Killing Yeast in Cloth Diapers

So my little one has had a diaper rash that just wouldn’t go away for several days. I bought a couple of diaper rash creams and began treating it immediately and nothing would get rid of his red splotchy rash. Since nothing seemed to be working we decided to take a visit to our family doctor. We were informed that the diaper rash did contain yeast and we were prescribed a yeast infection cream that needed to be applied 2 times a day for up to 2 weeks. While we were treating my son’s skin we choose to use disposable diapers instead of using the cloth diapers with the disposable linears. We didn’t want to risk ruining the cloth diapers since the cream was not cloth diaper friendly. We also waited until the rash was gone and one more week after that before we started using the cloth diapers again.

After researching yeast infections and babies I learned that yeast can grow in the cloth diapers and can cause the rash to reappear once worn again. With that being said, I needed to disinfect all of the cloth diapers, diaper bags, and diaper pail linears. To properly rid my diapers and linears of yeast I contacted Rockin’ Green EcoFriendly Laundry Detergent (this is the detergent I use for my cloth diapers). They were wonderful at providing me with step-by-step instructions on how to disinfect the cloth diapers. Before you go ahead and strip your cloth diapers, please refer to your cloth diapers manufactures instructions. The instructions they had given me were are follows:

1. Wash on cold, with 10 drops of tea tree oil for a front loader machine or 20 drops for a top loader machine
2. Soak the diapers with 2 tablespoons for Rockin’ Green for several hours
3. Warm short wash
4. Long hot wash
5. A final cold short wash to remove all of the detergent
6. Lay out in the sun to dry if possible or dry on high heat

Once I received the instruction from Rockin’ Green and I had my husband pick up the tea oil on his way home from work. Once I was ready to disinfect the diapers I realized that my front-loading washing machine does not have a soak option. So I went back to my good ol’ friend Google to figure out how to perform a soak in my machine. I was happy to learn that it was still possible for me to do a soak in my front-loading machine. Once I did the wash with the tea tree oil I prepared to do the hot wash with the two tablespoons of Rockin’ Green. I started the washing machine, waited 5 minutes to allow the water to fill and for the detergent to dispense into the drum, then once the 5 minutes was up I paused the machine, went to bed, and resumed the cycle in the morning. Then I just continued on to the next step until the whole process was done. Once the diapers were complete they had a fresh tea tree scent to them.

My son is now back in his cloth diapers and is yeast free. I hope that my experience helps you fight and kill the yeast infection that your little one may be dealing with. Good luck!

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