How to wash things so they last more than one baby
Fabric softener, tumble dryers, and the three habits that will keep a knit looking new through a second child.
Baby clothes get washed more often than any other garment anyone owns. A bodysuit can go through the machine two hundred times in a year. Almost everything that makes them look worn out is a washing habit rather than a quality problem, which is good news, because habits are cheaper to change than wardrobes.
Fabric softener is the main culprit
Softener works by leaving a waxy film on the fibres. On a bath towel that is why it stops absorbing. On a muslin it is why the muslin stops mopping anything up. On a bamboo sleep bag it coats exactly the fibre that was doing the temperature regulation you paid for.
It also traps smells rather than removing them, which is why the load that has had softener in it for a year is the one that never quite smells clean. If you want softness, a shorter, cooler wash and a proper shake before drying does more.
Heat is what shrinks knits, not water
Wool and cotton knits shrink because heat plus agitation makes the fibres interlock, and that is not reversible. A thirty degree wash on a gentle cycle costs nothing and is the single change that keeps a cardigan the size it was.
Tumble drying is the same problem with the volume turned up. If you must tumble, use the lowest setting and take things out slightly damp. For anything knitted, drying flat on a towel keeps the shape better than any dryer setting.
Wash before it needs it, on a gentler cycle
The instinct with a heavily stained item is a hotter, longer, more aggressive wash. That is usually what wears it out. A cold rinse straight away, before the stain sets, does more than a ninety degree cycle three days later, and it does it without damaging anything.
Keep a bowl of cold water near where the changing happens for the first few months. It sounds fussy for about a week and then it is just where things go.
Three habits, in order of return
Stop using softener. Wash at thirty on a gentle cycle. Rinse stains cold and immediately rather than washing hot later.
That is the whole list. Everything else, the mesh bags, the specialist detergents, the drying racks, helps at the margins. These three are the difference between a knit that gets handed down and a knit that gets thrown away.
What we do before it reaches you
Every knit and every muslin we sell goes through three industrial washes at the mill before it is packed. That is why the first home wash does not shrink anything away from you, and why our things arrive soft rather than arriving stiff with a promise that they will soften eventually.
