Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Reducing my laundry & still using cloth diapers

One of the things that worried me when I first considered switching to cloth diapers was the additional laundry. We bought an HE washing machine almost 4 yrs ago & I've been very happy with it's capacity. Since the HE washer accommodates larger loads than a typical top loading washer and uses less water, I had worked hard at only washing FULL loads to save both water & energy.

My cloth diapers need to be washed about every 3 days & they don't make up a full load. To keep from feeling wasteful, I decided to try washing some of our other clothing with the diapers. The logical solution was to wash everyone's underwear with the diapers. All our underwear is cotton and with 6 people in the house besides the baby we use quite a few pairs in 3 days as a household. It still isn't a completely full load. When we have any mama cloth, white tee shirts or white cotton socks they go in the diaper wash as well. Since the fabrics are similar it has worked well. Instead of having more laundry, I find that I'm doing the same number of loads as before, some weeks even less and that definitely Works for Me! Stay tuned for more about my diaper laundry routine later in the week.

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great idea. I'm looking forward to learning more ways to reduce the laundry mountain.

~*Michelle*~ said...

Great practical tip! We used to do the same thing when I used cloth dipes too.

(praying for another baby bum to put a prefold on!)