Do you have stained baby clothes? Learn how to easily remove the top 3 baby stains with products you most likely already have! The top 3 stains I encounter with a new baby are blood, spit -up, and poop. Luckily, no matter how big the mess is, all are easily removable with simple household products.
(this post contains affiliate links)
We are on Baby Girl #3 in this family. Most of the clothes she is wearing are from when her oldest sister was born. That was 9 years ago! When I told a friend that the outfit adorning my baby was from her older sister, my friend was shocked! She couldn’t believe that the outfit still looked nearly new, especially since it is a favorite so it gets worn often. I thought I would share a couple of tips on how I keep these baby clothes looking so good, even after 9 years!
Blood
This might seem like a weird thing to put on the list. Babies don’t fall and skin their knees, but what about that belly button stump? Rather than staining the belly of every cute onesie you own in those first few days, simply use Hydrogen Peroxide to get the blood out!
To Use:
Pour it slowly from the bottle and watch that blood spot disappear while the Hydrogen Peroxide works its’ magic. Wash as normal, but check the stain before you toss the clothing in the dryer. You don’t want to set the stain in if it hasn’t come out all the way!
Spit-Up
I’m not quite sure how this trick works with formula fed babies. I have never been able to convince any of my kids to take a bottle. If your child is breastfed, use Shout Laundry Stain Remover. I have tried this tip MANY times and it has worked every time for me!
To Use:
Wash the clothing with warm water, spray with Shout, and wash as normal. Check the clothing before drying so you don’t set in the stain. After the clothing has come out of the dryer it should look clean, but often times the milk is still hiding in the fibers of the clothing. Just toss the spit-up clothes on a clothes drying rack and set them in the sun. This takes the stains out every time!
Stains After Storage
No matter what I do, after the baby clothes have been stored for awhile, I pull them out and they are stained around the neck of nearly every outfit from Newborn-12 months. If this is the case with your baby clothes, not to worry! Wash them in hot, hot water with Oxi-Clean, dry as normal and then hang them in the sun. Those stains should come right out!
I did have a few outfits this time around that were just not salvageable. It was probably due to the fact that the clothes had been stored for 6 years since they were last used. Depending on what you feed your baby and how often a baby spits up can determine the amount of damage the stain can cause, as well as how long you are storing the items. I found that most of the stains that were truly set in were on the pastel colored clothes. If you have a large amount of light colored baby clothes that you don’t think you will use again in the near future, donating them might be a better option than storing them.
Poop
This is a fun one. Breastfed babies have that mustard-yellow, cottage cheese looking poop that sometimes smells like microwave popcorn. Too descriptive? Yeah…it’s poop. This is perhaps the easiest of the 3 stains to get rid of using only a bar of soap.
To Use:
Promptly remove the clothing from the baby. If it is a onesie, that’s what those amazing shoulder flaps are for. You can take the onesie off the baby by rolling it down their body instead of risking soiling their hair and face.
Take the clothing and rinse it off in the hottest water possible. Scrub with a bar of soap. I usually use a regular old Ivory bar of soap, scrubbing the bar all over the dirty area. Rinse and repeat as long as it takes to completely remove the stain. Wash in warm water with Oxi-Clean. Check before drying so you don’t set the stain in.
Oxi-Clean
Oxi-Clean and hot water seem to be the common factors in many stain removal secrets. Knowing me, I could easily forget to add Oxi-Clean to each load of wash with stained clothes. I make sure to add extra Oxi-Clean to my homemade Laundry Soap when I make it to ensure extra cleanliness. That way, I never have to worry about remembering!
What tips and tricks do you have for removing baby stains?
