Stained Diapers Meet your Match

In the last post, I discussed some issues pertaining to cleaning and poop disposal. 

Another pressing issue that often comes up in connection with the topic of poo is the stain it can leave on your fleece liners, cloth diapers, or your little one's clothes in the case of a poop explosion. 

If you're not having issues with stink, leaking, or other absorbency issues with your nappies, then you can assume that you have the right washing routine down. With that established, the stains left on your nappies is sometimes simply unavoidable even if you're using liners. Newborn poop, for example, are especially notorious for leaving stubborn yellow stains. 

For some parents, the stains are the byproducts of using reusable diapers, and they aren't bother by them. For those who do find them annoying and would like to get rid of the stains, I'll tell you an amazing secret that has helped me to get rid of stains on more than just cloth diapers. Every. Time.

That secret: the sun. 

Yep, that's right. It's the sun. No chlorine or oxygen bleach needed for whitening fabrics.

After washing your diapers (or liners or clothes or whatever fabric needs to be whitened), all you have to do is hang it in a sunny spot no matter the weather; whether it's in the middle of a snowy winter or a warm summer morning.

​If you have nappies/liners/clothes with especially glaring and stubborn stain, here are some extra steps to help get them out:

1. Line dry right after washing
As mentioned above, hang dry your items as soon as you take them out of the wash. Do not put them in the tumble dryer. Doing so, may set-in the stain.

Sun bleaching your freshly washed wet laundry will give you faster and better results. 

2. If you need an extra boost, add lemon juice
The citric acid--a natural bleaching agent--in lemon works with oxygen as stimulants to speed up the lightening process. Try adding 100-125 ml of lemon juice in your load of laundry. Or for stubborn stains, a mix of 60ml lemon juice with 475ml water in a spray bottle and spray directly on the stain before you lay your items flat to dry in the sunlight. 

3. Spread your nappies to lay flat as possible
The sun rays need to directly hit as much of your fabric surface as possible to do the bleaching. 

To best remove stains using sun bleaching, lay out your diapers as flat as possible when drying.

4. Dry 2-3 hours at a time during the day
This is especially important during the summer months if you will be drying your diapers outdoors; you don't want to weaken the elastics on your nappies or damage the waterproof laminate lining from extreme exposure to heat. During the winter, you can get by with an extra hour or two of leaving your diapers to dry in the sunlight. If you need your items to be whiter, you can sun bleach it another day for another 1-2 hours. There is no need to rewash the diapers, but you can spray some of the lemon juice mixture if you wish. 

Remember that if you're using sun bleaching on colored fabrics, it can remove the stains but also lightened the fabric's color in the process. 

By the way, below is the result of sun bleaching 2-3 hours for three days for some very stained diapers. You can see the yellow stains from the newborn poop on the first picture. The second picture shows a closeup of the same diapers from the top left of the first picture. Not bad, right?

Sun bleaching first day.

Sun bleaching end of day 3.