Our son is almost four months old. He’s been in cloth diapers since he was three days old, and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s been much easier than I expected to use them. One thing I had read about was how detergent can build up in diapers over time, creating a residue that makes them less absorbent. So yesterday I washed a load of diapers without any detergent at all. I did my normal cold cycle with baking soda, but then for the hot cycle I used more baking soda instead of detergent. I added my normal downey ball with vinegar to that cycle. The diapers came out just as clean as ever, and after an afternoon in the sun they are stain-free, as usual. I’m going to wash tomorrow’s load of diapers the same way, so that all of his diapers will have been laundered without detergent at least once. I think I’ll do this every few weeks going forward. I like the idea of removing any detergent residue using baking soda and vinegar. Even though the detergent is all-natural, the idea of a detergent residue is less than pleasant. And we need those diapers to be as absorbent as possible – our little guy is a peeing machine. He’s on the floor next to me right now, getting “air time” and he’s peed three times in the last half hour! Air time is how we ward off diaper rash (which is rare in cloth-diapered babies anyway). Every day he spends at least a few hours on a towel next to me, without a diaper at all. I keep a prefold diaper handy and clean up his frequent offerings. It’s working great – he hasn’t had any diaper rash so far, and we’re hoping to keep it that way. We bought some diaper rash ointment when he was born, but I read that it shouldn’t be used with cloth diapers, as it will reduce their absorbency over time. So air time became our solution, and I love it. He seems to enjoy it as well.
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