Tips for Getting Baby Poop and Other Stains Out

Second post today! I told you guys I was going to try to blog more...

So with a baby, it is inevitable that you are going to get stains on your clothes and their clothes. Poop is the hardest thing I have had trouble getting out. Today I sorted out all the stained clothes and tested different methods and every single item got clean! This is what I did.

For the fresh stains (those not already gone through the washer and dryer without me noticing), I rinsed it in warm (tap) water and then used dish soap (a lot of people say Dawn but we don't buy name brand and it worked just fine). By use, I mean scrub it in until it suds. Then rinse and wash as normal (stain should be visibly gone before you throw it in the wash. If not, try a method below).

For the stains that had gone through the wash already, I used imitation oxyclean I got at the dollar store. It's called totally amazing oxygen or something like that. You put one scoop of that into a gallon of water and mix. Then I soaked the stains for 30 minutes. After that, I rinsed them and washed as normal.

I will also mention I tried hydrogen peroxide on some of the tougher stains but this method didn't work for me so maybe I didn't leave it on long enough or something. I know a lot of other people also use the sun (either outdoors if the weather is nice or indoors by a sunny window) but since here in Wisconsin, it's still winter, the sun isn't an option. Plus, people have mentioned that this can fade the whole fabric instead of just the stain.

I am really impressed with the dollar store stuff and will definitely have to keep some on hand because I have more things that are stained!

For other, non baby related, stains it depends on the type of stain to get it out. For blood, soak in cold water, especially if the stain is still fresh. For grease, I recommend the dish soap method. For coffee, grape juice, or other dark beverages, I recommend the dollar store stuff (or oxyclean but that is expensive).

Sometimes, rubbing liquid laundry detergent directly into the stain before washing (and then adding more detergent to the machine) is effective. I don't use liquid detergent so I can't attest to this but others say it works.

Whatever the stain, don't despair! I was ready to throw some of those clothes away (seriously) because the stains were that bad but I managed to get them out without a lot of work!

Water Resistant Fabric

I am getting frustrated at my fabric. There were some specific ones that I bought as the top layer of my reusable pads. Some are cotton, some are flannel. Currently, if you pour water on them or lay them in a puddle of water, the water beads up and pools or runs off instead of being absorbed into the material. This is true of new things, especially towels. So I washed them. I tried hot water. I tried cold water. I tried using (homemade) detergent. I tried using no detergent. I tried a vinegar rinse. I tried no extra rinse. I tried using dryer balls. I tried air drying them. These things got washed a LOT. If washing them was going to help, it would've by now. We never use fabric softener (which is what most people online seem to think the problem is). I also tried beating them up (twisting them, rubbing them, crumpling them). I am seriously out of ideas.

I am very disappointed because for once, I had a specific use for my fabric and it just isn't working out. Plus, I'm now not sure what to use to top my pads because this isn't working out. They're all different brands. They're from different stores. They weren't all bought at the same time. I truly don't get it. Some of the flannel topping I used for the burp cloths are from this bunch and after my excessive washing, they got absorbent. I'm not sure what makes those ones different from these ones. They were even washed together!

If anyone has ANY advice, I would really, greatly appreciate it because I am at my wit's end. I'm going to end up having to use this fabric for something else and I really don't want to.

The one thing I haven't tried is sun drying them (but that's because it's winter and we don't really get sun here in winter. I'll have to wait til spring).

Missing Sock

You always hear about the dryer "eating" socks. It's even a favorite topic in comic strips. However, I have never had this happen to me. The closest it's ever happened is one would fall in the basket below the washer when I was transferring to the washer. But then, I would find it right away because it was sitting in plain sight.

Well, I have officially entered the realm of a dryer eating socks. Unlike David, I match up all my socks into pairs when I fold laundry and this past week, one of my socks was missing. Most of my socks are white but a few are colored and this particular one is black so I thought that it would be easy to find. Boy was I wrong!

I went back downstairs and checked all the baskets, the washer, the dryer, the floor, everything related to the laundry room and nothing. So I went back to my folded laundry and checked most of the items for cling (I used vinegar to help with static cling but with how dry it is here, it still happens a little bit). No luck.

It has now been four days. My sock refuses to show up. Of course it's like my favorite pair. I know this may seem trivial to some people, especially if you knew how many pairs of socks I own but I just don't understand where it could've gone!

I'm not even convinced it's still in the house so if any of you see a black with blue trim, size 9 sock, please let me know!

Vinegar in the Laundry

After reading good things about it online, I thought that adding vinegar to my clothes, particularly my whites, would act as a whitener and color booster. I was hoping it would help remove stains and keep my clothes whiter longer.

Since I have a front loader, I added it to both the fabric softener spot and the bleach spot because that's what it sounded like the majority of people do. The bleach spot is for what I described above and the fabric softener spot would add it in the last rinse cycle and the clothes would come out softer.

Boy, was I disappointed! None of my stains seemed to have faded at all! My clothes are the same dingy white they've been since I didn't separate my clothes in college (it was cheaper to cram everything into one or two loads instead of two or three with colors separated). So I figured it was a total bust and through them in the dryer anyway.

