How to Get Food Stains Out of Baby’s Clothes
Even if you don’t act immediately after noticing a stain, pretreating can still be effective. To remove a crusted-over, dried stain, use a spoon, butter knife, or other tool to scrape off the food crust and pretreat as outlined above.
If you’ve pretreated and washed the clothes, and you still see remnants of the food stain, rewash with detergent that contains sodium prebicarbonate, or oxygen bleach. Tide Clean and Gentle Powder detergent doesn’t have added fragrances or dyes, so it’s a good choice for baby clothing.
This dye-free powder contains oxygen bleach, which makes it a great stain remover, although detergent granules can be messy.
To do so, add drops of water to about 1 teaspoon of powdered detergent to make a paste. Next, wet the stain and treat it with the mixture. If the texture is still too grainy, you can add more water until you have a smoother consistency.
Premixing the paste is also an option. Throughout the process, you should wear gloves for protection to prevent skin irritation.
Keep in mind that the more you pretreat and rewash the same stain, the greater the chance that you may alter the fabric and possibly ruin it. So try to limit the amount of times you work on the same stain.
For stained delicates that need to be hand-washed, try Dirty Labs Hand Wash & Delicates Detergent. It’s unscented, and therefore appropriate for a baby’s skin .
Safe for a variety of fabrics, including silks and woolens, this enzymatic detergent effectively lifts away dirt and sebum. But it’s expensive.
When you’re bib-deep in baby food, it might seem like food stains are the only kind in the world. But pretreating is also our recommended method for removing many kinds of tough stains from clothes. And remember, even if it seems like your baby’s new shirt is eternally wrecked by mashed fruit, try not to worry. Hopefully, it all comes out in the wash.
This article was edited by Catherine Kast and Katie Okamoto.
