to recycle stained baby clothes

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I've been given a lot of second hand baby clothes for my pfb. I have more than I need so just sorting some out to give to others. Some of the clothes I was given are stained from food when the baby was weaning. I couldn't get the stains out. Even if I take these clothes to the clothes bank, I still have more than I need. I haven't got enough space in my home to keep them all.

Aibu to recycle those stained clothes? Or should I keep them for when my dd weans?

I chop up old children's clothes that are stained or beyond wear and use them for cleaning.

It might be worth saving a couple of things in each size for messy activities.

" I haven't got enough space in my home to keep them all. "

Then why would you keep the stained ones? Are you considering getting rid of unstained ones instead? That seems a bit nuts to me.

If you don't have the space, don't feel bad. To be fair, my dd is v messy weaning, but we have a couple of bibs with arms too and no matter how messy she gets her clothes stay clean except at the cm. It's not guaranteed that you'll need old clothes or lots of them.

It's fine to put tatty clothes in the banks. Good quality clothing is sold in the UK, tired stuff goes overseas with ragged/ripped clothing being recycled, for example, used to stuff furniture.

Good God, why on earth would you keep stained baby clothes unless they are designer ones that you might wish to spend a bit of time and effort on removing said stain.

I would take them to a charity shop and donate them specifically as rag as the charity gets money for this.

I was surprised to find stained baby clothes at a local baby charity shop. Considering most of their stuff is really good quality. I did have to filter out a fair few pieces.

Thanks very much everyone for the useful advice. Taking them to a charity clothes bank and keeping a couple for messy activities.

Perhaps as other pp have suggested, keep one or two outfits back for messy activities and donate or recycle the rest. We are always getting those charity bag things come through our door with collection dates on and I normally put old/stained things in those. The charities get money for recycling the clothes as rags I think.

Is your child likely to still be wearing them when they start nursery/child minders? If so, keep a few outfits for then. I learnt very swiftly never to dress DC in "nice" clothes for nursery (they always come home wrecked).

I so to know if it's any help but I've got quite a few stains out of DS's clothes by soaking them in Vanish for a couple of hours before washing them.

I always thought the textiles were recycled if they weren't in a good enough condition to sell on?

FYI you should check the small print on the door to door collection bags very carefully. Some are worded to give the impression that they're charities when they're no such thing, and some give a tiny percentage of their profits to an obscure charity and then plaster the logo all over. If you can make it to a shop or a recycling bin to donate then that's a better bet.

I got some stained baby clothes back from a friend a while ago, formula stains and posset strains around the necks for the most part. They shifted quite easily with liquid scrubbed straight into the stain, a wash booster in the drawer and a 60° wash. I never understood why she didn't give them a good going over herself before passing them back, but anyways.

When your baby weans, just get the stains out at the time of making them. It's just old stains that won't come out. I'd send the old stained clothes to the charity shop for the rag man.

Yuk! What sort of a person would give you second hand stained clothes !

Probably a person who hasn't had a chance to sort through them. I got given big bundles of baby clothes from a couple of people with the disclaimer "there may be some stained ones", and I didn't mind a bit. I had a very pukey baby (often did 3 changes a day) and was desperately in need of a stockpile of baby grows. I didn't mind sorting through them and I didn't even care if dd wore the stained ones. After all, she was only likely to be in them for a few hours I kept the nice stuff for when we were out and about or meeting my posh nct friends

Some of the yellow milk stains appear after storage. I stored away clean babygros and when I unpacked them, yellow stains had appeared. Tried sun bleaching and scrubbing and rewashing, but they didn't come out.

Would have felt awful if I'd passed them on without checking first.

You could always dye them a different colour to hide the staining.

I agree with Sizzles, in the fog of new baby life it's easy to put away clothes that look completely clean, outgrow it before it's worn again, and not realise that there's an invisible milk stain that will emerge over time.