Ammonia Burns from Cloth Diapers?

I had my first kids in the late 60's and there were no disposable diapers then. I used cloth and with two boys 12 months apart I washed many diapers. I used the same detergent with both boys, soaked the diapers and used very hot water, hung them out to dry on the clothes line in the sun ( if there was any that day ). I had no diaper rash at all with one son and the other had it often but he drank more late at night and so was wet in the night more. As they get older the urine gets stronger and it can cause that to happen. I never heard of 'stripping' diapers. I know my children that used disposable later when they came out never had diaper rash at all. If you are opposed to them I would give more water to drink during the day to make the urine not so strong and limit the drinking at bedtime if this is an older child, not newborn.

Can you get napisan where you are? V good for washing diapers of sensitive bottoms. Also lanolin cream for her bottom could work wonders -the type that is used for cracked/sore nipples when breastfeeding. I have used it on bottoms, hands, nipples and it worked miracles. Our local butcher had terribly chapped sore hands and my mother told him about this - he used it and rang to say the next day his hands were completely better! Good luck.

It's time to strip your diapers! I've heard of people using blue Dawn. You put a healthy squirt (one time around the washer) and wash and rinse on hot until there are no more bubbles, then do a few cold rinses. I would also recommend that you only do about 12 - 15 diapers at a time, but use the max water.

We have a lot of iron in our water and I fight stink problems a lot. I always use Rockin Green Hard Rock 2.0.

My wash routine is
Warm rinse, no detergent
Hot soak with 2 TBSP of RnG hard rock
Wash the diapers on the Heavy cycle (hot wash, cold rinse)
Do another hot Heavy cycle with no detergent.
If there's no bubbles, I do one final cold rinse and spin.
If there's still bubbles, I do a warm cycle.

I prefer to sun my diapers if I can, but if not, I toss them in the dryer with a few tennis balls. It cuts the drying time in half.

If you can't figure out what's going on, I highly suggest you connect Rockin' Green's customer service. They are wonderful and will really work with you to find the product and wash routine that works for you.

Good luck!

Rockin' green, while I loved it, didn't work well with our hard water and softener we have to use to keep the water from looking like iced tea. CHARLIES soap however works perfectly with our super hard and rusty water, and our softening system. www.charliesoap.com

we used it for cloth and for all of our clothes.

I would try a different detergent too. But I use a tablespoon of dawn at every stripping.
What I do is I fill the load with just the cloth, no PUL at all since soaking a lot is not good for them. If you have pockets are AIO do a seperate soak but not as long. Two tablespoons of RNG, a tablespoon of dawn and I temporarily change the setting of the water heater for much higher (then once I'm done I switch it back, and I warn people in the house too) I agitate the soap and water so it mixes and then add the fluff for an overnight soak. Do the same thing for pockets and AIO but for maybe an hour or two.
Start the washer and then rinse 3-4 times or until you can't see anymore soap bubbles.
I've been trying out this new soap from a local maker (local to me) called Nothing but Soap (http://www.scrubnaturally.com) and It's made for extremely hard water (we have it BAD!). If you have bad water, I'd suggest trying it. I used just a small sample on my diapers and they looked/felt brand new!! It was amazing!
I'm also going to be trying Clean B soon too. I am excited for that one. I would play around with soaps and find what best works for you.

**One thing I found that was great for naked time was using just a prefold and a snappi. It let her bum breath like no other, but still gave protection. It worked just fine while my son was going through his last yeast infection/poop galore.**

Strip your diapers with Dawn like Sara B. from Chicago suggested. Then keep washing with HOT water, lots of water, no more bubbles and no soap smell. No soap.

I suggest Lulu's in the fluff, a great detergent. I tried 3 different ones before I settled on this one. http://clothdiapersinc.com/Lulus_in_the_Fluff_38_cat.html sells it, free shipping regardless of how much you spend! They sell a sample... but keep in mind it takes several loads before you see the full effect of a detergent change.

Good luck... this has happened to us, the same situation you have... strip, change to lulu's, and you'll be in good shape! Also, consider how much detergent you are using and how much water per load... not enough water or too much detergent can cause problems too.

Oh, and add a stick of this to your shopping cart: http://clothdiapersinc.com/proddetail.php?prod=CJSTI CJ's rocks... good at maintaining a nice water barrier around the bum! We use it all the time... they have some really nice fragrances for boys and girls. :)

A couple of things to think about:
* Add 1/4 cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle. (I bought a Downy ball and just put the vinegar in there). Ammonia is basic, and vinegar is acidic, so adding vinegar will help neutralize the acid in the urine/ammonia.

* Make sure your baby is drinking lots of fluids--this will dilute the urine, and that will help.

* Our son would pee a lot, it seems, right after he fell asleep. After dealing with this issue for so long, we just ended up switching him to disposables at night only, which pretty much solved the problem.

* if you can get some diapers that can wick them away, like microfleece liners or something, this should help and/or take care of the problem.

Wash in hot with NO detergent or baking soda or vinegar - just water. And wash until there are NO bubbles in the washer, and then wash once more! This was the only thing that got rid of the smell in our diapers.

I would suggest a vinegar rinse for your diapers and and several hours in the sun. I would cover your daughters bottom in a gentle diaper cream (we like California Baby) and leave her in a coverless prefold or flat for as long as you can.

For more ideas on your ammonia issue, I would suggest a trip to the message boards on www.diaperpin.com or www.diaperswappers.com. There are tons of mommas there with the knowledge of all things ammonia.