How would you wash second hand nappies before you you them?

I obtained a good sized stash of mainly motherease nappies, covers and boosters, which I'm hoping will be enough to stretch out my supply to get through winter, when they take so much longer to dry...



How would you wash them before you use them? Normal warm wash (I use ecoballs)? Hot wash? With detergent? Canesten wash?

My inclination is to do a hot wash with Canesten, but I want to know what others would do/have done.

I would probably just do a hot wash with my normal detergent. That's what I've done for all of DS2s second hand clothes that I've bought on ebay. Mixed in with a good dose of sunlight on the line, I think it kills any nasties.

FWIW every now and then (particularly because he's toilet trained but has the occasional accident) I do a hot wash just to give them a thorough clean.

By the way, lucky you for getting a good stash!!

Yay for freecycle! There were about 8 covers and 25 large fitted nappies and another 20 or so boosters. It was a fantastic score! I don't think the fitted will fit him this year, but the boosters will be enough on their own in a cover, at least for day time use.

I would do a strip wash, and plenty of sunshine

Just a hot wash with the normal nappy detergent and sun.

Me too. Hot strip wash (cos you never know how they've been treated before), cannestan and sunshine

At the risk of sounding like a terrible housewife....what's a hot strip wash? I'm assuming it's not a show I put on for my husband?

sexy...

Strip wash is a way of washing cloth nappies to remove any build up of chemicals, detergents, stains, etc. There a few hundred different techniques so you are best to Google it if you want to know more. Theres probably a few threads in the cloth nappy section about it too.

Cass there are a few different ways to strip wash but the way I do it is by starting with a hot wash, then rinse rinse rinse until there aren't any soap bubbles left in the water

Thanks for the hint....I googled...not at all like I imagined! And, something that I've done in the past, but didn't know it had a name. Ah, I am redeemed.

...although, still tempted to do the special wash for DH