Help! Do you know how to wash a sleeping bag?!

[southern_redhead]

DD had a "PJ" day at school yesterday - she took a sleeping bag, one of those inexpensive ones meant for sleepovers. I, of course, washed it when it came home....and ruined it. Now all the stuffing in it is clumped up

DS has "PJ" day tomorrow and HE wants to take his sleeping bag, it is also an inexpensive Toy Story one. Sigh. With DD it wasn't a huge issue. She is getting a new sleeping bag from Justice for Christmas so it wasn't like I've ruined her life, she will still have something for sleepovers. With DS, though, this is all he has and he LOVES this bag. I'm very close to telling him to forget it. There is NO way that a sleeping bag is going to school, laid out on those filthy floors, and then coming back into my home without a good hot wash. I mean, it is FLU SEASON here and between that and the stomach virus that is cutting a wide swath through the school it just isn't happening.

My older DS had a "good" sleeping bag meant for camping. It washed just fine. I'm guessing this one didn't hold up because it's the "cheap-o" one.

 

[NotUrsula]

There are some things you can do:

One, don't use hot water: fiberfill doesn't hold up with hot water. Warm will do fine with a quality detergent. (Also, whatever you do, DO NOT USE OXYCLEAN!! It reacts chemically with fiberfill and makes it pouf up wildly.) Second, go and get a whole bunch of extra-large safety pins, and pin the bag all over in a sort of "quilt" pattern -- it will help compress the fiberfill and keep it from shifting. Third, unless you have a front-loader, take to a laundromat to wash it -- don't use a machine with an agitator. Fourth: no dryer. It must be hung to air-dry.

You could probably avoid all of this if you just went out and got a $10 vinyl yoga mat to put under the bag. (Heck, I don't bother washing my kids' sleeping bags at all unless they have visible mud on them or have been peed in, but I'm loosey-goosey that way. )

 

[Hannathy]

It should have washing instructions on it. I never wash anything in hot, I can't see how that would be good for the print or if the material in those (polyester, etc) can even be washed in hot, most say warm at the most. Washing in hot may have helped it self destruct.

When you dry them use tennis balls in the dryer like you do with down.

I don't get the paranoia about having to wash it cause it was at school? mine always took theirs and I never washed them when they got home.

If you truly won't let him take it without disinfecting it when it gets home, maybe he can just take a comforter or a fluffy blanket.

 

[southern_redhead]

Thanks, those are good ideas. I hadn't thought about taking it to a laundromat. That makes sense.

It's just that this is flu/stomach virus time (as in half the kids in all our classes are out with one or the other) and the school's solution to cleaning up puke from the classroom floor is sawdust, they don't even spray some disinfectant on the floor. I'm sorry but if GermX won't kill the stomach virus bug then neither will pinesol scented sawdust And, yes, they are barfing like crazy in the classrooms. The sleeping bag my DD had was only $10. I may just get him one and let those be the "classroom" bags. They may have to live with a few lumps in them LOL

 

[Katie Dawn]

Definitely needs to be washed in a front loading washer so there is no aggitator beating the heck out of the sleeping bag. We take ours to the laundromat as well. Instructions should tell you hang dry, can dry on low, etc.

 

[Tuffcookie]

I have always had a top loading washing machine but I am seriously considering getting a front loader so I can be able to wash bigger items, such as bedspreads, sleeping bags, etc.

Can those new front loaders handle a king/queen down filled spread or are you better taking those to the cleaners?

TC