I decided to start this post off with a cute picture of Little Bee on his changing table rather than a yucky picture of poo! 🙂 Don't worry there are NO yucky pictures of poo in this post. This post is to help those who are new to cloth diapering and wonder, "What to do with the poo?" I wondered the same thing when I was contemplating cloth diapering. I watched several YouTubes on the topic to find out. There are many ways to deal with poo while cloth diapering, however, I will share one way that has worked for Little Bee and me. 
When I first started, I had this cute monkey bag for wet cloth diapers. Well... as cute as it is, it didn't work out very well for me because the room always smelled like pee-pee. I decided to try something different. That is when I got the diaper pail below. I found it at a local consignment shop for a lot less than I paid for the cute monkey bag! And this diaper pail works GREAT for keeping the urine smell out of the room. I highly recommend this option. We only put cloth diapers into this diaper pail. When we use disposable diapers, they go into the small trash can (below) and that gets dumped out every day into the big trash container in the garage. We put all the pee-pee cloth diapers into this diaper pail and also any poo diapers that are not too messy. We line the diaper pail with a garbage bag. One more thing that is wonderful about having the diaper pail, is that I can put a whole weeks worth of diapers into it and it doesn't smell like urine in the room. That's because I only like to wash one load of diapers once or twice a week.
When we have a really messy poo diaper, I place it in a plastic bucket to carry to the toilet. It is important to note that as the baby grows and his diet changes, the poo also changes. As a newborn the poo is yellow and seedy. That kind of poo can go straight into the washing machine. When the baby begins to eat solid foods, the poo also changes to a more solid mass. This kind of poo can be "wiggled" off the cloth diaper into the toilet by holding the corners of the diaper. You can also use plastic gloves or a thin cloth diaper liner if you so desire. I like to keep it simple and did it this way. I never touched the poo, but kept my hands on the clean side of the diaper or on the edge of the diaper. Then I would rub the dirty inside parts together until the poo plopped into the toilet.
The next step is to scrub and soak the poo diapers. I have a bucket with a handle on it for easy pouring nearby the toilet and bathtub. I hold a clean corner of the poo diaper and use the scrub brush and a little running water to scrape the remaining poo from the diaper that didn't come out in the toilet. Then I let the diapers soak for several hours or overnight. It is VERY important to take care of poo diapers right away and not leave them for later. You will be VERY sorry if you wait to clean them even a couple of hours later. The best method is to plop the poo into the toilet, scrub, and soak right away. Believe me! I learned this from experience. You don't want to go there.
After the poo diapers have soaked for a few hours, I pour the poo water out into the toilet. You can do one more rinse if you desire, or at this point everything can go into the washer. I really like this red bucket I found at Target for this purpose because it has a nice handle for holding and it also has a slot in the bottom of the bucket for a handhold. It is not fun when the bucket slips while pouring out poo water! I hold the diapers back with the scrub brush, so I never have to touch anything with my bare hands. Even when I dump this poo diaper load into the washer, I never touch the diapers. I dump them straight into the washer from the bucket. I combine all my pee-pee and poo diapers together and wash away. FYI: I bought second-hand pocket diapers and inserts so that I didn't have to worry about following all the warranty rules for new ones regarding how to properly wash the diapers. With second-hand diapers, I can wash them however I please. I use regular detergent and OxiClean on all my diaper washes and run 2-3 rinses of plain water after the first detergent washing. This method works great for me and I don't have any leaky diapers!
So that is what I do with poo! 🙂 What do you do with poo while cloth diapering? Please share your cloth diapering experiences below in the comment section. Thanks for the feedback!
You can read more about our cloth diapering journey here.
I’m well past the diapering stage with my son, but a friend of mine is having a baby this summer and plans to use cloth diapers. Will share with her!
My best friend is planning on using cloth diapering so I will be forwarding this to her :]
Clothe diapering mommas are my hero’s. I just couldn’t do it. I am also past diapers but if I had had this when my daughter was born I probably would have at least attempted it.
If I had this kind of information when I had my first child, I might have tried cloth diapering. I just didn’t know how it worked and had no one to explain it to me. This is very informative. Thank you for sharing!
I started using cloth nappies with both of my boys when they were around 4 months around. I only used them during the day when we were at home though. Nights and when we were out we used disposables. I did the same as you, though I kept everything in the laundry.
High five! Super informative, even though I’m not a cloth diaperer. Filing away for Baby #2 (eventually!)
Thanks! Saved me having to do this bit of research myself. My baby isn’t quite there yet (we still have the infant yellow mustard, lol), but I was wondering how I would deal with this when we do get there.
I am glad you found this post helpful! This is just one way of cleaning poo that works for our family. 🙂
Very informative post! We’re still in the breastfed poo stage and I was wondering what I would do when the “real” poo arrived! The scrub brush step scares me a little but I can see how dealing with it right away will be so worth it.
Thank you for sharing your trick with the diaper pail! We use a wet bag and I’ve been starting to notice it doesn’t keep all the stink in! I’ll start looking for a good deal on one when I’m out! I didn’t realize you could wait so long between washes either. I wash every 2 days, 3 at the most.
Wonderful! I am so glad this was helpful for you! 🙂
Thanks for posting! I’ve been searching around to see what other people do with their poo diapers. I’ve noticed that the diapers are a lot messier lately since we just finished BFing after a year this past month. I keep a lidded garbage can next to the toilet with a diaper pail liner that’s washable. I use a diaper sprayer on the toilet to spray them down as much as I can then toss them into the can. Now that my little one’s more predictable, I’ve also started lining the diaper with a flushable liner just to save some spraying. I really like my system but I’ve been searching around for other ideas because an unanticipated problem in our house is that the water pressure is horrible when something else is running! So lately I’ve been frustrated when spraying because it seems like the washing machine or dishwasher is always running when I’m dealing with a messy diaper. I like the bucket idea to help me out when the pressure is too low for spraying. Also, great blog!! I just discovered it through pinterest today and can’t wait to search through some of your other posts 🙂
Thank you Dana! Having a sprayer on the toilet is a very popular way to deal with the poops. Glad I could offer one more way for you to use! Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy looking around. 🙂 Have a wonderful day!
This is hilarious and brought back so many memories 😉 Love it!
I never did try the clothe diaper thing, but I always applaud those who do. It wasn’t very realistic as we always seemed to have at least five in diapers at the same time when doing foster care. Lol. But I really appreciate this post, because I’ve never really thought about all of the little steps that come with the process.
Back in the Philippines Mavi was in cloth diapers and I missed all of it with Vito. Love this post, reminds so much of bittersweet memories of being a first time mom.