Today is day 4 of the Flats and Handwashing challenge and today we are covering our wash routine. Hand washing was definitely the most daunting part of the whole challenge and like any wash routine mine has been developing and evolving as I go. As of this posting I have only washed my diapers 3 time (once a day has been working well) and I don't think I have repeated the exact same steps each time but I have been learning a lot as I go.
The Tools
The Wash "Cycles"
The basics for any wash routine (hand or not) is a warm rinse, a hot wash followed by a warm/cold rinse and I have been keeping to this basic tenant. I start with warm water (bath temperature for my kids) and fill the bucket so that I have a few inches over the diapers. I then plunge (even though its not a plunger, it's the same motion) about 30 times. I dump this water and refill with the same temperature, plunge another 30 times. I then let my diapers soak in the warm water for about 30 minutes. After the soaking is complete I dump the water and shake a tablespoon of powdered Tide on top of the wet diapers. I fill the bucket with hot water (as hot as I can get it) and then plunge about 100 times. I then let my diaper soak again in the hot water for 30-60 minutes. I dump the hot water and fill the bucket with warm water again (one time I also added a tablespoon of white vinegar but I didn't really feel like it made a big difference so that's optional). I plunged about 30 times and then dumped the water. I continued fill the bucket with warm or cold water after that and plunge about 30 times until I didn't see any more soap bubbles. Between each "rinse" cycle I would wring everything out before putting it back in the bucket and I think this helped things to rinse faster. Each night it takes about 3-4 rinse cycles to get to the point that I don't see any more bubbles. Once I am satisfied that everything is rinsed well I dump them all into the tub and wring each piece, shake them out and put them back into my bucket to carry to my drying rack.
Overall (from start to finish) my washing takes me about 90 minutes. Actual hands on time though is approximately 20 minutes so the majority of the time is spent soaking. I have been really happy with my wash routine. My diapers have been very clean, I don't find it to be particularly hard or time consuming. Probably the only thing I don't like is that my flats are not as soft as they are out of a dryer. After 3 nights of hand washing I would say that it is actually easier and less gross than I expected!

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