This video is more in-depth on YouTube – find it here for all the images you want.
- My mother’s washing machine – I’m not even sure the answer here, but it’s evil.
- Using too hot of water – a lot of my covers have begun to break down quicker than anticipated, and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because I use too hot of water in my wash. I have since turned down my hot water tank to a more suitable temperature that wont scald the kids. You need hot water to kill things, but you also need not to destroy the TPU/PUL which is not made to the same grade as medical stuff. It’s made to last 100-300 washes.
- Things in the wash – from forks to snappi’s, things that don’t belong in your cloth diaper wash can hurt your diapers. The fork scarred a few prefolds, and the snappi also destroyed a few covers.
- Hook & Loop – I know this is really popular in other countries, but even with laundry tabs, hook and loop still eats my diapers and I just can’t come out without some battle wounds.
- Zippers – Metal Zippers (and metal snaps) these can heat up in the dryer and mark your bags or snag in the wash. In general, try to avoid. I find the damage is minor but at best, I’ve destroyed a lot of diapers.
- Agitators – I have more than once found a diaper wrapped around an agitator. In this scenario I lost my elastic. I know many people hate on agitator-less washing machines but its never been better. Anything in my life with elastics or stretch is much more gently cared for, including my diapers.
- Trying to replace the elastics and an hour later getting so frustrated with the knit picky work and strategy that I just gave up forever and ever.
- Letting my elastics dry rot on a shelf for way too long. There’s a lot of different opinions about how to store your diapers and honestly, I don’t know anymore.
- I also cut one open for science
- Popped an thread on the casing of an elastic tugging too hard.
Tell me about your destroyed diapers because I know there are better stories out there!
