Special soap for washing baby's clothes??

[cmdnewton]

Hi - I'm not sure if this is the right forum to use, but it is related to baby clothes....I am having my first baby in the next few weeks and was wondering if I should buy a special laundry soap for all of the baby's clothes, bedding, etc.. I keep seeing ads for Dreft.....is this the best one? I already use Tide Free and Clear (the no dye or scent kind), but should I use something else for the baby? Thank you.

[Momof3Labs]

Dreft is very heavily perfumed. I prefer using my unscented detergent (Tide Free) and no dryer sheets or fabric softener in the early weeks.

[MeAndMyStar]

I agree that fabric softener is very irritating. So much so that when my DD was a newborn if we were wearing a shirt that had been dried with a dryer sheet, she would get a rash from us holding her. I stopped using dryer sheets altogether now and don't really miss them.

As long as the detergent is free of dyes and perfumes, it should be fine (although my DD didn't have a reaction to Dreft).

-Sarah

[C99]

I hate Dreft - it makes ME wheeze, so I try not to use it. My MIL bought some when I had my kids and pre-washed some gifts with it and I had to rewash because my kids did not like the heavy perfumes in it. I use All Baby because I like the very faint scent, but it's more of a marketing gimmick anyway (although All is among the cheapest detergents on the market). I also do not use fabric softener or dryer sheets at all as they impede absorption in cotton fabrics and with baby stuff, you really want it to be absorbant as possible!

[megs4413]

your tide free and clear will be fine, provided you don't add fabric softener in the wash or dryer sheets in the dryer. Dreft is not necessary.

we use all free and clear for the whole family. if your DC has sensitive skin, you should wash all the laundry (yours, dh's, etc) with the free and clear for the first few months. it took me a week or so to realize that the dryer sheets and fabric softener i was adding to my clothes, were breaking DD out! she couldn't handle anything that was perfumed until she was about 6mos. old....which also meant i had to go without perfume! and Dh without cologne! of course, she had ultra-sensitive skin (and so do DH and I...) so it may not be an issue for you.

what i do now is use the free and clear for all the laundry, but put liquid fabric softener in the wash cycles of non-DD stuff and do an extra rinse so not a lot remains on the clothes. i still don't use the dryer sheets. this way i only buy one thing of detergent for the whole family, but our stuff still smells nice and is soft!

[racerl1]

I used my regular Tide HE. To be safe, I ran a second rinse on DS's clothes. I avoided fabric softener until he was almost one, and I never had a problem. Now that DS is 14 mo, I wash his clothes with ours and use fabric softener.

[Jenn98]

We use All Free and Clear and I use the Bounce dryer sheets that are unscented. I'm the one with sensitive skin so I decided to avoid the Dreft because it smells so strongly. We have had no problems. Here are two hints: Do a double rinse if you can to get any extra detergent out of your clothes before they are dried. And you do not need to use as much detergent as the bottle says. We routinly use 1/2 of what is recomended and our clothes come out very clean - every washer and dryer set is different, so it might take some tweaking, but it's worth a try since excess detergent left in clothing can cause irritation as well. HTH!

[hanaum02]

We use Tide Free and Clear for the whole family. For the first year or so we used no fabric softener for my son (but now we do).

Good luck with the new baby!
Michelle (Zach 9/3/04)

[citymama]

Congrats on the impending arrival!

We use Bio Kleen laundry powder for our baby's laundry. It is used by many cloth diapering parents as well (we don't CD, but if it's OK for baby's diaper area, it's definitely OK for the rest of her skin!). We like it so much we've switched the whole family to it. We usually buy it at our local Whole Foods, but you can get it online as well - here's a link:

http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=94854&catid=47514&aid=335972&aparam=bi_o_kleen_premium_plus_a

Another cheaper and more widely available option is Arm & Hammer Free - we much prefer it over Tide.

For the first few months, I think it's a good idea to use something as mild as possible, and once you know how sensitive your baby's skin is, you can start to wash with Tide or A&H Free soap or whatever the rest of the family uses.

[wendyp]

We use Costco's Kirkland brand Free and Clear laundry detergent for the whole family. We started using it when DD was born and have used it since.

[amp]

We just used Tide Free and Clear. No problems whatsoever. I hate the smell of Dreft.

We also used Downy Free when we use fabric softner (which is not all the time at all).

[jacksmomtobe]

As the prev posters said go with one of the fragrance/dye free detergents such as Tide Free. I've got sensitive skin and that's what I use for the whole family. I actually threw something in the wash with a load of ds's clothes when he was a baby using dreft and had a reaction. With dc#2 I always wash all of our clothes together in one of the "free" detergents. I was orig recommended arm & hammer but have found that wisk free and some of the others seem to clean better.

Good Luck!

[supercalifragilous]

We currently use Tide, but I plan on switching over to Costco's Kirkland brand when I'm out since it got really great reviews on Consumer Reports.

I also don't use any kind of fabric softener, liquid or Bounce... Instead I add vinegar to my final rinse always and also use vinegar instead of bleach to my whites.

If the clothes are really dirty, I'll also add baking soda to the soap too.

There is a lot of good info on the Diaper Butts forum. If you do a search for laundry detergent, you'll find a lot of good & interesting links to articles. It's amazing how many people are sensitive to Dreft. I know there's been a buzz about Charlie's Soap. I haven't checked it out for myself though. http://www.charliesoap.com/index.asp

[cmdnewton]

Thank you all so much for your input. I'm so glad that I asked before I rushed out and bought a ton of Dreft.