So if life currently isn’t stressful enough (and I tend to stress out easily), between the kitchen being a demo mess and the entire family recovering from the stomach bug (I was pleading God for mercy!), I began to switch over my laundry from washing machine to dryer.
Now over the week with the stomach bug wreaking havoc throughout our house, I had done so much laundry. Just in one day, 4 loads, on hot, with color safe bleach added. I was determined to not have the illness spread from my son to anyone, especially the baby.
I was running out of clothes for myself so I threw a load in. I usually just toss in whatever kids clothes are laying around to make a full load and well my sweet son (who we are potty training) noticed that he had a wet Pull-up and took off his own pants. Cut to me picking up those pants, with Pull-up still stuffed inside, and starting the washing machine. In the evening of a long Monday, when I still wasn’t feeling 100%, I saw the damage. The Pull-up had exploded little diaper pieces all over my clothes and the machine. What to do?!
I pulled up Google of course to see what people discussed as the best course of action and this was my conclusion:
- Shake out each item, preferably outside because those diaper gel pieces will go everywhere!
- I laid out each piece outside to dry. I saw other posts saying to just rewash or put straight into the dryer, but I was concerned that gel pieces were still stuck to my clothing. My best thought was to just let everything dry completely.
- Wipe out the washing machine. To make extra sure that all the diaper pieces were gone, I vacuumed out the whole drum.
- I set my washer to clean mode (or just do a rinse and spin) and ran it through. You don’t want those gel pieces to dry and harden inside your washer.
- When my clothes were completely dry, I shook them all over again. A bunch more gel pieces came off.
- Put them into the dryer. I checked the lint trap afterward and there were still more dried gel pieces that came off.
This story had a happy ending. Although it was yet another chore to take care of on a Monday night, I just rolled with it, my washer survived and my clothes got clean. I hope this gives you piece of mind if you ever find a diaper in your washing machine!
