Poop stains!

[downwarddog]

Hi all,
Please help me on how I can get my BF poop stains out of my dipes! This is a problem every time.

I have a front load washer & I use Tide HE. I always end up having to OxyClean the prefolds & Kissaluvs afterward, the stains always persist.

Am I doing something wrong?

~Lenore
Mom to Acadia, born 9/28/04

[lizajane]

hmm...

i don't remember having any trouble on a regular basis. how often do you wash? are they sitting in the pail too long? i only washed every 3 days, sometimes 4. and i used a dry pail. do you do a soak cycle first? are you washing on hot? (is your hot water hot enough?)

here is what i would do, if you are not already:
cold soak with a bit of oxyclean and a drop of detergent
hot wash with detergent
cold rinse

if you have old stains that you can't get out, i would hit them with some oxyclean and then lay them in the sun for a day.

you could also try a wet pail, or using a minishower to spray the poop off right when you take off the diaper.

we have nasty icky 20 month old poop around here and i don't have stain issues. we use a minishower and i do a soak-i add oxyclean to the soak when i have a bad batch of poopy dipes.

[mudder17]

I also have a front loader but use regular Tide. Until 3 months ago, we had BF poop all the time and no stains. I used to do a cold wash followed by a hot wash, but I found that if I used the minishower and sprayed the poop off the dipes before putting them in the diaper pail (also dry, like Liza's), I rarely had stains and I didn't need to do a cold wash first. But you could try that--cold wash first, followed by hot wash. Oh, and I wash every other day.


Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya, www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_amber_9m.gif Breastfed 9 months and counting

[tarahsolazy]

I have a front-loader and used reg Tide when DS was newborn, we use Tide HE now. I did a prewash, long hot wash, extra rinse, which was a one-shot deal on our machine. I frequently got stains, and just lived with them. The dipes seemed plenty clean, just stained. I don't have a minishower. The sun works wonders, though, I sunned them periodically, and the stains would disappear. Now, I usually do a cold rinse, then the wash, and I get far fewer stains. I think Eileen's routine of cold wash, then hot, is probably something to try out.

[toomanystrollers]

The sun absolutely does the trick :)

[KrisM]

I had a bunch of stains too. Turns out, I just wasn't using enough detergent. The stains are gone now. I kept reading about using so little detergent, but I have really hard water and kept upping the amount until I had clean dipes without tons of suds in the rinse cycles. Try a bit more detergent.

[KrisM]

I had a bunch of stains too. Turns out, I just wasn't using enough detergent. The stains are gone now. I kept reading about using so little detergent, but I have really hard water and kept upping the amount until I had clean dipes without tons of suds in the rinse cycles. Try a bit more detergent.

[downwarddog]

Thanks for your hints!

I do what Tarah does: cold prewash w/detergent, hot wash w/some more & double rinses. I just upped the amt of detergent I used on the last batch & it seemed a lot better, though we have very soft water & lots of suds. I also only do wash 1 or 2x a week since I only have prefolds & a few pocket dipes at this point to see if I want to commit to CDing full-time.

I wasn't sure if OxyClean would hurt the pocket dipes (FB & Wonderoos at this point) or the hemp inserts...

When you guys sun bleach your dipes, do you do it when still wet or after they have dried? Does it matter?

I'll see how the next week or 2 goes stain-wise. Thanks for the help!

~Lenore
Mom to DD Acadia, born 9/28/04.