How to Do Laundry for a Newborn

Wash her clothes separatly in cold water using dreft laund. Soap, and hang them to dry - seems like the dryer, wears / "fades" / shrinks the clothes faster ! I hang all mine to dry, except towels, wash clothes, etc. !
Have a great day !

I keep them seperate and wash in Dreft. At least for the first few months. I usually wash in Dreft til 9 mo. or so. Usually on cold--but I do everything on cold except for whites. Hope this helps.

I always separated my baby clothes from our clothes for at least the first year. The baby clothes soap makes the clothes softer and better on the babies.

I did not use special baby detergent with either of my daughters as neither of them showed any sort of reaction to regular detergent.

Did you know that hospitals use regular detergent to launder all their baby blankets, shirts, etc.?

I never understood using special (more expensive) detergent if your baby does not show signs of alergies. You hold your baby for hours during the day laying on your clothes, sheets, etc why launder any differently?

Just my 2 cents on the subject.

BTW we was everything on cold.

I started out doing his seperate with Dreft...basically until the dreft was all used up. Then I started mixing his clotehs with ours...he had no problem.

One thing that I just learned is that if you are washing bibs with the clothes/blankets that sometimes (most times) the velcro on the bibs sticks to the clothes. I've had a few clothes that are now not as new looking because of it. I read a solution to that. Use a laundry bag..you know those mesh ones that you put delicates in. That helps them not stick to the clothes.

I always wash things on cold and then dry on delicate...even our clothes.

Good luck!

Hi B. it not a silly question at all. I would separated the babies clothes for washing and use baby draft detergent. Wash on warm and soak your clothes with stain on cold if you chose to do bleach for the tough stain wash them twice, to remove the bleach and satins. I hope this is helpful if you have any other question feel free to ask me and I will be more then happy to help.
T.

dye free, perfume free..just in case. i just switched over everyones laundry to this just for the first few months. i didn't worry about temperature.

I put all our clothes together and I use Tide and Downy...cold water. I had a postpardum doula tell me that the whole thing with seperate laundry is not necessary unless your baby has special needs. Mostly a marketing scheme from Dreft, etc...

I don't hav anything too different to add to the other ladies, I just wanted to say EEEEEEWWWWWWW to the medical information that Trish informed us of. I don't know whether to laugh or throw up! LOL Thanks a lot for reminding me how completely gross the world is :-)

I do it seperate for the first six months or so, just because I'm paranoid & I like to keep babys clothes seperate & on a gentle cycle!

I have always washed them together with purex in the white bottle. I have sensitive skin and both my kids got that lovley trait from me! I use downy with lavender because lavender is supposed to calm you and who cant use that with kids around. I wash all clothes in cold and towels and sheets in hot. Oxi Clean helps to get dirt out and you are not using bleach.

you have goton a lot of adviced I always seprated them and used dreft drift stain pertreater sipt up reacours later and stain there cute clothes.
Here is the best tip for lundry and lots of other things..

White Vinager..
use it in your rise cycle no softners it will make the clothes soft and super clean. it is wonderful on towels try it on jeans.

I always used Dreft liquid detergent in cold water on my daughter's baby clothes. On my son's clothes, I also used only Dreft, but I sometimes washed in warm when the clothes were especially dirty. There are a couple of other "baby" type laundry detergents out there now but I've not tried them. I will say that I did always wash my baby's clothes separate from the rest of the family. Older kids and adults come into contact with a lot more dirt than babies do and while washing can get rid of the dirt, it doesn't always get rid of all the germs (unless you wash in hot water and dry on high heat or use bleach). I think it's just better to keep their clothes separate until they start getting just as dirty as the rest of us. :-)

We have always used regular detergent and thrown everyones in together. Since my son grows so fast, to keep things from shrinking, if his clothes are mixed in I use cold water on the gentle cycle. I also dry on the gentle cycle.

I didnt wash my boys clothes seperate from anything except my hubbys work clothes, now everything gets washed together. I used the same soap for their clothes as ours, never had any problems. I wash our clothes in cold water, and all blankets, sheets and towels ect. in hot water (my older son sees an allergist and he recommended this at least once a week for dust mites and such). Like the other poster stated why use more expensive soap when at the hospital they dont and they use bleach too, they babies were fine at the hospital so they should be fine at home. Hope this helps.

My son has excema and wears all cotton.
I have always done the same thing.
If his clothes are stained when we take them off, I spray them (saturated) with a stain remover, and then until he was almost two years old, I washed them in Dreft.
I hang his clothes to dry AND only put them in a dryer for the last bit (except onsesies and now t-shirts).
When he was an infant, definitely I washed them separately.
I washed everything and still wash everything except whites in cold.
Whenever I lend/give anything away, it's fairly pristine eventhough a BOY (messy marvin) wore it.

Looks like you've gotten many responses, but just wanted to add my two cents. We ended up using the family detergent on warm cycle. I have sensitive skin, but have had no problems with Tide. So far, it hasn't affected our son at all and he'll be 14 months this month. He has sensitive skin and has been prone to little rough patches on his face because of his saliva when he's teething, but the detergent hasn't even been an issue. I don't see the advantage in spending more on special detergent. I'm sure my mom didn't use special detergent on me when I was a baby! Good luck and have fun...you are starting an incredible journey!

I know that you've got a lot of feed back on this subject, but I wash mine in All Free & Clear on warm and then dry on a medium heat. I wash all of his stuff with the rest of the family's. The delicates laundry bag by Woolite is great to put socks in and other small items in. I use mine all the time. But other than that, just wash her's like you do yours until you find out that you can't.

Luckily my kids don't have sensative skin either so I just washed everything together. I always wash in cold because it saves energy but if something is really dirty I soak it in a bucket with color safe bleach first. If your baby doesn't seem to be having problems just get regular detergent that has no fragrance/dye in it and wash them altogether.

ok... you have heard it all, but I'm up so I will put in my 2 cents.

Since we brought her home, I have washed our baby's clothes separately with dye free, perfume free All in cold water. My washer has a setting for a second rinse cycle which I turn on. When I get something new that is darker than other clothing, I will wash it separately with one of her white cloth diapers to see if it bleeds. If it doesn't bleed, it all goes in at the same time. Haven't had anything bleed yet in cold.

If she does get something on her clothes that looks like it might stain, I pretreat with oxiclean.

I use scent-free Bounce dryer sheets in the dryer. All her clothing is dried on low heat.

Congrats on your little one!