Cloth diaper help.... How do I get the skunky smell out of my babies' diapers??

[chickenpatty]

Update:  Thank you all so much for your input! I think it is, in fact, the homemade detergent. I've heard so much about soap buildup on the diapers, that I was afraid to try anything stronger on them. Yesterday, though, I washed them (twice) in All (the only detergent I had on hand), and they DON'T smell! This is huge! I was about to give up on cloth diapering.

 

Thanks again!

 

 

 

Why do my twins' cloth diapers smell so bad??

 

Here are the facts:

I use mostly pocket diapers that were new when I got them.

I use a homemade detergent of:  

1c Borax
1/2c Washing Soda
1/2c Baking soda
1/2c Oxy

 

I always rinse first in cold water. Then wash in hot water with 2 Tbs of the detergent.

A couple of times I have tried doing another rinse with a little vinegar added to see if that would help.

I always hang them outside (or inside if it's raining) to dry.

 

They smell clean when they come off the line, but as soon as they get a little pee in them, they smell AWFUL, and very much like a skunk that just swam in a dirty fish tank.

 

Help??

[AngelaNYC]

The only thing that stands out to me is that your homemade detergent doesn't contain any soap.  I always used Fels Naptha in mine and I heard others used Ivory.  Just grate a bar, melt it on the stove in some water, and add it to all the powdered stuff with an additional 3 gallons of water.  Let it set overnight and by morning it should be more of a gel (snot?) like consistency.  I never used anything else on ds's cloth diapers and they never smelled after he peed.

 

The other thing i was thinking about is to look for reviews on the brand you purchased and see if others are having that problem.  It may be the diaper.

[Melissa in Australia]

I always used a nappy soaker and soaked them overnight in a sealed bucket before washing them

[Chris in VA]

I think it's your homemade detergent.

[Desert Strawberry]

They just need to be stripped. About once every 6 months to a year, you need to do some deep cleaning. Wash them on the hottest water you can get, 3-6 normal wash cycles in a row, no detergent. 

When the water is clear during the wash, they are clean. 

 

If you have hard water, you might want to soak them overnight in water softener first. 

 

You might want to add a second cold rinse at the end or your wash cycle. I haven't had to strip since I added one. I've been using cloth for 10 years. 

[happypamama]

I would try vinegar consistently in the rinse, but also, they may need to be stripped -- wash them several times on hot with nothing added (maybe a bit of vinegar; you could try some lemon juice if you have hard water), until the water is clear (no bubbles). Sometimes build-up can cause stinky diapers.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

What material are your cloth diapers made out of? This makes a difference in what might get the smell out.

 

 

[craftyerin]

I had stink problems with all synthetic diapers and stink.  I had to switch to all natural fibers (cotton, bamboo, hemp, etc).  I also agree that you need soap, and lots of it. They simply aren't getting clean.  

[shawthorne44]

Before you do anything, wash the next load of diapers as normal.  Then wash again without soap and look for suds.  If you see suds, you are using too much detergent, or you need another rinse cycle.

 

When you are doing the Strip wash, add a decent amount of vinegar to the first hot wash.  Not a little bit.  

 

I have a front-loader and whenever I have time for a second short wash, I add vinegar to the soap dispenser and do a quick hot wash.  It cleans up the washer, and gets rid of the that musty washer smell when your husband leaves the door closed.  

 

If you have a top-loader, I assume you are doing a wet soak in the bucket.  If so, add some "Ammonia Remover" from the fish area of the pet store.  The pee turns into ammonia, and this stuff breaks it down into something neutral.  

 

Because you hang up the diapers, you will need to strip more often.  The heater on our dryer died, and I noticed I needed more rinses and I went from stripping the diapers once a year to every 3 months.  

 

One thing I do with pocket diapers, is that I leave the insert in there.  Do a quick wash on cold with a decent amount of soap.  Remove all the inserts and then start a hot wash with a tish of soap.  (mainly this is so I don't have to touch the dirty insert)

 

[AHASRADA]

Yup, if they smell when peed on, there is either soap residue, they're not clean enough, or both.

 

Synthetic fibers are known for getting stinky and need to be stripped (wash with a little blue Dawn and rinse a bunch of times), but natural fibers don't. They just need clean.

