Tuesday, May 10, 2011

DIY - Bright White Onsies

If you're expecting your second (plus) baby and you've been pulling out those old onsies, here is a remedy for getting out all those yellow spit up stains. Supermom really is super.

First, she divided the clothes into two loads by size; one load for 0-3 months items and another for 3-6 months.
- Put the the first load into the washer with two scoops of Oxi Clean (she buys the big tub from Costco) and a small amount of laundry detergent. She lets the agitator run for about 5 minutes and then let the load soak overnight.
- In the morning she poured white vinegar into the fabric softener compartment on my machine. Vinegar is helpful during the rinse/spin cycle to break down excess detergent that might “stick” and create residue on the clothes. If your washer doesn’t have a fabric softener compartment you can get a fabric softener ball to throw into your wash — it automatically dispenses at the right time. Since these clothes will be going next to sensitive baby skin, she also sets her washer for a second rinse cycle to make sure everything rinsed out nice and clean.
- Once the washer was done, she transferred the clothes to the dryer but as she did so she checked each piece to make sure the yellow spots were gone. The soak and wash worked really well but there were a few pieces that still had spots. She kept those items out of the dryer (for fear of setting the stains), and applied spot stain removers and then rewashed. She also let these items hang out on the clothes line as the sun is supposed to help fade the spots.
- Repeat the above process with your second, 3-6 months load.
Now most of the stored baby clothes should be ready for new baby to wear, and whatever didn’t come clean enough can be added to the toss/donate piles.

2 comments:

  1. Aww, great tips. Look at those cute onesies :)

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  2. My babies haven't ever had bad spit up but they had explosive diapers a few times and for that after you wash them you dry them in the sun and it takes it out like magic, I wonder though if it would also work for spit up from breastfed babies.

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