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 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.

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

I call them ‘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.

This little cutie is almost three months old now! In those three months he has treated us to quite a bit of laundry and baby stains! Mostly from spit up, but we’ve had a couple of impressive blowouts as well. The most recent one being 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 one 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.

::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’ve tried skipping this method and rinsing the clothes then spraying them with Oxi Clean spray and wash, but I still sometimes end up with light yellow staining.

The secret is Oxi Clean and BOILING water. Normally you would avoid hot water when trying to remove a stain, but not for baby stains. The Oxi Clean has a chemical reaction to the enzymes in the spit up for those yellow stains that appear in baby clothing after sitting in storage. 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 gross photos of bodily fluid 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 half way 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 1/4 c. works great).

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

Step 4: Let sit 10-15 minutes.

Step 5: Dump the entire pot into the washing machine, water and all.

Step 6: Run a normal cycle in washing machine. Dry as usual.

Notes:

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

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