 

I have heard that homemade soap doesn't work well for diapers, but I have no experience. I use Charlie's, and it works great. Make sure there is no soap residue by rinsing with vinegar and making sure the suds are gone.

 

If they are rinsed well and you still have issues, I would try adding a little bleach to the wash. I had terrible ammonia smell in peed-on diapers, tried everything, and finally broke down and added 1/4 cup of bleach. It solved everything. I was using Oxy to disinfect, but I guess it wasn't enough. Rinsing with vinegar also neutralizes the bleach, so it shouldn't irritate babies' skin or anything.

 

BTW, I've heard you shouldn't mix Oxy and chlorine bleach.

 

Have you joined the Diaperswappers forum? Those ladies have a wealth of info. over there!

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

If they are synthetic try Bi-O Kleen Bac Out.  Synthetic fiber is notorious for having odor problems.  You shouldn't need to use Bac Out every time. Just occasionally. 

[Ellie]

Amway laundry products. Sure-fire cure for what ails your laundry. :D

 

ETA: FTR, you are not the first person who makes her own laundry detergent and has said her laundry stinks. It is why I will always stay with Amway products: they're economical, environmentally sound, and do a WONDERFUL job. Started using Amway products when my first dd was in cloth diapers and never looked back. :-)

[momto10blessings]

I'd ask the ladies at http://www.abbyslane.com/ for help troubleshooting. When I had that problem I ended up needing to use more detergent. No problems after I started using more.

[ChrisOR]

 

 

I always rinse first in cold water. Then wash in hot water with 2 Tbs of the detergent.

 

Have you tried using more soap?  When you do, rinse well, maybe twice.  I think stink means something isn't getting clean.  

 

I used Country Save detergent (recommended amount, using the scoop provided) plus Oxyclean Free (half of the scoop provided) on my diapers.  Sometimes, I added Biokleen Bac-Out into the wash water or directly on a stain.  Once a month, I used bleach and detergent.

 

I switched to flats, which I ended up really loving, when I had some laundering issues.  Good luck.

[craftyerin]

http://www.thenaturalbabyco.com/diaper-experts/how-do-you-wash-cloth-diapers/

 

Kim, owner of Natural Baby Co who makes Gro-Via diapers, is a friend of mine. I consider her advice spot-on. If you have stink, it's unlikely that you've got detergent build up. It's more likely you've got diapers that aren't getting clean.

[KungFuPanda]

If you want to add soap to your homemade detergent and still have a dry powder as your finished product, it's easy to do. Just microwave a bar of fells naptha to dry it out, then cut it into chunks and toss it in your food processor until it's a fine powder. It's quick and easy. I would replace the baking soda in your recipe with powdered soap.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

Have you tried using more soap?  When you do, rinse well, maybe twice.  I think stink means something isn't getting clean.  

 

I used Country Save detergent (recommended amount, using the scoop provided) plus Oxyclean Free (half of the scoop provided) on my diapers.  Sometimes, I added Biokleen Bac-Out into the wash water or directly on a stain.  Once a month, I used bleach and detergent.

 

I switched to flats, which I ended up really loving, when I had some laundering issues.  Good luck.

 

Seconding both of these, the flat prefolds we had washed up so much easier than the various other styles we tried.

[kbutton]

I had both natural and synthetic fiber diapers, and mine stank only with detergent build-up (microfiber tended to stink faster and worse). I did not use homemade soap, so I can't speak to that. I had a top loader when I had kids in diapers. Not sure if you have a front loader, but my parents noticed that ALL their laundry would stink (but esp. towels) if they didn't add an extra rinse. My SIL rinsed all her pocket diapers before putting them in a bucket because her front loader didn't have an extra rinse cycle, and they had to pay for their laundry.

[zoobie]

Use Tide (1/2 or less of the amount recommended) in a long, HOT wash. Then a couple of hot washes with nothing. Dry them in the sun.

 

I tried homemade detergent and gave up. It builds up like crazy on diapers and towels especially. I had to add a splash of bleach to cut it off mine, but some people are really anti-bleach.

[VeganCupcake]

A bit of bleach will get rid of the stink really quickly in one wash, without a lot of fuss with stripping and rinsing a million times.

 

I would bet that you need a detergent with some kind of a soap/surfactant in it, too.

