A Tampa Lifestyle, Travel & Green Living Blog - Back to Calley

  • Home
  • Crafting & Illustrating
    • GIF Stickers & GIF Portfolio
    • Procreate Art
      • iPad Projects
      • More iPad Projects
    • Rock Painting Resources & Painted Rock Challenges
    • Rock Painting
    • Fluffin’ Awesome Baby Shower
    • #DisneySide
  • Green Living
    • Cloth Diapers
      • Cloth Diaper Terms & Definitions
      • How to Cloth Diaper
      • How to Wash Cloth Diapers
      • Fluffin’ Awesome Baby Shower
      • #FlatsChallenge
      • In the News
      • Reviews & Giveaways
    • Food & Recipes
      • Fun With Lunch
    • Natural Parenting
      • Breastfeeding
      • Fluffin’ Awesome Baby Shower
    • Menstrual Care
    • Natural Cleaning
  • Travel
    • Local – Florida
    • Disney
    • Local – Tampa Bay
  • Family
    • Life
    • Parenting
    • #DisneySide
  • Local
    • Local – Florida
    • Disney
    • Local – Tampa Bay
  • Girl Scouts
    • Traveling to Savannah with Girl Scouts
  • About
    • Legal Stuff – Privacy Policy
    • Social Media

How to Hand Wash Flat Cloth Diapers

May 23, 2011 By: Calley Pate6 Comments

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to have new content delivered to your inbox! I hope to see you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I have a lot of information on rock painting and cloth diapers in my archives if you're interested! Thanks for visiting!

Nice to see you again! Hope you're having a fabulous day! Can I help you with anything? Contact Me!

As a follow up to yesterday’s How to Cloth Diaper Your Baby for $50 here is a brief tutorial on how to hand wash flat cloth diapers.  The point of this exercise is to show that even if you don’t have access to laundry facilities that you can still cloth diaper your baby.  Keep in mind that my child is 29 months now and we are working on potty training so we only use 5-8 diapers on a bad day.  Today I sent her to day care in an birdseye flat (pad folded) and a flip cover because she refused to put on her big girl panties for me.  We’re still using diapers at nap at night-time but at school they are using big girl panties and/or training pants.  For the sake of the exercise I’m including any wet/soiled clothes from school in our hand wash challenge.

Today we ended up using: 3 flat diapers, 3 diaper covers, 1 pair of panties, 1 training pant, 1 wipe (disposable at day care), and 1 pair of shorts.  These all needed to be washed before I went to bed so we’d have a fresh clean stash in the morning.

How to Hand Wash Flat Cloth Diapers

Hand washing suppliesSupplies for hand washing:

  • tub, sink, bucket, or other basin to wash in (I used a small car wash bucket that I found at Wal-Mart for $1.50)
  • plunger
  • laundry detergent (I used Rockin’ Green Soap – my current choice for my cloth diaper laundry)
  • water
  • place to hang everything to dry

Directions for hand washing:

  • Pre-rinse diapers and covers under the faucet
  • Place 1 scoop of Rockin’ Green Soap (or about 1/4 cup or less of other detergent) into your basin
  • Add hot water to dissolve detergent
  • Add dirty diapers and covers
  • Agitate with plunger briefly to ensure that all diapers are saturated
  • Soak for 20-30 minutes (longer for heavily soiled diapers)
  • Agitate diapers again for a few minutes (by this time my water was quite dingy)
  • Drain bucket and add fresh water over diapers
  • Agitate diapers again to remove any detergent (again 3-5 minutes is all I spent on agitating during each step)
  • Drain bucket and rinse diapers under the faucet one final time
  • Wring and twist diapers and covers to remove excess water
  • Hang dry (dry time should take 2-3 hours for flats and covers)

Here are a few short videos of the process that I captured on my iPhone.  It’s really not all that elaborate but isn’t that the point behind the challenge?  🙂

Part 1: Soak & Wash #1

Part 2: Rinse #1

Part 3: Final Rinse

Part 4: Hang Dry

For the next 7 days I’ll be using only 5 one-sized diaper covers and 17 flat diapers on my daughter as part of the Flats & Handwashing Challenge. To learn more about why I’m participating you can read: http://www.backtocalley.com/2011/05/11/flats-and-handwashing-challenge-cloth-diapers/.  For additional information please visit the Dirty Diaper Laundry blog.


