Flats & Handwashing Challenge Day 4: My wash routine

So, the plan was to have my husband take pics last night of my wash routine, but that didn't happen.

And...we had a crazy morning this morning so I'm just getting around to washing now. And...S is gone for the day and cannot take pics, so I don't have any action shots.

I just wanted to share how *I* handwash my diapers.

Before the challenge, my husband help me set up a camp washer by drilling a 1" hole in a 5 gallon bucket lid.  We picked up a new plunger for the purpose of handwashing and we already had a 5 gallon bucket in the garage that we weren't using. 

The first night of the challenge, I really didn't know what I was doing and I just kind of winged it. 

I took all the flats and tossed them in the bucket (I had 7 my first night).  I rinsed with cold water, "squished" the flats with the plunger for about 5 minutes and dumped the water.  Then I turned the water to hot and used some "cloth safe" detergent that I still had on hand from my first couple of months of cloth diapering.  I placed the plunger handle through the hole in the lid and I "squished" the diapers some more.  Another 5 minutes at least.  I dumped the water.  I re-rinsed again using the same method.  I dumped the water again, wrung out the flats and then hung them to dry.

My diapers were NOT clean.

The next day, I got the bright idea to fill the 5 gallon bucket with cold water.  I got smart and actually made sure the flat was unfolded before throwing it in the water.  Every time I changed G's diaper, I'd add it to that bucket and use the plunger to agitate for a minute or so.  I'd do this with every single dirty diaper.  By the end of the day, I'd have 6-7 flats to wash.  I'd dump the water, refill with cold water again and agitate for about 5 minutes.  Dump again.  Fill with hot water and add TIDE! (The first time I used Tide, I used too much and had to rinse 8 times.  I found that about a tablespoon was the perfect amount for a half dozen flats. The Tide seemed to get my diapers much cleaner than the CD safe stuff, but I think the CD safe detergent would have worked better than it did had I actually unfolded the diapers.) After adding the hot water and detergent to my load, I spent a good five minutes agitating with the lid on.  Up and down, in half circles, along the sides...I got a good work out.  Then I decided to let the diapers soak in the detergent water for about a half hour.  I went back, agitated some more & dumped the water.  Refilled the bucket with cold water, agitate and repeat as necessary (until there were no more detergent bubbles.)  I've found that I need to rinse 2-3x per load but...

SUCCESS! Clean diapers! There is probably an easier way to do this, but I am not messing with something that is working.

So:

Rinse cold
Agitate
Dump water
Hot wash with detergent
Agitate
Soak
Agitate
Dump water
Cold rinse w/ agitation until no more soap bubbles!

Sorry for the quick post...and the lack cleaning pictures, but I need to get this kid to an actual bed.

I think it's naptime...