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Dealing with Stained Nappies

From time to time you may get stained nappies, and as with most things, prevention is part of the key.

Liners can help prevent stains, especially polyester fleece liners. They really can reduce not only the amount of skin wetness, but also the poo stains. You can cut fleece liners out yourself from any 100% polyester polar fleece (even an old jacket will do), no need to hem, or we sell them in the accessories section.

Soaking also helps reduce stains, but beware of using too much in the way of nappy sterilization solutions. Try either tea tree oil or plain water. Nappy Fresh does keep stains to a minimum, but not all babies get along well with it, if you like very white nappies then you could try this, but be cautious, and keep a close eye on your baby's skin. 

Do not use hot water, it sets the protein stains in more, only soak in cold water.  Some parents dry store the plain wet nappies in one bucket and soak the poo nappies in another bucket. Before you do the actual wash, doing a quick machine rinse to remove the worst of the gunk, can help. Nappy services have to do a pre-rinse (sluice) before the washing starts, so it does make sense to do this for particularly messy nappies yourself. 

Dry on the line in direct sun as often as possible. This is not only the greenest method, but sunlight is anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, as well as bleaching out stains nicely. 

If you nappies get some particularly bad stains that bother you, do a wash with double your normal detergent dose, then do another wash with no detergent at all. You can do this with a bio detergent if you wish, but don't do it too often, and I would recommend 1 bio wash, followed by a non bio wash (1/2 powder), then a no detergent wash. This really is only for the really badly stained nappies. If you leave the stains as they are, chances are they will reduce in time anyway. By the way, the enzymes in bio detergents are not especially bad for the environment, but they are a serious skin irritant, hence the need to wash/rinse them well away from the nappy before you use it next to your baby's skin. Enzymes occur everywhere in nature, but some enzymes for manufacturing are made using genetic modification though, so only use them if you really, really have to. 

And finally, remember that after all your efforts to remove the stains, the nappy is going straight back on a baby's bottom, to get pooed on again! So don't get too obsessed about stains.