Help, I have smelly diapers!

[Laurenjoy]

My cotton prefolds have begun to have the ammonia smell when they get wet. Yesterday I tried adding vinegar to the cold wash and a little non chlorine bleach to the hot. They still smell. I think we have hard water and have been using Ecos detergent. Any suggestions? Is there a better detergent to use in hard water? Thanks mommas!

[myfairbabies]

I spray each diaper with bac-out as it goes into the wetbag (wet or poopy) and switched to rockin green detergent. I had really bad stinkies before, and they are slowly getting better. I'm going to try hanging them in the sun occasionally too now that summer is here.

[luv-my-boys]

if your not sure what kind of water you have they sell these test kits at lowes/home depot they are about $6 and look like little test tubes. They can help tell you what kind of water you have.


I personally use the hottest setting water possible on my prefolds. Literally I like boiling water if I could get it in my washer I would do a cold pre-rinse (no detergent) full hot cycle with detergent and then maybe a another pre-rinse cycle no detergent to make sure there is no residue. for our dipes the key was using HOT water and rinsing very well. I would also consider sunning them occassionally. Is your machine rinsing the dipes well? the ammonia smell seems to be from urine still in your dipes, at least that is what I've always found to be our problem or maybe too many dipes being washed at one time. I always added a few drops of tto and a dash of baking soda to our cycle as well.

[Jazzmin]

We have hard water too. I used to use Allen's Naturally with no problem, but I can't buy it locally anymore. Now I use Charlie's and no more stink!

I always use the highest water setting:
Cold rinse, then hot wash and rinse, followed by two cold rinses.

[Katie T]

We use Charlies as well, and we have very hard water. I don't want to pay for any additives, but have noticed if I let them soak I have no issues ever. I also wash like this: cold wash no soap. Hot wash soap and soak. hot washes till I see no suds then into the dryer they go.

Ammonia is usually detergent build up. I have used Ecos and got build up from it. If you do hot washes with no soap check for suds and continue till you see no suds and your problems should be solved.

[Laurenjoy]

Thanks for all the tips. I live in a really small town, so I'll have to order some charlie's online I guess and give it a try. Also, my washer only has a hot wash/cold rinse setting. I suppose I'll just have to play around with it till I find out what works. Thanks again for the suggestions though. Now I have something to start with.

[jess.m.g]

I know when mine got to smelling I stripped them. Now they dont smell at all! From what I've been told you dont have to strip them to often either. You just run a hot rinse if you can rinse hot, just the hot water nothing else, and do it repeatedly until there is no soap bubbles left! I cant do a hot rinse so I have to run a hot load and wow it's amazing how much soap and stuff comes out of them! You would think I had put soap in there to wash them!

[Astraia]

You probably just need to strip them. There are different methods for stripping (vinegar, oxyclean, wash them repeatedly until there are no more suds in the water, etc). I've tried every stripping method and the only one that works for me is a tsp of bleach, which I do every couple of months when my diapers start to stink.

It doesn't seem to matter what detergent I use (and I have no idea what kind of water we have), I still need to strip every other month or so.

[Katie T]

Originally Posted by Laurenjoy

Thanks for all the tips. I live in a really small town, so I'll have to order some charlie's online I guess and give it a try. Also, my washer only has a hot wash/cold rinse setting. I suppose I'll just have to play around with it till I find out what works. Thanks again for the suggestions though. Now I have something to start with.

I live in a really small town as well and ordered my Charlies soap as well. The first time I ordered 1 bag to see if I liked it (to be honest I didn't fall in love with it till I was half way threw my second bag. It needed time to get all the other detergent out of my laundry. Now they are softer than ever and I never have the musty smell my towels used to get!) If you order two bags or more there is free shipping so now that I love it I always order more than one bag.

Also I just have a basic top loader and only have the hot, warm,cold washes and only a cold rinse. So I turn it to cold for the preswash then wash on hot and leave it there and just keep restarting the hot wash cycle with no more soap added for the hot rinses. Hope that makes sense.