(Note: I promise to stop writing about laundry racks after this post!) Ready for some advanced laundry hanging devices? Last week I presented five mid-range options. Now I bring to you the Rolls Royces of the indoor drying world. These accommodate more laundry for a more satisfying drying experience.

Moerman 88346 Laundry Solutions Y-Airer Indoor/Outdoor Folding Clothes Drying Rack 79 Feet Of Drying Space ($45)

Hills Expanding Indoor Clothes Drying Rack Clothesline ($53)

Moerman Laundry Solutions Airer Indoor/Outdoor Folding Clothes Drying Rack ($50)

I went a few years without a tumble dryer at all, and during that time I used something very similar to the first two options. I was able to hang an entire load on one rack, which is more than I can say for my current ones. Also, these more expensive racks allow you to hang wider items such as sheets. If you have tried any of these, please chime in with your reviews!

(Check out last week’s post for outdoor clotheslines that can accommodate up to 210 feet of laundry.)

You save around $.50 and prevent at least a pound of carbon from polluting the planet when you hang a load of laundry to dry. With an indoor drying rack, you can hang laundry year-round, rain or shine! Here are five great options for about $25:

Compact Accordion Clothes Drying Rack ($25)

I have two racks similar to this one. Chrome is definitely preferable to wood, which seems to be less stable and prone to mold.

Household Essentials 5009 Collapsible Indoor Tripod-Style Clothes Dryer ($25)

Household Essentials 5003 Wall Mount Telescoping Indoor Drying Rack ($25)

Polder Two-Tier Free Standing Clothes Drying Rack with Mesh Garment Dryer ($26)

Moerman 88354 Laundry Solutions Over Bath Airer Indoor/Outdoor Folding Clothes Drying Rack 30 Feet Of Drying Space ($22)

If you’ve tried any of these yourself, let us know what you think!

Have pureed yams forever ruined your baby’s pinstriped pajamas? No worries! With a little persistence, ingenuity, (and possibly vinegar) the garment might just be restored to its original brilliance.

Of course with all of the below stains, the best option is to quickly wet and pre-treat the item so that the stain doesn’t have a chance to dry. If it is dried without your knowing, you can still give the following remedies a try!

Try these simple tricks for specific stains:

• Berries: Boil water, stretch the garment tight over a pan, exposing the stain. Then pour the very hot water down over the stain. If that doesn’t work try mixing vinegar and toothpaste to remove the stain.
• Blood: First soak the clothing in cold salt water and then rub with detergent. If that doesn’t work try applying dish soap, letting it sit for a bit, rinsing thoroughly and letting it dry in the sun.
• Feces: Wash and then let the stain be naturally bleached out by sunlight. If that doesn’t do the trick, try Nature’s Miracle Stain Remover.  There’s no need to use bleach with cloth diapers!
• Grass: First work in some rubbing alcohol and then allow it to dry. Afterwards treat it with detergent and rinse with cold water. If none of those things work, try Bac-Out or Nature’s Miracle Stain Remover.
• Mustard: Mix rubbing alcohol with dish soap and rub into the stain.
• Tomato Sauce: Rub dish soap or dishwasher detergent into the stain and then run cold ice over the stain. Repeat multiple times until the stain works itself out. (I have to share that I managed to cover myself in spaghetti sauce at a lovely restaurant while dining without my children. After many applications of dish soap and ice, the stains came out completely even though they were dried into my clothes.)

What are your favorite stain removal tricks? Do you have any recipes for a homemade stain pre-treatment? Are there stain removal victories you’d like to share?

Nothing beats the sight of clean laundry flapping in the breeze. If you have a nice, sunny spot in the yard, why not dedicate it to a solar clothes dryer—i.e., a clothesline? Of course you can rig something up with a simple piece of rope, but if you’re feeling fancy, these products will allow you to make the most of your space.

Household Essentials MD-61 Five-Line Indoor/Outdoor Mini Retractable Clothes Dryer (just $11.99!)

67 ¾ feet drying space

Household Essentials Five-Line Indoor/Outdoor Retractable Clothes Dryer ($48)

170 feet of drying space!

Household Essentials 1600 12-Line Outdoor Umbrella-Style Clothes Dryer with Aluminum Arms ($40)

165 feet drying space

Household Essentials 4000 30-Line Outdoor Parallel-Style Clothes Dryer with Steel Arms ($72)

210 feet drying space

Household Essentials H-150 30-Line Outdoor Parallel-Style Clothes Dryer with Steel Arms ($54)

182 feet drying space

Do you have an outdoor drying system? I’ve admitted elsewhere on the Green Baby Guide that I’ve all but given up on outdoor drying due to earwigs. I wonder if one of these racks would solve that pesky problem? Let us know what works for you!

Perhaps your tot delicately handles a spoon and carefully feeds herself without incident.  More likely, she flings food upon herself, onlookers, and any furniture in the surrounding area.

Between the feedings, the occasional blowouts, and playtime, stains can creep into clothing on a daily basis.  Often in the hectic pace of laundry, those garments get washed and dried, setting the stains and ruining the clothes.  Ugh! The angst of seeing that large brown blotch on your baby’s favorite sundress or the huge grass stains on his beloved khaki shorts.

So how can you prevent such a fate from befalling your baby’s wardrobe?  Line dry her clothing!  It will also prevent shrinking, save you money on utilities, and lower your carbon footprint.