[GTJo1996]

All my friends who use cloth diapers swear by using Charlie's Soap.  Here's a link.

 

http://www.charliesoap.com/

[Alexigail]

If nothing else works, I'd try leaving them out in the sun for a couple of days.

[LaCEmom]

IME if they stink coming out of the dryer or off the line then you need more/better detergent, but if they stink when they're peed in then it's detergent buildup. I'd suggest stripping them with dawn, a little bleach (just for the inserts), or one of the cloth diaper products made specifically for stripping. And then you may want to look into a new detergent or maybe a new diapering system. Flats or prefolds will wash more easily. You could even try stuffing your pocket shells with them.

[duckens]

I think that it is your homemade soap.

 

I have had a bad experience using homemade soap.  I know many here swear by it, and I have IRL friends who swear by it, but I was not impressed with the batch of homemade soap I used.

 

It was adequate, but in our experience, we are not a terribly messy family.  Any stains I pretreat.  We don't live on a farm.  I don't have sons.  And Loverboy works at a lab where he needs to change into scrubs to enter the lab area.  He's not a farmer, a construction worker, or a mechanic, with seriously dirty clothes every night.  It's not as if we needed heavy duty laundry soap, and it was not obvious that the homemade soap wasn't working.

 

So I was babysitting for a little 2yo boy at this time, and he peed his pants.  To help the working mom out, I threw his pants into the washer with our homemade soap, and ran them through the wash.  When they came out of the hot dryer, the dryer reeked of urine.  (We used disposables at that time, so I couldn't have known the soap was ineffective on urine).

 

I think that it is your homemade soap.

 

For dd2, we use cloth diapers, and we wash them in cheap laundry soap + a downy ball full of vinegar.  Warm water, extra rinse.

 

ETA:

Nastiness to follow:

We don't use a soaking bucket for our cloth diapers.  I hang them over the side of the bathtub to dry or elsewhere in the bathroom to dry before throwing them into the dry diaper hamper.  Allowing them to dry eliminates the opportunity for wicked ammonia smell. 

 

For poop, I use a kitchen pan scraper to remove the poop to put directly into the toilet, and wipe the scraper clean with toilet paper to put into the toilet.  Then I wash the scraper in the bathroom sink. I then lay out my mostly poop free diaper to dry until I can do a load of diapers.  Hang in the sun after washing to sunbleach stains.

 

[kiwik]

I have a so who still soils at six. I use a disinfecting soak and put some in the wash cycle but I don't use hot water as the supply is not great.

 

I found pocket nappies did have more issues than old fashioned flat cotton ones with wool overnaps that I used with my first. Tea tree oil helped but I had a freesupply at the time.

[chickenpatty]

Update above. :)

[shawthorne44]

You want to be careful of All, and make sure they are completely and totally rinsed.  Most of the big name detergents in the store have enzymes in them.  Enzymes are great on food stains.  Not so great when they multiply like crazy on your baby's wet butt.   

 

When I started out I found a table online that rated detergents for diapers. I printed up a list of ones that would work and took it to Walmart.  Woolite (the big jug for full loads, not the delicates one) was the only one available.  

 

[Melissa in Australia]

:hurray:  :hurray:

[Elfknitter.#]

By location, soap and water differs, blinking while washing differs... :p

 

I saw your update and just wanted to post for others. Where I'm currently at, I need 3 washes. One with soap/detergent on cold (Sun free and clear works for us), a wash with baking soda on warm, and a wash with vinegar on hot. I've lived where a short wash in cold, then a wash in hot with detergent followed by a cold wash of bs and vinegar worked. Unfortunately, you have t play aqrndnwith hat will work where you arel

[IHaveNoIdeawhatIAmDoing]

They just need to be stripped. About once every 6 months to a year, you need to do some deep cleaning. Wash them on the hottest water you can get, 3-6 normal wash cycles in a row, no detergent. 

 

When the water is clear during the wash, they are clean. 

 

If you have hard water, you might want to soak them overnight in water softener first. 

 

You might want to add a second cold rinse at the end or your wash cycle. I haven't had to strip since I added one. I've been using cloth for 10 years. 

 

 

Thanks! I'm totally going to try this today. I've only heard about stripping them using dish detergent and that grosses me out for some reason.