For the covers, all that was involved was washing once with 1/4 of the detergent, then air drying. This was the easiest part.
I chose to use Arm and Hammer Free Essentials detergent because it was the only 4 star detergent on the cloth diaper detergent chart that I could find in Stonewall. Luckily it's not too expensive.
Prepping the hemp inserts was a little bit more involved. I was supposed to wash them 4-8 times using hot water and 1/4 of the recommended detergent. Because they are a natural fibre they need to be washed this many times to remove the natural oils so that they don't coat the diaper covers and then in turn repel liquids. To speed up this process I was told to boil them.
So first I washed and dried the inserts once. This resulted in a lot of lint! I was not expecting that so was a bit worried I had ruined my inserts already.
They turned out to be ok though. Next I boiled them with a little bit of detergent for 30 minutes. I had to do 2 batches because I have 24 inserts and they wouldn't all fit into the pot.
I then washed and dried them twice more in a hot water wash. They are just drying right now and then they will be fully usable.
I am really glad I decided to tackle this job today because now they are usable and it's one more thing off of my to-do list! While I was at it I also washed all the newborn clothes and sheets and blankets. I feel much more prepared now :)
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