Is It Sanitary To Wash Cloth Diapers In Your Washing Machine?
You’re staring at a soiled cloth diaper and wanting the mashing machine to make it all go away! Is it that easy? The experts say yes—with a few precautions. Read on to learn more.
Olga Zakharchuk
Olga Zakharchuk, Founder & CEO at Baby Schooling.
Wash off soiled diapers
It's absolutely safe to wash cloth diapers in your washing machine, but you shouldn't mix them with any other clothing items. It's also highly important you wash off soiled diapers before adding them to the machine. It's best if you give them a quick rinse immediately after they are soiled. You can either dunk and swish soiled cloth diapers around in the toilet, or you can invest in a diaper sprayer. The diaper sprayer is attached to the side of the toilet and you can use it to clean out the cloth diaper while holding it directly over the bowl.
There's also the Spray Pal you could purchase to help you avoid getting water anywhere but the bowl as you spray the diaper. Once the cloth diaper has been rinsed off, you can add it to a lined diaper pail until you are ready to throw a load of the cloth diapers into the wash. Be sure to use hot water and a detergent that's safe for your child when washing the diapers in the washing machine. It's also smart to put the cloth diapers through an additional rinse cycle afterward to help get any extra detergent out.
Afoma Umesi
Afoma Umesi, Editor at Oh So Spotless.
Rinse before tossing
Of course, there's the extra gross factor when the diaper has poop stains, but most people throw their sweaty clothing with other kinds of stains in the machine as well. That's what the machine is for.
Remember that you should first rinse off most of the waste on the diapers before tossing them into your machine. And if you still can't handle the thought, use a diaper liner. These catch most of the waste from number two's, leaving you less of a gross diaper.
Melanie Musson
Melanie Musson is a health and wellness writer for the life insurance site, QuickQuote.com. She has cloth-diapered four children.
Use hot water
Yes, it’s just as sanitary to wash cloth diapers in your washing machine as it is to wash your sweat-soaked workout clothes. The washing machine cleans the diapers if you use it properly. The washing machine is just as clean as what you take out of it after it runs.
You must use hot water for cloth diapers to make sure they get clean and sanitized. Wash cloth diapers often so they don’t grow bacteria and develop an ammonia smell from sitting in the diaper pail too long. And finally, rinse poop off the diaper before washing it. If you don’t rinse the poop out and you use cold water, that’s when it makes the washing machine unsanitary.
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