In addition, be sure to keep a stain pre-treater right next to the laundry basket.  There are wonderful green options such as Bi-O-Kleen’s Bac-Out, a Stain and Odor Eliminator—which also happens to be great as a cleaning booster for laundering diapers.  Ecover Stain Remover is an easy option as is Nature’s Miracle Stain Remover.

Of course, there are several natural ways to get stains out of clothes once they seem to be set in.  Stay tuned for some great homemade remedies in the next post!

I’d love to tell you that I spent the morning stringing my cloth diapers from the clothesline in the early light.  And then hours later, tucking the soft white laundry into neat folds.

The truth is, when I hang them to dry, my cotton prefolds resemble white shingles.  They are hardened, rough, and rigid and have to be bent instead of folded.

Now, I could still hang them and them cart them all into the house while slightly damp for a quick fluff in the dryer.  Or I could just dry my prefolds and hang the polyester diapers and covers out to dry, but both of those seem too labor intensive.

So what do I do?  I hang ninety percent of my laundry all week, but I still toss my diapers into the dryer.  I can’t seem to replicate that fresh soft feel without a stint in the dryer.  I don’t mind our rough towels and cloth napkins, but I do want her diapers to be soft.

Do you have an easy solution for softening up air-dryed diapers?  Do you have other diaper truths you’d like to confess?

Is the baby registry list making you dizzy?  Are you wondering how best to launder dirty cloth diapers?  Do you need baby food recipes? Have you had more than three hours of sleep in the last two days?   Are you trying to squeeze more organic produce into your grocery budget?   Does pumping breast milk at work seem totally overwhelming?

We’ve been there!  But now that our kids are older, we have to be reminded of just what would be helpful to our readers.  What are your latest victories and what are your biggest challenges? I’ve shared my weight loss dilemma this week, but there are bound to be issues of far greater consequence. (Like the critical goal of getting enough food and rest in those first few months!)  Please give us ideas for upcoming posts this summer and we’ll personally do our best to address your needs.

I decided to kick-start summer by hanging my laundry to dry in the attic. Here I confessed that I’d been tossing my clothes in the dryer, but now that the temperatures are in the seventies, I got motivated to drag out those drying racks.

Hanging one load took fifteen minutes, two drying racks, five hangers, the side of the laundry basket, and a chair—but I saved at least a pound of carbon emissions and $.50. If I hang a load of laundry a week, all summer long, but the end of the summer I’ll have saved . . . $6.00. Okay, well, I’m doing it for the planet, not for the cash.

What green deeds are you more motivated to do when the sun is shining?

Last week we heard your eco-confessions. This week we want to know your justifications for all of that appalling behavior! If you know it’s good for the environment . . . what’s holding you back?

They look like they’re having a good time . . . so why don’t I do it?

I’ll start. I know that hanging laundry to dry saves a lot of energy. I’ve written several posts about it and admonished others for it. Yet . . . I often dry my clothes in the dryer! Why? Well, I think it’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: It’s simply easier. I don’t need to clutter up a room with laundry and have it sit there for a week drying in the air. I like to fold warm, fluffy clothes. I save fifteen minutes every time I toss a load in the dryer instead of hanging it up on the rack. Terrible excuses, I know!

I hope to get back in the hanging habit now that the weather has warmed up. Go ahead—you can chastise me if you want!

All-in-one diapers? Pocket diapers? Chinese prefolds?  Even if  you desperately want to cloth diaper your child, the vocabulary challenges our earnest efforts.  How do all these “diapering systems” work?  Is it worth choosing just one?  How do you launder them and what about the smell?

Fear not!  Our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down-to-Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet, features detailed, easy-to-read information on cloth diapering your child that even slackers like ourselves can manage.  We’ll highlight what you’ll find inside by sharing our favorite tips today:

1. Money saving tip: Don’t stock up on every size you think you’ll need before your baby arrives in this world.  Some extra chunky tots (like both of Joy’s nine pound newborns) never need the extra small sizes.  Others are preemies that stay in newborn sizes for months.  Get a few diapers and designate a family member or friend to run out and get more when baby arrives.   What else will you find in the book? Tips on buying secondhand cloth diapers for up to eighty percent less than new, tips on which diapers transition for babies between 7 and 35 pounds, and which diapers offer the best overall value.

2. Laundering tip: Though you may be tempted, do not use bleach!  People are shocked when we share this advice, but bleach will eat through your diaper fabric quickly, isn’t environmentally friendly, and can irritate baby’s skin.  Instead use baking soda, vinegar, non-chlorine bleach, or enzyme based stain fighters like Bac-out.  Other tips in the book include the all-time easiest method of diaper washing, tips for storing dirty diapers, ideas on how many loads per week you might have, and natural stain fighting tips that are free and eco-friendly.

3. Diapering tip: This may be obvious, but there are NO PINS REQUIRED!  It’s amazing how many people are still shocked when we share that fact.  We also found that neither of us needed Snappis or any other product to hold our chinese prefold diapers in their covers.  In our book you’ll find charts that help you understand what each type of diaper looks like, a cost comparison of different diapers, and options for eco-friendlier disposable diapers.

We remember how totally overwhelmed we felt entering the world of cloth diapers as new moms.  Now we have an outlet for our obsession in The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, where we ooh and ah over all the options!  Once you start cloth diapering, you may find that you fall in love with the whole adventure yourself.

Are you using cloth?  How did you find out what to use and how to diaper baby?  Do you have lots of support for your cloth diapering efforts in your local area?