RetiredRN wrote:
I have gone to cloth diapers during the day. I have noticed that an odder can happen, before I need to change. I did not notice an odder when I used disposable diapers. My question is: Any one know of something I can treat a cloth diaper with that will prevent an unpleasant odder?
There are several factors that will make your cloth diapers smell one is if you are using too much soap. Another is not enough soap. If you have well water and you have "hard" water, this will effect how well the soap is used. You have a free options here, one you can try not to was has many at one time. This will make it easier for the machine to clean them and to rinse. Another option is to add an extra rinse cycle. I choose to do both and it takes me over a year to start noticing the build up smell.
As for the vinegar I add about a cup or two to my tub that I keep my wet diapers in till I have a load to wash. What was explained to me was that smell of ammonia comes from a build up of urea in the cloth. You see, ammonia is toxic to the body so the body will change the ammonia to a similar chemical called urea. Once it leaves the body it converts to ammonia but when it does this it crystallizes. Those crystals are what gets stuck in the fabric and causes the ammonia smell. The vinegar breaks down the crystals making it easier to get clean.
Now if you have a skunk type smell, that is normally caused but too much soap being left in the fabric. Again that's an easy fix with less soap or more rinse. The issue you will have right now is getting g what's in there out. This is when you need to strip them. From my experience the key to stripping cloth is lots of hot water. The easiest thing I have found is to reverse the water lines on my washer so cold is hot and hot is cold. Then I set the machine to do cold wash and cold rinse and it will do hot for all of it. I may do 2 or 3 runs of this with a bleach wash for the first one.
Go online and Google how to strip cloth diapers. You will find about a dozen ways to do it. Pick one that will work for you and your machine.
Good luck
Rope