I have a number of little cotton velour (or almost cotton, anyway) baby clothes. They are very cute, nice and warm for winter, and so snuggly!

But I notice that my washing machine roughs up the velour pretty fast. It loses the nice soft shiny feel and gets all rough and patchy.

Is there a way around this? Is it possible to restore the fluffiness somehow? I wondered whether putting them through the drier would help, like it does to fluff up towels, but don't want to risk it killing them further.

Or does this just happen anyway, and I should just learn to live with it?