Vinegar in Hard Water?

[chely7425]

Ok, one more question for the day Someone suggested adding a cold pre-rinse to my diaper wash routine and putting a cup of vinegar in with it to help with ammonia and rinsing clean and all that. Any thoughts on this? Does vinegar work well with hard water? Will it hurt my diapers?

[MayasMama88]

Firstly, you should be doing a cold pre-rinse before every load of cloth diapers. I did not do this for a few months, except when DD pooped which was a HUGE mistake, and I felt so dumb for not doing it every time. Kim, the creator of Rockin' Green laundry detergent (which is awesome for getting the stinkies out of diapers IMO) kindly pointed out that each CD can hold a cup of urine in it. So if you just throw the dipes in the wash without rinsing all the pee out first, your detergent has to work twice as hard to try and cut the pee, and they don't really get that clean.
As for the vinegar, I have had some success with it, but not enough to where I'd swear by it. I started using RnG and I'll do the cold pre-rinse, then a hot water 60 min soak, then continue with a reg hot wash/cold rinse cycle, followed by another cold rinse. This usually does the trick easy!

[Katie T]

I totally agree with the PP. I have very hard water and haven't noticed a difference either way with using vinegar or not using it.

For ammonia smell a soak with soap and hot water and then HOT rinses with no soap will do the trick I can assure you.

[chely7425]

Thanks guys! I will try the cold pre rinse first without the vinegar, only our night time diapers smell but I think I could make it better. We also rinse poop diapers right away and morning diapers if it isn't a wash morning.

[Katie T]

My am diapers always smell like ammonia (even when sposies are worn) it is just that the urine in the diaper starts to break down by morning. It is totally normal.

[chely7425]

I figured it was pretty normal.. but sometimes it is like, really bad!

[Katie T]

Yeah, I understand what you are saying. The hot rinses will help that. I had that problem when I was using microfiber. It was eye stinging!

[chely7425]

Yeah, the MF gets really stinky but my younger son is SUCH a heavy wetter that I have to use some MF so night time diapers to work I pull all my MF out every couple months and bleach it which seems to help

[Katie T]

Yeah I found that to help when I used MF as well. It is just to thick/thirsty it is hard to get all the bacteria out of the middle I think. Glad you found something that helps.