Cloth Diaper Prep

I spent all day yesterday preparing our cloth diapers for Sprout's arrival - I loved seeing all of the covers and cute fluff on my clothesline, enjoying the sunshine. :)

Washing Brand New Products...

New diapers do need to be laundered prior to their first use. Some items such as pocket diapers, covers, inserts and items made from micro-terry or bamboo only need a quick wash; warm or hot water works best (detergent is optional but recommended).

Between information from Kelly's Closet and from the packages of prefolds & pocket diapers, I determined the following:

Cotton & hemp products (most of my prefolds & all of the AIOs and pocket inserts)

5-6 hot water washes required before reaching full absorbancy. I did 3 hot water washes yesterday, and dried everything in the dryer (not the covers...those went to the clothesline) between washes. I used Rockin' Green detergent on the first wash, and for subsequent washes, omitted detergent. I plan to wash with detergent again today.

Darker colored diapers

I have some BumGenius 4.0s that I received as shower gifts -- and some are bright green/blue/etc. These I washed separately and will continue to was separately until 5-6 washes, just to avoid any color bleeding.

Hand-me-down diapers

Thanks for my wonderful aunt, I have a bunch of homemade flannel fitted diapers that were used with her grandson. These I washed separately once, and then the second time with my dark diapers (since I'm not worried about color bleeding). Some have velcro, others will require a snappi. All of the flannel was washed once with detergent, and dried once - then back to the nursery.

A note on pre-folds

The prefolds I have: Gerber Birdseye cotton (also have flats from them) and Osocozy unbleached cotton - seemed SO big! (especially since my plan is to use these for Sprout during the newborn stage...) After washing, just as the package suggested, I have noticed a substantial amount of shrinking. Now, folded up, I think they'll work great in the Thirsties covers and the homemade PUL covers from my mother-in-law (everyone is catching CD fever! they're irresistably cute!)

Back to prepping and organizing...I'll post a picture of the fluff on the clothesline. :)