Dunk and Swish or Spray: How to Get the Poo Out of Cloth Diapers

As mentioned on How to Cloth Diaper for Cheap, even if you use disposables, you’re supposed to get the poo out before they head to the municipal dump due to hygiene reasons.  Most of these options will work for a disposable diaper as well.

Can I Wash Poopy Diapers Without Rinsing Them First?

I mean, you can, but there’s a significant downside: over time you will need to wash out your laundry machine’s drum from the accumulated poo that doesn’t fully wash away due to not being water soluble.  If you have a front loader, this is not a particularly easy task, so I strongly advise against it.  I’ve known mamas who just straight washed the diapers for months after their kid moved on to solids, and at first it wasn’t an issue, but after about a year the accumulation gets rather impressive and does start to affect the functionality of your washer.  It’s possible to be mostly disinfected with regular cleaning of your washer using bleach and other strong chemicals, but the sludge can still build up.  I definitely don’t recommend it.

Dunk and Swish

So for the first 9 months of my cloth diapering journey, I did not own a diaper sprayer.  Up until 5 months old, my son didn’t eat anything but breast milk anyway so my lack of a sprayer didn’t matter.  Breast milk poo is completely water soluble, so that’s easy enough.  You just toss the diapers in the wash with an adequate amount of detergent, and tada, poo be gone!  As long as you wash poopy diapers within a day, they typically won’t stain if stains are something that bother you, and so it’s not a big deal.  Even the poos you can plop aren’t a big deal.  No, once he started eating solids, there would occasionally be this bizarre paste poo that was simultaneously all over everything but the consistency of toothpaste.  It was nearly impossible to remove without water, and so I’d go the dunk & swish method in the toilet to remove poos.  This wasn’t a big deal when my son was pooping every other day, but something about the fall has him back to having so many bowel movements my hand was constantly near the toilet, and as much as I love a clean bathroom, scrubbing the toilet multiple times a week because of the dunk and swish toothpaste poos was getting on my nerves.

Spray To Save The Pasty Poo Day

So I finally gave in.  I bought a diaper sprayer, or as my husband likes to call it, a bidet.  There were a few different options from the OG Spray Pal to every random brand on the internet.  I ended up going with a Easy Giggles Diaper Sprayer.  One, they were less expensive.  Two, it was so easy to set up – all I needed was a screwdriver and a wrench, and admittedly the wrench was because my supple gaming nerd hands don’t have the grip to turn a nut on their own.  I had it together in about 5 minutes, and the directions were so clear I didn’t flood my bathroom (which admittedly was a very strong fear of mine going into the project).  So far, the only issue I’ve had is sometimes if I spray at the wrong angle it will splatter onto the toilet bowl.  I’m thinking of buying a bucket and some wire clips to rig up something like the Spray Pal Cloth Diaper Spray Shield since $25 for a bottomless trash can with a chip clip attached to it seems a bit excessive to me, but your mileage may vary.

Spraying has resulted in my diapers coming out much cleaner than when I dunk and swished as well.  Overall, I’m quite pleased with the sprayer for the cost, and if you’re still dunk & swishing or washing without rinsing, I recommend the change!

What About Using Inserts?  Can I toss the poo then?

Again, these need to have the poo dumped in the toilet first since they’re not supposed to go in the municipal dump.  That said, some people’s kiddos have consistently solid poos so this is a good option for them.  There are a variety of brands of disposable inserts for poop catching that are usually 8-10 cents per liner, however do be warned that even the ones that say they are flushable are not.  Some people also use fleece blankets cut up and dispose of those.  They have been known to clog drain pipes, and even if they make it out of your house, anything that goes down the drain that isn’t toilet paper needs to be fished out by someone at some point, even if it’s at the waste water treatment plant.  My son’s poos aren’t so solid, so I’ve never had them actually catch everything, so I don’t personally use or recommend them, but your mileage may vary.