How to Remove Stains from Baby Items
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- SARAH PORTER
- Parent Life Product
- 13 / 08 / 2025
A new baby comes with all sorts of extras - their pram, cot, a sling, nappies and of course, their clothes and bedding.
For the first few months of your baby’s life you’ll be doing more laundry as one of the less-popular extras your baby brings is a lot of mess. Mess that can lead to a lot of stubborn stains.
Stains, including poo, wee, breastmilk and brightly-coloured food on your baby’s clothes and bedding can make these precious new items feel old and worn before their time. The good news is that you can reduce them - or banish them altogether - by following our handy stain-removal guide.
The seven problem stains - and how to remove them
There are seven main stains that you’ll face as a new parent and restoring your favourite pieces to their former glory isn’t just an aesthetic issue. Keeping baby clothes fresh and clean makes it easier to keep using them yourself - especially with younger siblings - and also easier to donate or sell, which keeps them out of landfill (1).
Here’s how to tackle the most common baby-related stains to keep your precious little bundle’s precious bundle of clothes and nappies clean and bright.
Breastmilk
Whether it’s straight from the source or whether it’s been sicked up, breast milk is pretty easy to remove from clothes and fabrics. Breastmilk does contain quite a lot of fat (2), but even so, using your Bright & Mighty Laundry Sheets should remove all traces. If the stain involves any colostrum, which causes orange or yellow stains, then you might need a bit more help from our Bright & Mighty Stain Bar and an extra rinse. To use our Bright & Mighty Stain Bar, you simply wet the stained area and rub the bar over it, wait a bit then pop the item in the washing machine. Once you’ve got the clothes out of the washing machine, hang them up to dry in sunlight if you can as this helps to bleach any remaining stains.
Bright & Mighty Laundry Esssentials
Formula milk
Formula can be a bit harder to get out of fabrics than breastmilk so it might need a bit of extra attention. If the formula has dried and left some residue, try to brush or pick it off before spritzing the stain with a pre-wash treatment or with our Bright & Mighty Stain Bar.
You could even pour fizzy water or soda water onto the residue, as the bubbling action will help to break it up before you wash it with your usual detergent.
Again, if you can dry your clothes or nappies in sunlight, do so to bleach out any lingering staining and to brighten the fabric all over.
Baby vomit that’s “set”
If you have a dried-on sick stain then you might want to soak it for 10-15 minutes before washing to soften it up for your detergent. Then, simply wash as normal and dry in sunlight. Some vomit stains might be quite vivid in colour once you’ve started weaning, of course, so use our stain bar and be ready to wash it again or use a squeeze of lemon juice to reduce the stain further.
Poo
We can’t talk about baby-related stains without bringing up the most obvious one… Babies poo a lot and they have an amazing knack of unleashing a poonami on anything that’s brand-new and spanking clean within their orbit.
If you can, rinse the item immediately and wash with our laundry sheets as soon as you can; for tough stains you can add an extra half sheet if necessary. Our laundry sheets can remove poo stains from baby clothes even at 20C, so there's no need for an expensive hot water wash.
Once everything’s out of the washing machine, dry the clothes in the sun if possible, to eliminate the stains further.
Food stains
Weaning is a messy business and older babies and toddlers can still end up wearing more than they eat! If your baby’s clothes are covered in ragu then scrape off as much as possible, rinse the item in cold water and attack the stain with our Bright & Mighty Stain Bar before laundering as normal.
Dried-on baby food stains, particularly protein stains, are harder to remove, so if you can get to work immediately, do so. It’s not the end of the world if you do have to wait to wash the stains away - you might just have to use the stain bar before popping them in the machine.
Paint, mud and ink stains
While we all know that you should only let children loose with paints and pens if they’re wearing head-to-toe PPE, sometimes that creativity strikes at random moments. Many felt pens and paints are washable, but they can still leave a bit of discolouration so you might need to bring out the big guns for paint, ink or mud. Our Bright & Mighty Stain Bar is definitely your best friend here, so pre-treat the fabric with it before it goes into your machine.
Bambino Mio’s Favourite Stain Removal Tips
Subscribe to our stain-busting Bright & Mighty Laundry Sheets Subscription and Bright & Mighty Stain Bar so you’ve got some serious cleaning power always at your disposal.
If you have a serious stain and you’re waiting for your new stain bar to arrive, drip some all-in-one contact lens solution on it as this can lift a lot of discolouration before you wash it. If you’re frequently soaking clothes before washing, save some water from the tap or shower in a bucket to reduce the amount of water you use during the week. Direct sunlight is your best friend when it comes to stains as it acts as a natural bleach and is 100% free from harsh chemicals; you don’t even need a washing line - a rack by a southern-facing window will do the trick
Citations and References
(1)Oxfam. “Fast Fashion Produces More Carbon Emissions Per Minute than Driving a Car Around the World Six Times.” 2019. Web. Bright & Mighty Stain Bar https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/fast-fashion-produces-more-carbon-emissions-per-minute-than-driving-a-car-around-the-world-six-times-oxfam
(2)National Institutes of Health (NIH). National Library of Medicine. “Components of Human Breast Milk: from Macronutrient to Microbiome and MicroRNA.” 2020. Web. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7402982
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