getting stains out of the baby clothes!

One of this week’s  tasks was getting out all of Owen’s tubs of baby clothes.  The first tub of clothes were around 6 months and I spent a long time just ooing and ahhing over the memories of Owen wearing them.  But then I got to the newborn tub and I almost cried.  Almost all the little things I pulled out had yellow stains all over them.  These clothes went into the tub clean and white, so I was baffled. But after a little googling, I found that this was a very common issue with clothes that have been spit up on and then stored, even if they appear clean.  Numerous message boards gave good ideas for how to get them out so I combined a few and had great success. I have a front loader washing machine which doesn’t let me soak clothes (that’s a whole other post but I don’t think I’d buy a front loader again).  So instead, I just used a large plastic tub. My mom picked this up for me at Babies R Us.  I filled my tub up with the hottest water I could from the sink.  I followed the instructions on the detergent tub for how much to add per gallon.  I would mix the detergent in the pitcher with a big spoon as well as I could with the water running into it before dumping it in the large tub.I let the clothes soak for about 8 hours.  I stirred them every so often.  I wrung them out as much as I could and ran them in a regular load with Dreft detergent.  Upon inspection all but about 4 things looked great after soaking.  The other 4 I threw back in the tub and let them soak overnight and washed them again.  And that pretty much solved my staining!!  Most of the boards I read said that if the double soaking didn’t work to lay them out in the sun for a day and that final step should get the last of the stubborn stains out.  Whew, crisis averted. Hope this helps if you open your cute old baby clothes and see yellow like I did! :)  Now they’re all washed and hung/folded and ready for another round of cuteness!