What do I do with a diaper that has poop on it?

Solid poop should be flipped or dropped off the diaper into toilet and flushed.  That's easy. 

If poop is unformed, you can scrape, dunk or spray off the poop with a diaper sprayer into the toilet.  To scrape it off, use a designated firm plastic scraper such as a spatula, food turner, long handled plastic spoon or other utensil.  Dunking used to be easy but now newer toilets are low water and low flush, so the sprayers are really helpful.

It is important that the diapers are not dripping wet or you will have puddles in the bottom of your diaper pail liner. Get the excess water out of the diaper somehow. Some people will wring out the diaper by hand; others will use rubber gloves to wring it out, still others will use the back of the scraper to squeeze out water from the diaper against the inside of the toilet  to get excess water out so it doesn’t drip everywhere. Place a clean dry cotton prefold diaper in the bottom of your pail to take up any extra moisture.

If poop is from a totally breastfed baby, you might choose not to rinse or dunk at all, if you don’t mind some stains. It washes out like yogurt, especially if you soak in your washer and/or do an initial wash cycle, prewash or prerinse first.  Make sure your main cycle isn't full of pee and poop water.  Sometimes undunked or unsprayed diapers necessitate an extra wash cycle. Do whatever is easiest for you. If stains bother you, then you might want to dunk the soiled diaper in the toilet or spray it off at the toilet first before putting the diaper in the dry pail but diapers are diapers so decide if some discoloration matters to you or not..  Just make sure they get clean.

Remember that putting human feces in the garbage is unsanitary (as indicated on the outside of some disposable diaper packages), thus your disposable diapering friends are supposed to be putting their baby’s poop in the toilet also, formed or unformed. Flushing poop is the right thing to do.

Soiled diaper when you are on the go?  Place it in a wet bag and deal with it when you get home, unless it is easily ploppable.  Do not dunk in a public toilet.

How good of a job do you need to do? The more you get off at the toilet the less likely you’ll get stains, the easier the diapers will be to wash, and it minimizes diaper pail odors and rash causing problems.  But stains are no big deal, and the washing machine empties to the same place as toilet does, so you really don’t need to spend much time on this unless you choose to.

Takeaway:

The washing machine empties into the same place that the toilet does.