Wash Routine Q's :0)

[katmaejaded]

I do a cold rinse (about 12-15 diapers) with my washer set on large load, I add 1/2 cup of vinegar.
I then do a warm wash/cold rinse with planet/oxy(2 Tbsp each) and some vinegar in a downy ball.
I then run a second wash on warm with nothing. After that I bury my nose in the liner/diaper and if I smell anything i do a hot wash/cold rinse which usually gets rid of any remaining stink.

I've also heard that lemon juice works if the vinegar doesn't.

[JAG's baby mama]

I voted Other. You need to strip your dipes ASAP.

We usually wash every 2-3 days and the wash is full, a complete load. So there must be 30 or more dipes, wipes, and covers in there all at once.

I don't have a volume setting for the water. My machine adds the amount of water based on the weight of the laundry (I have a front loader) so I have no control over that though the water volume is fine to me.

I had this issue in January and it was just a mess. DS was getting rashes on top of rashes. My poor baby was constantly irritated by dipe changes. I wiped of his feces, washed his bum with a hot towel and his soap, then I used pure aloe vera gel on his bum to clear up the rashes (with each dipe change even urine only ones, just until the rashes went away). It worked well and it did not mess up the dipes.

As for the dipes, I got rid of all but a small handful of AIOs. I think they were just too difficult to keep completely clean. This just worked for me. You don't have to do that if you don't want to.

Then I attacked my pockets. Yeah they smelled horribly after being washed plus they had odd colors starting to cover them. So I took half my FB's with the worst staining and I stripped them. For me that means, I did a normal wash followed by 5 hot water only washes. Out of that about 4 of the FBs still were not clean. I had to bleach those (I brushed on a bleach/water solution on the inside) and then I did the 5 hot water washes again. Our hot water is set to 140 degrees; be sure to check your setting at your water heater or on your washer. That did the trick. Those dipes are almost perfectly clean and white with no stains and no stink. I HATE putting bleach in my septic system, but truly nothing else worked for those really bad ones.

Then I took the other half of the pockets and did the same.

BTW: only DH and the DCP uses those pockets. I only use organic cotton fitteds/dipes with wool inserts and DS would always do well in these so I knew something was wrong with the way the pockets were getting cleaned (DH generally washes these). So I changed the way he washes his dipe loads so that we don't have this issue again.

This is our current wash cycle (non-stripping washes):

1.) cold wash, detergent (Biokleen; we have hard water; this has just worked well for us), Calgon (cold water version of Borax), and Anti-Icky Poo (enzyme cleaner) in the bleach section. Extra rinse.

2.) Hot water wash only (no detergents, nothing)

3.) repeat step two

I have yet to have an issue though it took us 9-10 months to get the pockets at such a point that they had this issue in the first place that I can't tell you how long we'll go before we need to strip again.

Good luck!

[RNmama3]

I have a super capacity top loader. I tend to wash 20+ dipes at a time.
I am still experimenting with wash routine, but so far the simplest has worked best for us.

[nikihejl2010]

What I do and I dont get stink issues is I use a little more detergent and then do an extra rinse so instead of like a 1/2 cup detergent with a large diaper load I do 3/4 and then rinse it twice
Cold soak for 15 min hot wash cold rinse then another cold rinse
Hope you find a solution

[JAG's baby mama]

Originally Posted by katmaejaded After that I bury my nose in the liner/diaper and if I smell anything i do a hot wash/cold rinse which usually gets rid of any remaining stink. I've also heard that lemon juice works if the vinegar doesn't.

Ditto. Every single wash, I just randomly pick a dipe, especially if I see staining, and I just smell it once it is dry. If it smells at all, it gets set aside for extra treatment and I then smell every single other dipe. If I smell nothing, the whole load is approved for usage.

I think there is something to the lemon juice idea . We never had this problem before I stopped hanging my dipes to dry outside (because of winter). At that time, every single dipe got a brush of lemon juice and was hung up to dry. I will be interested in seeing if we can avoid this problem again all spring and summer.

[Punkin]

Originally Posted by MommaToBubandCJ Vinegar works for me. Here's my routine: cold wash with vinegar (I put it in a Downy ball and fill to the medium line) hot wash with Rockin' Green extra rinse Since I've added the vinegar to the routine, the ammonia stink is gone. I know vinegar isn't recommended b/c it's harder on the elastic, but I'd rather have diapers with no stink and no rash issues than to have the elastic last a little longer.

I use Country Save in my hard water. Is Rockin' Green suppossed to be even better in hard water conditions?

[lunamoth]

READ THIS THREAD:
http://www.diaperswappers.com/forum/...d.php?t=289806

[lemonade81]

try baking soda in the initial wash...it will help with the stink. it might be the detergent you are using that is causing the rash when kept on over night. try double rinsing after a load to make sure it is all out.

[Saebbe]

I've honestly tried everything and what works for me is Cold rinse/spin (no wash) with a few shakes of baking soda. Hot/Heavy wash with 1/2 scoop Tide/Gain (little more than the 1 line) Cold rinse/spin with 1 cup white vinegar or 2 tbsp unfiltered apple cider vinegar. I peek at the agitate with the vinegar and if there's bubbles (foamy not just regular hard water bubbles) I rinse once more.

[JessG]

As many as are dirty (between 20-30) in a front loader which has no water level, so I put in 2-3 buckets of extra water.