Aug 31, 2009

Diaper Stank Happens

Through multiple blogs and online communities, I have heard about this nasty creature that lurks in the shadows waiting for the perfect time to emerge....the horrible, no good diaper stank monster.

Let me tell you from first hand experience - this smell is on par with open sewer smell, a major stink. It seemed to come out of no where. One evening I had changed Logan and was breast feeding him. All of a sudden he peed and the smell of the urine hitting the diaper was unreal. I struggled through the remainder of the feed with the awful smell coming off the diaper. I apprehensively smelled one of the clean diapers in my stash, the smell wasn't strong - but it was there.

I then went to find the diaper cleaning instructions that had come with my Kelly's Closet order, which conveniently comes with directions for stripping diapers. I washed all my diapers with my normal wash settings (cold prewash with no soap, hot wash with 1/4 detergent, two cold rinses). When the cycle was done I added 1/4 cup white vinegar to the dispenser and washed another full cycle (prewash, wash, extra rinse) with no detergent. To my amazement there where still soap bubbles on the gasket of the washer, I had only noticed this once before and thought it was a fluke. So I ran a quick wash again with no detergent. There were no more bubbles but the diapers still had a light scent (and not a good one).

So I got to thinking. Why would there be soap bubbles after several washes? Ding Ding Ding...my cloth wipes! I have been washing my wipes with the diapers, and I have been using a very dilute solution of baby wash. Apparently, the extremely small amount of soap on the wipes was enough to mess up my diapers. I have switched to wiping him with only water, which actually works fine - even for poops. I'm stripping the diapers again right now so I can hopefully eliminate the stink for good. The wash I'm running right now is 1 Tbsp Baking Soda in the prewash, 1/4 detergent in wash, 1/4 cup white vinegar in rinse, extra rinse with nothing. I'll check for soap bubbles and smells when it is done and run additional hot washes with no detergent until there are no bubbles (and hopefully no smell!)

So for your cloth wipes - water alone is your best bet for your cloth wipes solution- unless you are going to wash them separately from your diapers!

1 comment:

Whitastic said...

This is great info. I hadn't thought about washing them together after using a wipe solution which includes soap. Thanks for pointing this out but I'm sorry you had to go through diaper stank!