This week only (May 23-30, 2011) when shopping at Kelly’s Closet (www.kellyscloset.com) use coupon code FLATSCHALLENGE and receive a free one-sized diaper cover with any $49 or more order. All orders over $49 receive free shipping within the US.





Looking for cloth diapering resources and tips? Visit my cloth diapering archives, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and on Pinterest.
Subscribe to new posts via your favorite RSS Feed Reader or by Email.

You may also like...

Default ThumbnailQ&A About Washing Cloth Diapers by Hand Default ThumbnailOvernight (or heavy wetter) Flats Solutions Default ThumbnailFlats and Handwashing Challenge – Cloth Diapers Default ThumbnailHow to Cloth Diaper Your Baby for only $50 Default ThumbnailCloth Diapers, #FlatsChallenge, Potty Training, Shari Criso, and a hand washing meltdown!

Comments

  1. Mary Cosedine is for prefold cloth diapers says

    August 9, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    great to see such sites on the web with so much information – all helps in the cause for the cloth diaper. I am amazed at the lack of thought parents have when buying disposeables. I mean not in a bad way just in a way that doesn’t realise the a) They are “doing their doe” and b) they are burdening our land fills. The stats on disposable diapers in land fills is just awful!!!
    Mary Cosedine is for prefold cloth diapers recently posted..Bummis Tots Bots Easy Fit Cloth Diapers 8-35 lbsMy Profile

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. How to Prepare an Emergency Kit with Cloth Diapers — Cloth Diapers, Green Living and Going Green with Kids - The Eco Chic says:
    August 26, 2011 at 9:09 am

    […] If you only loose power but still have clean water available you can hand wash your diapers.  Even without hot water your diapers will be clean enough to use until power is restored.  Directions on using a camp style washer or on hand washing. […]

    Reply
  2. Cloth Diaper Your Baby for FREE | Cloth Diapers, Green Living and Going Green with Kids - The Eco Chic says:
    April 17, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    […] family when times are tight.  Even if you don’t have laundry facilities it is possible to hand wash your diapers in your tub or using a 5 gallon bucket and a […]

    Reply
  3. Flats Challenge 2012 says:
    May 23, 2012 at 1:01 am

    […] How to Hand Wash Flat Cloth Diapers – 2011 (video tutorial) […]

    Reply
  4. How to Cloth Diaper at Disney « Blog « Cloth Diapers – Changing Diapers says:
    February 18, 2013 at 7:00 am

    […] wiped/rinsed clean between uses.  For more information on hand washing and flats check out my post How to Hand Wash Cloth Diapers.  You’ll have to modify it slightly depending on the supplies you have on hand while […]

    Reply
  5. Cloth Diapering & Emergency Situations | blueberrydiapersblog says:
    January 22, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    […] If you just lose power, but still have access to clean, running water you can hand wash your diapers. Even without hot water, your diapers will be clean enough to use until power is restored (hopefully very soon). Here are some directions on using a  camp style washer or hand washing. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Meet Calley

Hey y'all! I'm Calley and I'm glad you found my blog. I'm a Tampa mom and influencer. I love to write about my family, local events and happenings, DIY projects, traveling and so much more! In my professional life I am a Marketing Manager. Pass the coffee please. Looking for @TheEcoChic? This is still me, just a new name!read more...

Newsletter

Tags

#freefromtrash baby Blogging BlogHer breastfeeding Christmas cloth diapers clothdiapers contest crafts Earth Day eco-friendly family Florida giveaway green Green Living iPhone Kelly's Closet kids life organic painted rocks Parenting party pinterest recipe recipes Recycling reusable Reuse review Shopping stonyfield tampa the eco chic tips toddler Travel twitter Twitter Party upcycled upcycling wordless wednesday yogurt

Copyright © 2023 · Modern Blogger Pro Theme By, Pretty Darn Cute Design