re still soapy or retain any smell, run an additional wash or rinse cycle.

4) Dry the Diapers
Most diapers and covers are ok to run in the dryer. Be sure to check your labels. Diapers also air-dry very well. Hanging diapers in direct sunlight helps them to dry faster and also acts as a natural beach to get rid of diaper stains.

I don’t think that cloth diapering has to be an all-or-nothing scenario. Some families use cloth diapers when at home and disposable diapers at daycare. You make the rules for what works for your family. That’s just my 2 cents. I’d love to hear from you. Do you cloth diaper? If so, how has it worked out for you? If not, will you start? Share below!