Babies are messy. The spills and accidents put stains in baby clothes that can be very hard to remove. Even parents of newborns have to content with baby formula stains, spit up stains, and most of all, poop stains. Getting stains out of baby clothes isn’t as easy as it sounds. For starters, babies have sensitive skin, so harsh laundry soaps and stain removers are out unless you want to be calling the pediatrician about a baby rash that looks really bad.
Bleach is a no-no for baby clothes too, not that it really matters since virtually all jumpers, onesies, shirts, pants, and tops made for babies have bright colors or cute patterns on them anyway.
Baby Laundry
Shortly after giving birth to a beautiful baby the mommy and daddy realize two things, that sleep is really, really, important, and that the increase in laundry volume is very disproportionate to the increase in family members. The washing machine gets a workout and the dryer does too. For the most part, though, more laundry is easily handled, especially once you realize that there is no point in folding baby clothes.
Yet, when it comes to ugly yellow stains, or brown stains, or even blue stains (don’t ask) it can challenge anyone’s parenting skills. For some reason, our usual stain stick, the Shout stain remover with the plastic brush thing on the top, seemed particularly ineffective on baby food stains. It is also not fun to try and rub a stain fighter all over the back of a onesie after a diaper blowout leaves a disgusting yellowish stain all over that awesome baby outfit Grandma bought.
Many skilled parents use a baby laundry detergent like Dreft or other pediatrician recommended laundry soap with no dyes, no perfumes, and no harsh chemicals in order to keep baby from developing a rash from his clothing or sheets. It is natural to assume that a laundry soap like that might be "weaker" than regular soaps with all of their powerful non-sensitive skin friend chemicals; so, you might be tempted to try washing baby’s clothes in "regular" laundry soap. However it turns out that isn’t the case. (Most of the stuff in laundry soap these days has less to do with getting your clothes clean than it does with smell, wrinkles, or static.)
If you are thinking of throwing a scoop of OxyClean in with the "pure" baby laundry detergent, don’t. The oxygen bleach chemicals that give it the cleaning power it has are some of the most irritating ones out there when it comes to your baby’s skin.
So, what is a parent to do? Just get over it? After all, the baby doesn’t care if her clothes are stained, and most people are too busy looking at how cute she is to notice a stain on her back. Maybe, parents should just accept that baby clothing stains are a part of life.
WHAT?!?! Accept defeat? From a STAIN? NEVER!
Best Baby Clothes Stain Remover
The Undefeated Daddy bought just about every stain remover and stain fighter on the shelves of the grocery store and at Target. There would be no permanent yellow poop stains on his kid’s clothes.
After trying out tons of different things it turns out the best baby stain remover is Zout. It not only gets out baby food stains, baby formula stains, and spit up stains, it also works really great on those poop stains that go unnoticed while baby is in their car seat, crib, or Jump-a-roo. Best of all, it comes in a spray bottle, so it is just as easy to cover large amorphous blob areas as it is to get a single strawberry jelly drop spot.
The most important baby stain removing tip is to rinse the clothing as soon as possible. However, do NOT use hot water. Hot water actually starts setting the stain even as you try and rinse it out. Instead, start with luke-warm water, or even cold water to rinse the stain out. Whatever is left, hit it with the Zout. Don’t be afraid to really soak it. I’ve never had it cause any discoloration even on super bright clothes or sheets.
Just let it sit there in a puddle on top of the stain until you are ready to do laundry. Obviously, if you let it sit there for five or six days, it might be too late; it isn’t magic. But, if you get baby’s stained outfit into the washing machine sometime that day or the next day, you should be fine. It shouldn’t be too hard to do with baby generating enough laundry for a small load every 24 to 36 hours 🙂