Stripping with Dawn.... Hold the pole

We have had leaks. In the past three months, I have about given up on my BumGenius 3.0s. You know, the diapers that originially sparked my love for cloth.

I was stuffing them with two toddler inserts (both actually the BG microfiber that I have always loved), and it still wasn't enough. It started at night, but eventually leaks came during the day, too.

I stripped with hot water. And then again with hot water. And again, and again. I boiled water (which is impressive because I had to carry the big HOT pans of water down my stairs. I also had a huge belly as I was pregnant at the time!) and then I did it all over again.

I even did an overnight soak in Rockin Green (my choice of detergents for cloth). Still, we had leaks. Because my toddler is potty training, she is in panties most of the day. It wasn't a big deal to just stop using our BG stash. If you read my blog, you know I am all about trying new diapers these days, and I have truly fallen in love with Flips. So I really just saw this as an excuse to buy more diapers and get rid of the old ones.

BUT I just couldn't do it.

I even packed them up once to give them away. My husband, being, well my husband, wouldn't let me and wanted me to sell them. But I couldn't even do that. I do not want to be responsible for turning someone away from cloth diapers because these weren't great anymore (and they were once fabulous!).

So I finally tried something I never really wanted to do. I stripped them using Dawn.

Why did I not want to do this? Simply because I pictured my washer overflowing with the bubbles, and I honestly did not believe I'd ever get the Dawn out of my diapers.

But what else could I do? I tossed my diapers into the washer and threw in a tablespoon (okay, I didn't measure; I just squirted what I thought looked like a tablespoon. Maybe this is why I shouldn't have done this!) of regular old Blue Dawn liquid soap. I set the washer to "extra rinse" and ran three full cycles.

I don't remember my diapers ever smelling as fresh as they did when I pulled them out of the washer! No stink, no funk, just fabulous.

I didn't expect it to work, but my diapers are literally as good as new. They are even great for night on my toddler! We haven't tried them on the baby yet, but I am sure they will work just as well as they did when I used them two years ago on a little baby:)