Cloth nappies - how often do you wash them?

[hippohippohippo]

We've used cloth nappies since DS was a couple of weeks old. I found it easy pre weaning, less so now that the poo never seems to stay on just the liner and I have to fish any solid bits off (I'm never sure how much I need to fish off - any advice on that?!).

Anyway, I wondered how often people are washing them? I'm a bit paranoid about mould and was generally in the habit of washing every 2 days. But as we travel overnight with family a bit more at weekends we find it's much easier to pack disposables particularly if family are changing him. Which then means the nappy bucket isn't full (and we're often not around to wash them) until day 4... so trying to work out if that's okay or going to lead to them going mouldy!

I washed them every 2 or 3 days. If we were going away, we washed any dirty ones in the bucket before we went, and used Bambo disposables whilst we were away.

I wash every two to three days. I just take a bag for life for them when we go away.

I washed every 2 days. If we were going away I would wash what was in the bucket before we went and use disposables until we got back.

I wash Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Just started weaning here and I miss pre weaning poo!!! I try and wipe everything off and use disposable liners to try and catch most of it.

It's been many a year since we were at the nappy stage, but I used to add several drops of lavender and tea tree oils to the bucket water. I probably washed every couple of days.

I had polyester fleece liners, that were somewhat poo repellent. 1 meter made many liners, so I did bin a few.

I didn't hesitate to use disposables if we were away for a day or more.

Thanks all, good to know others use disposables when travelling too. So will 4 days be ok? I currently have a 3.5 day old half bucket full that I'm trying to decide whether I need to chuck or try washing... I have a bit of a complex about introducing mould to my washing machine!

We wash every 3 or 4 days here. Not problem with mould. I use fleece liners which seem to be quite good for getting poo to drop down the loo easily. But I have chucked out the odd liner if it was really mucky. I tried disposable liners but much prefer fleece ones.

Now the littlun is only wearing at night, we don't get through many.
The bigger risk than mould is ammonia. Please don't judge me, but over one week there was no mould just ammonia. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle, having used a cold overnight soak, 90deg wash with dettol laundry, now theyve been on the line getting the night time rain for about a week trying to neutralise them what a tit!!

I usually use disposables when away, unless we are only away for one night. Just because otherwise it's so much extra packing tbh! I feel like I am still helping the environment the rest of the time...

I wash on Thursdays and Sundays. I give dirty ones a really good rinse as we have a bidet sprayer. If they feel particularly bad I do a pre wash in between and then store in a bucket until wash day but have no issues with mould etc!

Are you dry paling them? We washed every 4 days and never had a problem with mould.

When we went away, we took the reusables and took a large wet bag to store them in. It was very good at containing the smell. Then we washed them when home.

We use little lambs and I think it says on their website to not leave it longer than 2 days but other posters on this thread clearly have and everything was fine so I'd say all good.

It's more the coming back to a horrible smell that puts me off leaving them when going away somewhere. I don't think it would do any harm

Mine are absolutely spotless thanks to CCN / cloth nappy nerds. I do a daily 60C short wash (50 mins) with half a dose of detergent, then every 3 to 4 days I do my main wash (cotton's cycle as best agitation, full dose of detergent for water hardness and soiling level, 2 hours at 60C).

No stains (not even blueberries or carrot!), No smells, they are absolutely spotless.

Used to follow TNL and got smells and stains. There is absolutely no need for them!! Check out CCN or cloth nappy nerds on Facebook

Ooh some great tips here thanks.