Need to strip...have cold water/no dryer/small pot - Page 2

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

Hey MichMama.....yeah we used to have an awful washing machine with hard hard water...man i had to boil at least once a month. Now we are in Reynosa...at least i'm close to the border and can cross over. It's hard though...to go shopping on a mexican budget....lol So i'm trying to keep everything i do low cost. Well when i boiled before..over open fire...in SLP, MX. There would be a ton of sudz during the process....like the problem then was detergent residual.....today when i boiled...i barely saw any sudz when i boiled....so maybe the All free&clear....i'm not using enough? My washer is 100% better than the one in SLP. It's just all cold water...pre-rinse, wash and second rinse...all cold water. So i dont know what's going on...but i have had these diapers since April...so that's about 3 months. I see mama's that dont have to strip at all....so we'll see.

[MommyMad]

Our first LO is expected in NOvember, so I don't have any first hand experience. All I know until now I have read about.

Since Oxyclean might be difficult to find in Mexico, you can use hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Baking soda is known as "Bicarbonato de Soda" in spanish and is readily available. A lot of people swear by it.

Another thing I've read to do in hard water situations (NY) is to use one teaspoon of fresh lime juice to the final rinse and that usually gets rid of the stinkies.

If you were to need hot water for other things, purchasing a tankless hot water heater might not be a bad idea. The hot water heater would use the same gas that your stove uses, except it would have a separate connection. There would be no water going to waste and the hot water heats up so quickly with those tankless heaters.

Good luck in getting rid of the "yuckies".

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

Well after boiling and throwing the diaper straight into the washer to spin out all the water...ds still got a rash. Were back in disposibles and i was thinking yeast...but wouldnt the boiling have killed that off? I used a anti-fungal last night with a disposible and the rash didnt even look slightly better....so its left me wondering what in the world could this be? Any suggestions? I did pick up some California Baby Calming diaper rash cream...i love that stuff. It's got anti fungal...and some other good stuff.
I really want to go back to cloth...but what's going on here?

[mommajb]

rashes can have many causes -

• changes in saliva (teething?)
• yeast
• new foods that are bothersome
• sitting too long in a wet or dirty diaper (for some babies this too long is seemingly 15 seconds or less)
• enzymes in detergent that don't get fully rinsed
• prickly heat
• contact irritation (from detergent, soaps, lotion, etc)
• the ever helpful other
  

Stripping is something I consider when the diapers smell like ammonia as soon as the baby wets.

If the diapers smell dirty coming out of the dryeror washer/off the line/out of the basket they are not getting clean to begin with.

Does any of this sound like it could apply?

I hope this post makes sense I am typing and ignoring the chaos around me as a coping mechanism.

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

Considering this used to not happen and now it does....no change of routine...other than using the diapers since April...that's when i got them..brand new. I've boiled them...thus i would of thought...killed off all the yukies. I'm going to try a few more rounds...praying this works.
I do think though that diapers that are hung to dry are stiff...wonder if the roughness of them is giving him a abrasion rash.
IF that is the case....how do i soften them after hanging to dry.
Dryer....is not an option...we dont have one.

[islandfarmgirl]

softening line dried dipes

I had the same problem and found that the speed at which the dipes dried made a difference in the softness. Not sure why, but if I hung the dipes on the line individually they got stiff as cardboard; if I hung them overlapping (prefolds I would overlap the outer thirds) they took longer to dry but would be a lot softer. Maybe because of the action of the dipes tumbling against each other in the wind?

Still nothing like a dryer-dried diaper, but much softer than if they dried in the sun hung from one corner as my DH likes to do.

If they are still super stiff I do kind of roll them up and scrunch them to soften them before putting them on the baby. We are suffering from an inner thigh rash and I am thinking maybe it is because my DH has been doing a lot of the diaper hanging for the last two weeks and he is not as anal about it as I am.

I also have two laundry lines - one has partial sun and the other full sun. The partial sun line plus the overlapping keeps them softer still (but then you have bird poop to contend with).

We also use a downy ball with vinegar in it for the final rinse and that helps. We use Charlie's Soap and only have cold water wash like you, using an old top loader and we always run it on the max amount of water, a soak cycle and then a wash both with soap and vinegar rinse.

Since it's so hot where you are, you could try to find an old drywall bucket and paint it black and put the dipes in there to strip. I bet they would hit 150 or more if covered up and placed in full sun. For agitation you could throw that in the back of your car when you're running errands.

Good luck mama! You are being very creative working with what you have!

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

Great idea about the bucket in the sunshine. I will try that next go round.
Our clothes line is under the carport....so no direct sun. It's so hot somedays that the diapers dry in a matter or an hour or so.

You know what i think it was.....i bought some wipes from walmart(sensitive skin type) and i think they r causing the rash.....i've bought these same brand same type many times in the past and have had no probelms.
The reason i think its the wipes is because i bought another brand...i think pampers sensitive skin or mabe huggies sensitive skin and i havent seen any rash since i started using them a few days ago. Wonder if that batch of wipes had something wrong with them or was outdated?

[mommajb]

If it becomes an ongoing problem... What about cloth wipes and wash them with diapers? They also make great little washcloths and you get to control the chemicals on them.

[wildnewmamma]

Originally Posted by Mamato3wild ponnie

You know what i think it was.....i bought some wipes from walmart(sensitive skin type) and i think they r causing the rash.....i've bought these same brand same type many times in the past and have had no probelms.
The reason i think its the wipes is because i bought another brand...i think pampers sensitive skin or mabe huggies sensitive skin and i havent seen any rash since i started using them a few days ago. Wonder if that batch of wipes had something wrong with them or was outdated?

It's funny that you wonder this, my daughter (7 weeks) got a rash on a couple occasions and I was trying to troubleshoot what caused it. There are a few things that I was wondering, first was too much detergent staying in my cloth diapers (I stripped them). So another possibility I thought was heat rash, it got hot (for here). But it also happened when she was wearing disposables and using Natural Care Huggies wipes when I was running errands. I thought I was doing good because they say "Natural Care" but I'm not sure the ingredient list agrees. So I really don't know and maybe it's a combination of all the above, but I found it interesting that you had the same thought.