[greenlace]

i have 100% organic cotton one size diapers from imse vimse and the wool covers. i use only 1 tblspn trader joes powder detergent in my front loader on the sanitize cycle with a prewash (detergent-free), stain cycle and extra rinse. this is a 2 1/2 hour process.

i do a dry pail, wash every other day, infrequent fruits fed to dd.

so a couple weeks ago, as anoter poster put it, my dd started smelling like a rat cage or as told my dh "the pier at low-tide".

so i thought i should strip the dipes and proceeded to wash them on the sanitize cycle with no detergent 6 times!!! that's 15 hours of being in boiling water.

and they still stink when she pees. not as bad but still stinky. and now my wool covers reek too!

where should i go from here?

sorry for the long post!

 

[amberthesugarcat]

Recently someone who seemed to have done the science research on this topic posted that if you have that smell it is due to bacteria build-up in your dipes (not detergent buildup). Hot water is often not enough to kill these persistant bacteria.

The E.coli and other bacteria found in our baby's feces feeds on the urine present in the dipe, which turns it into ammonia salts which give you that monkey cage ammonia stink. These salts can hang around wash after wash if you are not getting your dipes clean enough (not using enough detergent in many cases) and are reactivated when pee hits them once again. Plus the bacteria still present make more ammonia salts and continue the stink.

So to kill these bacteria you can try boiling/microwaving the heck out of your dipes and see if that works. If it doesn't then I would resort to bleach. Use 1 tbsp (1 capful) / 2 gallons of cold water in your washing machine, mix well, and then throw in the dipes and do a cold wash/cold rinse. Then do a hot wash/warm rinse with your detergent. Then smell. If your dipe passes the night diaper sniff test (smells just like wet pee in the morning rather than a monkey cage) you have killed the bacteria and should be fine until you get stink again. Then do the bleaching again.

If you still have stink try up to 1/2 cup of bleach added to the cold water again before adding dipes.

Small amounts of bleach will not harm your dipes, baby or the environment. The way I figure it I would rather use a bit of bleach every once in a while than have my baby sitting in bacteria, or having to use sposies! I usually use 1-2 capfuls every wash to keep the stink in bay. I use FBs, organic colorgrown PFs, IPFs, CPFs, flannel flats and fitted, and sherpa/velour PFs and everything has held up great. The only problem I have had was adding bleach directly to my bleach cup in my crappy FLer. It does not get diluted well enough as it hits the dipes and my velour all has bleach stains... So that is why I now add it to the FLer and mix it before adding my dipes.

Bleach in small doses is the miracle cure for most cases of diaper stink. Good luck and let us know how you get rid of the smell! There is nothing worse than waking up next to stinky diapers and wool. Believe me, I used to experience that every morning and I was blaming my ds's changing pee. Imagine how stupid I felt when I realized it was bacteria colonies breeding in my dipes! Yuck!!!