After a massive amount of troubleshooting, I have nailed down my method for washing cloth diapers here in Switzerland. The key? Extra water because it's a front-loading washing machine and uses less water than a top loader. The second issue I ran into was finding a suitable detergent. Zurich has somewhat hard water and really different detergents than are available in the US. I've got it all squared away though. Coco's diapers come out clean as can be. Honestly, I'll put my face straight into one and give a good sniff just to be sure there isn't some lingering odor in there somewhere. There isn't!
Having an intricate diaper system would make me switch to disposables, so I keep things simple. I do a dry pail with the Kissaluvs antibacterial liner. I use a watering can to add water to the washing machine.
Here's my washing method:
- Turn the pail liner of diapers inside out into the washer. Set liner aside on top of washer. Run the diapers only on "Mini-Programme" (a quick 30 minute cycle at 30 degrees celsius) adding 10 liters of water as the cycle begins. No detergent. This is just a really thorough rinse.
- Put the pail liner in with the diapers and run on "Blancs/Couleurs" at 40 degrees celsius adding 10 liters of water the wash cycle. Use 1/2 packet of Durgol water softener and one 7 gram scoop of Filetti Sensitive powder. Why 7 grams? Because I use the scoop that came with our French Press because we never use it. We just pour a bunch of coffee in there until it seems good. The scoop that came with the French Press is 7 grams, which is just the right amount of detergent for cloth diapers as it turns out! ;)
- Dry the diapers on high. Hang dry the pail liner and any covers.
3 comments:
Planning on moving to Switzerland this coming Spring (fingers crossed) :) I was born there, but moved to Canada at age nine. Still visit friends and family often though :) I will definitely reference this post for when we move...we love cloth diapering our son and this will help a great deal (I was worried about it actually and now I have stumbled upon your post & feel much better about the prospect! Thank you!) :)
Hi! Thanks for posting this. There's hardly any info on cloth diapering in Switzerland and this was truly a big help! Just had my first baby and were having a go at cloth diapering her. It's been a month now but I still don't feel happy about my washing methods, will try it your way :) thank you!
So happy to help! I ended up going to disposables because the washer was broken in our building and they weren't getting clean anymore. Now we just got a new washing machine and it has a special cycle called "Intensive Wash" which is 60 celsius and goes for over two hours with all sorts of pre-wash, extra rinses and long wash time. If I were to go back to cloth (and I've thought about it! ;) then I would use that cycle and save myself the trouble of running back and forth to restart the machine. :) Good luck!!!
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