24 Jan
People are often shocked by cloth diapers, but as we’ve learned firsthand, it’s really no big whoop to wash diapers yourself. We are impressed, however, by the families who cart their diaper laundry to coin operated machines a few times a week. If you are just such a family, we’d like to know how you do it. Rebecca wrote a post on washing diapers in public machines here, but we’d appreciate even more input. Did you spend a lot of money on laundry? Are there machines in your building or do you have to travel to a Laundromat? Have you gotten any negative or positive responses from other Laundromat customers or building tenants? Would you recommend it to someone else? Thanks for sharing your experiences and wisdom with our readers!
4 Responses for "The Saturday Question: Did you use a Laundromat or coin-op machines for cloth diapers?"
We go to the laundromat twice a week for diapers. We live in a studio apartment and don’t have hookups or a machine at our complex. Most of the week the washes are $1.50 and drying costs $.25 for 8 minutes. On Thursdays, you can get washers that are $1. We do one load of diapers on Monday and one on Thursday, so over the week it costs us about $3.50. Other costs include detergent- depending on the diapers, I use a mild detergent or just some baking soda and vinegar for a rinse and some tea tree oil. The prefolds and pocket inserts aren’t totally dry (the flats are) after 16 minutes, so we bring those home and lay them out in a window to finish drying. There is one particular washer that is in a corner and hard to get to- I try to use that one for our diapers because I know it’s used the least and so it’s less likely to have a lot of detergent residue from other people’s washes. I air-dry our covers and pockets and so they hang up on a laundry cart where every one can see. I’ve had people come up and ask me about our cloth diapering- they are usually interested in what brands of diapers we use and how effective they are.
We are also ECing, so this week, I only went to the laundromat once for diapers. We did naked butt time every day all day this week and used a diaper at night, so there were only 7 diapers to wash.
My mother-in-law spent some time living in Germany when her oldest son was an infant.
They were only able to make it to the laundromat once a week, and discovered that the ammonia in little Ben’s accumulated diapers sitting in a pail all week began to eat through the fibers and make the diapers fall apart. Putting bleach in the pail only compounded the problem. She discovered that rinsing the diapers in the sink, and then allowing them to air dry (still dirty) saved the diapers and got them through the week without a stinky wet pail. Instead, she carted her dry dirty diapers to the laundromat once a week, and didn’t have any other problems…
I’m really grateful for my washer and dryer, but hopefully my mom’s experience could help someone else figure out how to make it work. Cloth diapering is definitely worth the extra work.
in the winter i put the bag with the first half of the weeks dirty dipes in the garage to freeze! keeps away smells and mold/mildew. now that its spring im gonna have to start going twice a week. i wipe out the fabric softener dispenser on the machine and then fill it with as much white vinegar as will fit.
We travel to the laundromat every 5 days now that the baby is 9mo and I haven’t gotten any negative response yet… I also rinse my diapers in the sink and hang them to dry so when I have to do laundry I don’t need to spend half of the day in the laundromat. Now I should say that I’m having some stinky issues and I may need to start washing them twice …
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