Wet napkins must be properly washed and rinsed, so that ammonia from the urine or detergent from the wash does not come into prolonged contact with the baby’s skin. Soiled napkins must be sterilized to avoid any danger of infection.
It is best to buy a special napkin sterilizing solution and two plastic buckets with lids: buy buckets of different colours or shapes or mark them so that you can tell them apart. Start by filling them both with napkin sterilizing solution. Drop wet napkins into one and soiled napkins into the other (first scraping off the worst of the soiled material into the lavatory). Do this every time you change a napkin in the course of the day. The solution needs changing every 24 hours and to be effectively sterilized napkins need at least six hours in the solution. This means that, assuming you start in the morning, any napkins you change during the night are best stored in a plastic bag and saved for the morning’s new solution.
Every morning when you change the solution, rinse out the napkins in the “wet” napkin bucket. They do not need to be washed with detergent, but they must be rinsed thoroughly. The soiled napkins must be washed in very hot water with detergent before being thoroughly rinsed. Napkins stored during the night can go straight into the fresh solution.
This method of sterilizing napkins avoids constant washing and rinsing through the day, while also saving unnecessary washing.
Napkins should be dried outdoors if possible or in a tumble dryer. If they are put to dry on radiators or hot pipes, they will become unpleasantly stiff and abrasive when put next to the baby’s skin.
Napkin sterilizing solution is very strong and contains bleach. This means that coloured garments must be washed separately, even if soiled. You should also avoid any prolonged contact with the solution. Most important is never to touch the baby’s delicate skin before rinsing the solution off your hands; if you find it irritates your own skin, wear rubber gloves when handling the napkins.