Help with stinky cloth diapers!

[jessmke]

My DD is 3 months old so I am pretty new to the cloth diapering world! My sister gave me her cloth diapers that she used with all three of her kids, so they are well used but still in great shape. They are bum genious pocket diapers. The inserts are starting to smell like ammonia, especially in the morning. I don't change her diaper at night so she will go about 10 hours in one diaper that I've put two inserts in. I have heard about stripping the diapers to get rid of the smell, how exactly do I go about doing that??

When I wash them I do a prewash with Rockin Green De-Funk, then I do a wash in hot water with Rockin Green detergent, and sometimes I do a second rinse (but not always).

 

[adrie]

They need to be stripped with RLR and then bleach to rid the ammonia.

If they are not stripped properly and brought back to square one, you risk your child getting ammonia burns if you use them. Seek out RLR soak and bleach strip online.

As an aside, the detergent you're using is not sufficient, and you will likely continue to run into issues should you keep using it. Using a stronger, mainstream detergent without fabric softener is best, and lots of it.

I've been cloth diapering for almost 2.5 years and only ever stripped once, because I wanted to basically.

 

[jessmke]

Thanks for the reply! We use Ivory hypoallergenic baby detergent for all of our laundry, will that suffice or should I get something else?

 

[adrie]

Is that a liquid detergent? If so, just be aware that powder rinses cleaner, and you will likely have to use a fair amount of detergent; depending on how many nappies and inserts you are washing at a time, maybe a full cap full or more. The rule of thumb is that more is better than less, and detergent is made to rinse well; if your diapers feel soapy or slimy after the wash, then add an extra rinse, otherwise extra rinses are not needed and may redeposit minerals onto the nappies if you have hard water.

 

[messica]

If she doesnt have any sensitivities I'd use mainstream regular detergents- Typically powders work better for most machines than liquids, the best resource I've found is Fluff Love University online to sort that out either way. Depending on how hard your water is you use more or less and may need boosters to combat the extra minerals.

Definitely stay away from "natural" detergents. Usually all they are is boosters so your dipes will never truly get clean and that can actually lead to ammonia burns on little bums!

 

[lewood88]

I'd say strip them you can do it easily with using a dishwasher tablet in your wash I've heard of great results doing that and I'll be doing it once a month on my sons nappies xx

 

[jessmke]

I'd say strip them you can do it easily with using a dishwasher tablet in your wash I've heard of great results doing that and I'll be doing it once a month on my sons nappies xx

You mean just throw a dishwasher tablet into the washing machine with the diapers??

 

[lewood88]

I'd say strip them you can do it easily with using a dishwasher tablet in your wash I've heard of great results doing that and I'll be doing it once a month on my sons nappies xx

You mean just throw a dishwasher tablet into the washing machine with the diapers??

Yea Hun just throw it in xx

 

[jessmke]

They need to be stripped with RLR and then bleach to rid the ammonia.

If they are not stripped properly and brought back to square one, you risk your child getting ammonia burns if you use them. Seek out RLR soak and bleach strip online.

As an aside, the detergent you're using is not sufficient, and you will likely continue to run into issues should you keep using it. Using a stronger, mainstream detergent without fabric softener is best, and lots of it.

I've been cloth diapering for almost 2.5 years and only ever stripped once, because I wanted to basically.

Are you in Canada? Where do you buy RLR? I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

 

[jessmke]

Never mind, I just ordered some online!

 

[jessmke]

OK I did the RLR strip and am doing the bleach soak now. I bought Gain laundry detergent because we have soft water and from what I've read Gain works well with soft water (we have well water and a whole house water softener as part of our water filtration system). Do I use the full recommended amount of Gain, or do I decrease the amount because our water is soft? I'm going to do 3-4 washes with Gain after the bleach soak, so I guess I will see if there are bubbles in the rinse cycle. If there is, then I assume I should use a little less detergent?