What’s the very best, most efficient way to wash cloth diapers? The answer lies in our groundbreaking book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Get thee a copy at once!

It turns out, we have a lot more to say about laundering cloth diapers. Perhaps it started with the question, Can you wash diapers in cold water? It turns out that yes, you can save energy by washing cloth diapers in cold water. To take that conservation further, you can wash cloth diapers in a front-loading washing machine.

If you’re wondering if the water and energy used to wash cloth diapers is just as bad as using disposable diapers, you might want to check out this post: Washable vs. disposable: environmental debates to ponder. Also, remember that you can offset the water used to wash cloth diapers.

Can we recommend an eco-friendly, diaper friendly detergent? And what’s the cheapest eco-friendly laundry detergent? If your diapers are smelly or stained, what should you do? Here’s a simple, eco-friendly solution for stinky diapers: Use hydrogen peroxide instead of chlorine bleach.

While both Joy and I are lucky enough to have washers and dryers at home, we know others live in apartments or rely on community laundry machines. So we asked our readers: Did you use a Laundromat or coin-op machines for washing diapers? Washing cloth diapers in an apartment: eco-friendly or totally nuts?

Finally, what about drying your cloth diapers? Don’t click on that last link unless you’re prepared to be shocked by Joy’s confession!

Happy birthday to us! We’re celebrating three years of blogging (as of last Friday) by reviewing our top ten posts of all time here on the Green Baby Guide. Now, according to our stats, A Fan of Fans has the most views of any post, but we chalk that up to a Googling fluke. So how to do we measure the success of a post? By the reception it gets from you, our dedicated readers! Here are the top ten most-commented-upon posts of all time!*

Four of our most popular posts were about . . . you guessed it: diapers

#10, tied with 23 comments each:

Did you have a natural childbirth?

Do you have “issues” buying used clothing and gear for your baby?

Cheapest, most concentrated eco-friendly dishwashing liquid

#9, with 25 comments:

Cheapest eco-friendly laundry detergent

#8, with 26 comments:

Eco-confession: I bought regular diapers!

#7, with 31 comments:

Green breakthrough: save energy by washing diapers in cold water

#6, with 32 comments:

Nighttime diaper dilemma: part three

#5, tied with 33 comments each:

Was breastfeeding worth it?

#4, with 34 comments

How do you hand wash dishes to conserve water and dish soap?

#3, tied with 37 comments each

It’s easy eating green on Meatless Mondays

How do you get rid of your children’s outgrown clothing?

#2, with 46 action-packed comments, is this recent post:

Too Much Pressure to Breastfeed?

#1, the most popular post of all time, with 54 comments, is. . .

 

What do you make of these most commented-upon posts? Any trends you see? Four of the thirteen posts mentioned here are about diapers. Four are about washing dishes or doing laundry. Other than that, the topics that elicit the most comments are all over the map.

Thank you, dear readers, for reading our posts and commenting on them!  We’ll aspire to more comment-inspiring posts for 2011!

*Not including giveaway posts, which can receive up to 300 comments.

(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?