When I took them out of the dryer, I was surprised. Despite the fact that the vinegar in the bleach section seemed to do nothing, the vinegar in the fabric softener section did. My clothes were noticeably softer. I also noticed that this load (the only load I added vinegar to) was not nearly as static-y as my other loads. This is especially nice because we are starting to approach the winter months and static drives me crazy! I had been using balled up aluminium foil (you can read about it in a previous post) but I was looking for an alternative method.

So basically, I think I'll keep using the vinegar as a fabric softener and to make my clothes less static-y but when it's summer again and I don't have to worry about static cling, I'll probably take a hiatus from it. I'm still experimenting with other things like baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to help get out stains.

Laundry Baskets

This weekend, David and I decided we needed more laundry baskets. We have a hamper that we put all our clothes in (we don't sort ahead of time like some people). We take that downstairs to our laundry room where I sort it. The problem is, besides the hamper, we only have 2 baskets. I can usually fit all our whites into one but our darks are usually 3-5 loads (depending on how long it's been since I've last done laundry. I aim to do laundry once a week, especially in summer because our dryer vent isn't hooked up to the outside yet so it all stays in the house and that can get really warm) and that doesn't fit in the one basket. So then some clothes have to stay in the hamper in order for me to fit everything. This means I sort at least twice. Then, my baskets are still full when my first load is ready to come out of the dryer. Therefore, I have to dump some of the dirty clothes on top of the chest  freezer so I have a clean basket for the clean clothes. It drives me crazy, plus I'm pretty sure I've lost a couple socks back there. So we finally invested in 2 more baskets.

I tried looking online to see how many baskets other people use and there doesn't seem to be a formula or anything. Some people even leave the hamper in the room, take a laundry basket and fill it up with the hamper, carry the laundry basket down, do the laundry, and come back up with the basket to be put away before they have to take the basket back down to the laundry room. Doesn't that sound like a lot of trips? I understand the people who do this when the bedrooms are on the same floor as the laundry facilities but ours are not. They're about as far away as they could be with stairs to contend with too.

I like the system as my parents' house because they have a laundry chute so you never have to carry the clothes down, just back up. We looked into doing that for this house but there just wasn't a good spot for it to all end up so I don't think that is a viable option for us. We also looked into moving our laundry room to the second floor where the bedrooms are, but again, the space we were looking at was just too small.

I suppose the solution could be to do laundry more often so I have less loads to do at a time but since we plan on using reusable diapers with Teeny and all those clothes changes that come with it, I feel like I'm going to have even more loads of laundry to do no matter how many days a week I do laundry.

Drying Your Clothes Outside

As you may know, I do laundry every Monday. I know some people do a little bit each day but I prefer to do it all at once. Yesterday was such a nice day and our backyard was so sunny, it seemed a shame to have to use the dryer to dry everything when the sun could do it for me for free! So I found some old sheets (actually I think they were curtains) and laid them out on the grass and put the clothes on top. After about a half hour, I flipped everything over and the non bulky items (t shirts, underwear, shorts, etc) were all dry! In the same amount of time as the dryer! Some things that jeans and sweatshirts took a little longer but I didn't mind.

Now if I plan on doing this all the time (which I might), we would set up a clothes line or a clothes rack but since we didn't have anything like that, I just laid them on the ground. They still got some wind movement (which helps dry your clothes almost as much as the sun) but if you dry on a line, you wouldn't have to flip them over. I didn't have a problem with birds or animals or even insects. I was a little leery of that at first but they totally just left them alone.

Of course the day I do this is the day there is a surveyor in our back yard (we don't have a back fence and we're right behind the fire station) and a homeowner's guy (long story) came by and took pictures of the front and back of the house. He had to walk around the clothes. How embarrassing! David didn't seem to think it was all that bad but I was kind of mortified.

I do highly recommend drying your clothes outside. Of course you should check with your homeowner's assocation, city, state, etc because a lot of places have laws against it. But assuming you can do it, you totally should. It makes your clothes smell better, they don't get beat up in the dryer (the dryer wears out the elastic in socks and underwear, it makes your clothes worn out (thinner)), it saves money, and it saves electricity. What more could you want?

Some people do complain that their clothes, especially their towels, don't come out as soft but all you have to do is add vinegar to your wash cycle and everything comes out just fine!

Static in the Dryer

My back has been doing better so I think I'm going to get some laundry done. Especially in winter, I always have a lot of static in my clothes when I take them out of the dryer. It seems to stay with them, even while I'm wearing them. It's really annoying and I have been looking for ways to eliminate the static because I am fed up. Looking around online, I found a lot of people who put a lightly crumpled piece (about the size of a sheet of paper) of aluminium foil in their dryer. When it comes back out, it will be fully crumpled but you can just undo it and use it again. I haven't figured out how many times you can  use it but after about 3 loads (in my experience), it gets smaller and smaller and too crumpled to be worth it to uncrumple it. You just throw it in with all the clothes and it's really as easy as that. It's not perfect (maybe my size is too small? maybe I crumple too much?) but it's definitely a LOT better. Let me know if you guys try it and what you think in the comments.