How to Remove Old Stains From Baby Clothing

The easiest way to remove old stains from baby clothing! Treat several items at once, even set in stains! Works for blow outs and spit up stains. Also takes out the yellow spots in baby clothing (breast milk and formula stains) that have been in storage. This post contains affiliate links.

Have you ever pulled out a box of stored infant clothes only to notice that they are STAINED? They were clean when you packed them away, but now they have yellow spots all over them. Well, those yellow spots are enzymes from spit up and diaper blow outs. Bleach can help if the items are white, but what about colored outfits?

The yellow spots linger in the clothes and are unique to baby stains.

I call these types of stains ‘baby stains’ because they are different than food or permanent marker type stains. Simply treating them with a spray on stain remover is not going to work. You’re going to need an enzyme cleaner like OxiClean.

My little cutie is almost three months old now! In those three months, he has treated us to quite a few loads of laundry and baby stains! Mostly from spit up, but we've had a couple of impressive onesie blowouts as well. The most recent one was last night while I was at a meeting. He was sitting on my lap and I could totally feel it happening and there wasn't a thing that I could do about it! It was all up his back and soaked through the brand-new outfit from Baby Gap.

Not only did his outfit take a hit, but also the blanket he was wrapped in, and the blanket that I laid him on while cleaning up the mess!

I wasn't worried about baby stains at all. I simply wrapped it all up in a blanket and put it in the car and would eventually take care of it when I had time at home.

::speaking of blowouts...every mom needs a blowout kit to keep in the car. Trust me. Click here to see what I keep in mine!::

This is because my sister shared her method for how to remove old stains from baby clothing years ago when my other kids were babies, and it has been my go-to method ever since. It has saved many, many articles of clothing. Her mother-in-law shared the trick with her and now I'm sharing it with you. I don't use cloth diapers, but I'd imagine this would be helpful for those as well.

I've tried skipping this method and rinsing the fabrics with a variety of pretreatments like Oxi Clean Spray and Wash, but I still sometimes end up with light yellow staining.

Baby Protein Stains From Breastmilk and Formula

The secret is Oxi Clean and BOILING water. Normally you would use cold water and avoid hot water when trying to remove a stain, but not for baby stains using this method. The Oxi Clean has a chemical reaction to the enzymes in the spit up for those yellow stains (protein stains) that appear in baby clothing after sitting in storage.

Treating Baby Blow Outs

It also reacts with diaper blow outs so that they wash right out. If you don't want to treat items one at a time you can give them a quick rinse then set to the side and wait until you have a few items with baby stains to treat together.

My husband said I should have taken a "before" photo. I just couldn't bring myself to do that. It was nasty, and I have a personal thing against posting poop stains on social media. I hope you'll forgive me, but just know that there was a soft ball sized stain that leaked from the back to the front of this beautiful organic cotton one piece. But after treating it with Oxi Clean and boiling water it is perfectly clean!

How to Remove Old Stains From Baby Clothing

Step 1: Fill a large stock pot halfway with water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

Step 2: SLOWLY pour two small scoops of Oxi Clean into the water (Scoop sizes vary, but about ¼ c. works great).

Step 3: Add stained clothing. Stir to make sure everything is soaked.

Step 4: Let soak for 10-15 minutes.

Step 5: Dump the entire pot (excess water and all) into the washing machine.

Step 6: Run a normal cycle in the washing machine with a bit of laundry detergent. Place in the dryer and dry as usual.

Notes:

• Treat light-colored clothing separately from dark-colored clothing to avoid color bleeding.
• Pour Oxi Clean slowly into the water to avoid foaming over.
• May be repeated if the baby stains don't come out all the way out of the garment the first time. I've never had to do this.

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