Cloth diaper stains

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veevalaveeda

New member
Hi all, I know this has been asked a million times but I'm asking again because I'm a little stumped with my particular situation. I've been clothering my 8 week old EBF son for about 6 weeks and we've started getting stains on the diapers. We're using a mix of AIOs (mostly bum genius) and clotheez prefolds. My water is very slightly hard (62 mg/l) and my washing machine is a top load GE. I've been washing with Tide free and clear liquid detergent every two days with a warm pre-wash (light wash cycle with a small amount of detergent), and a hot heavy duty wash (includes a soak in the wash cycle and more detergent). I have been adding some clothes to the heavy duty wash to get my machine about 1/2 to 3/4 full. I've been hang drying inside, but no sun drying yet. I haven't been spaying diapers before they go in the diaper pail because Im under the impression that's not necessary for EBF poops. I know there are things I could do to get the stains out that I haven't tried yet, but I'd really prefer to not get stains in the first place.

What should I change up? Spray diapers before putting them in the pail? Cold pre-wash instead of warm? No detergent in pre-wash? Add a soak to the pre-wash? Add a second rinse to either the pre-wash or the heavy duty wash? I should say my washing machine is pretty bare bones and a little older, so I don't have a lot of settings options other than light, medium, or heavy duty and water temp.

Edit- thanks everyone for your input! Since I have an 8 week old baby and my husband is currently sick, time with free hands is very limited so I'm not going to reply to everyone individually. I'm thinking I'll try a hot pre wash with no detergent, then a clean pre wash, and then maybe oxiclean (not sure I like the idea of using those chemicals, but I'll look into it more). It's also hugely helpful to know that EBF poops stains are to be expected if I'm not immediately rinsing diapers (which I really don't want to do until we start solids), and that they should come out once we transition away from EBF.
 
@veevalaveeda Laying my girls art to dry in the sun has worked wonders. I don’t have the stash or mental capacity to do all of them hang dried, so I choose a few of her most colorful pieces each cycle.
 
@veevalaveeda I never pre washed my EBF diapers. Instead, I used baby oxiclean (half in pre wash and half in heavy duty second wash). For really bad stains I used Mis Mouth’s Messy Eater spray after the pre wash. I then check for stains before dryer. If I found stains, then the wet cloth diaper would go outside to get sun bleached.

Usually oxiclean does ALL the work so the other steps are rarely needed.
 
@veevalaveeda If you don’t want stains you need to start rinsing all poo diapers. We use all free and clear powder with Mollys suds baby detergent powder and dirty labs enzyme concentrate booster. We have zero stains.

When I wasn’t rinsing the poo diapers I was getting lots of stains.

Good luck
 
@veevalaveeda Stains drive me crazy and those EBF poops always stain so bad!

Heres my best strategies:
  1. Hot pre wash (some things say cold, but that didn’t work at all for me. Hot was definitely best!)
  2. No detergent in prewash, or try oxy clean powder. But no detergent- do that in the main wash.
  3. Sun those diapers!! You can let them air dry inside and then you’ll be amazed at the magic trick of just an hour or so in the sun. Stains will be magically gone
 
@cees Sorry, just oxy clean and no detergent or nothing at all.

I started doing this a long time ago because I learned that if you’re using detergent in both pre wash and main wash, your diapers can get a soap build up and that causes them to lose absorbency over time!
 
@veevalaveeda I don’t think there’s a great way to fully avoid the stains from ebf poo, unless you bleach every load.

If it helps to hear at all, my diapers were pristine white again within a week or two of starting solids. The stains wash out after a couple loads, though of course they keep getting stained because baby keeps pooping.
 
@buckeye_momof4 I agree with this, especially with a HE top loader. I do think you may be able to have a stain free EBF wash experience if you add bleach to your pre wash , or if you use a front loader… but everyone else is gonna have some amount of staining during EBF phase
 
@veevalaveeda Totally understand. I posted my best advice for prevention which worked like 75% for me, but I never found a 100% solution with ebf poops until just switching to solids.

But sunning them does remove the stains amazingly well!
 
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