Stinky, Stinky Diapers

[babyready]

Help! Recently, the diaper pail has started to STINK!! I think the problem has occurred because we moved into a new house a few months ago and we now have a water softner. I put a little less soap in, but I am guessing that the soap had built up in the diapers. I need to strip and I have NO IDEA what to do. Can anyone help or lead me to a site with good directions? We use prefolds with the occasional hemp insert in a FB (very occasional because they leak horribly, so only when there is nothing else clean)

Also, those of you with soft water, what time of wash routine do you use? This is what I've done previously (we had pretty hard water at the beginning) Cold wash with no soap, Hot wash with soap, two cold rinses. It was working beautifully before, but now I need some direction.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks so much!!

[mudder17]

Okay, I don't have soft water, but I'm guessing you might have buildup. What you can do is look at the wash during the rinse cycle and if you see a lot of soap bubbles, then yes, you're using too much. What you could do is just run a bunch of hot washes with nothing until the bubbles disappear. Or you could use something like Calgon to help strip away all the detergent. The key is to check the rinse cycle and see if any soap bubbles remain.

I have moderate water and I usually do a cold rinse just to get rid of some of the pee and most of the poop and then I do a hot wash with detergent, 2 cold rinses and a second hot wash with two cold rinses with either nothing, Downy Advantage, or vinegar. You could probably skip the cold wash with no soap and add a hot wash with two cold rinses after the one with detergent.


Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_4_Kaya+is.png
Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[kitmama]

I thought Calgon was a water softener? Am I wrong? I know why it helps people who have hard water, but why would it help in stripping diapers that are in soft water? (Just ignorant, here! I'm still trying to figure out all these different additives that people can use to help diaper laundry).

[mudder17]

It's a very good question, actually. I've actually thought the same thing, but with my moderately soft water (so not soft enough to feel slippery, but not hard enough to form deposits) it always seems to help with the rinsing when I use Calgon.

Okay, so maybe one should use RLR to strip? Or just wash several times with hot cycles, cold rinses? I've actually added some warm rinses to my cycle before if I've added too much detergent because it seems that detergent is more soluble in warmer water. But I don't actually know the rationale for cold rinses. Anyone?

Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_4_Kaya+is.png
Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[trumansmom]

I'm probably the LAST person to offer advice, since I'm constantly posting about too many suds and how to tweak my wash routine! But although I'm still working on trying to find my wash routine, here's what's working so far. For one thing, with soft water, you use virtually no detergent. I do a cold prewash for poop stains without detergent, then a hot wash with a tiny, tiny amount of Sportswash (I don't even fill the bottom of the cap - maybe a teaspoon or less?), with 2 cold rinses. I check for suds, but usually do at least one, if not two more cold rinses.

Lately, I've noticed that even before I put detergent in my washer, the water has started sudsing - ALOT. I've always used ZOUT on poopy dipes, but I think I'm going to stop using it and see if that eliminates some of the sudsing.

Good luck. And let me know if you find the magic solution!

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04
Independent Consultant, Do-Re-Me & You!