Cloth Diapering 101: Our Laundry Routine

The laundry aspect is probably the biggest drawback to why most people wouldn't consider cloth diapering. I'll be honest--it's definitely an ongoing process. However, I absolutely looove doing Wren's laundry. It's so fun and cute! I do most of Wren's clothes (only because I'm picky about how they're folded, hung and stored), but we do a good job of sharing diaper laundry duties.

Here's a quick rundown of the process...
We do laundry about every three days. So, like I touched on before, it is more water being used, but if you think about it, it's only one to two loads extra per week. It's honestly not a big deal. We have a nice little routine and it just isn't an issue for us.
Dirty diapers go into one of two places, either this bin with a wetbag, which is stored in our laundry room downstairs:

or in a wetbag...this one is kept upstairs in Wren's dresser, we also have one that goes to daycare and one that is kept in her diaper bag, but those are emptied into the bin in the laundry room as soon as we get home:

I get a TON of questions about the POOO! Honestly, we can't really speak to poo issues just yet. Wren is still almost exclusively on breastmilk, which is fully water soluble, so we just put the diapers straight into the wash, dirty or not. (She only poops about once every 10-14 days, so it really isn't a big deal.) Once she starts having more solid poops, we will just flush the solid part and then wash like normal. It really and truly isn't a big deal as far as I can tell from all of my cloth diapering buddies!

The diapers are built so that you actually don't have to remove the inserts before the wash--they'll wiggle out during the wash. However, it's just as quick to me to pull them out, so for whatever reason I do. It's just my routine. 

So we do a full cold rinse... 

then add 2 tbsp of Rockin' Green detergent (you do have to use special detergent and you can't use things like Desitin on the diapers) and do a very hot wash... 

Then we do 2 final rinses and if it's warm enough, we hang them out on the line. We absolutely looove hanging them out to dry and bleach in the sun! Josh installed a retractable line and we just pull it out when we are drying them.

Wren even likes to help! 

Then we have to bring them from this: 

...to this:

Stuffing is probably our least favorite part, but we make it work!

I thought I would show the amazing power of the sun! These pictures were taken about 2 months ago before J even installed the clothesline. This is also when Wren was pooping at almost every diaper. It was the first time that we had an opportunity to get things outside with sun AND temps that were warm enough to actually dry the diapers (remember--this was around February).
So here's the whole group before, with stains:

 And here they are after being bleached in the sun (!!!):

And here is one particular diaper before:

And the same diaper after: 

The sun is a natural bleaching agent PLUS it also kills bacteria and, best of all, it's FREE! SO we do take advantage of the sun as often as possible.

One thing I want to note, because I want to be very open about this entire process, is that wash routines are definitely a trial and error. We are working to try to find the best detergent and though we haven't had any major issues, you can smell ammonia after Wren pees, and when you open the bin, you definitely get a whiff of ammonia! Thankfully, the wetbags and bin keep it in, so you don't get the same smell that I always remember Diaper Genies to fill rooms with.

Anyway, that's that whole laundering routine. Pretty simple, but definitely a commitment!