Smelly Baby Clothes! Vinegar in My Laundry?!!?

Ever since my 6 yr old was a baby I have used 1 laundry scoop of Borax in addition to Tide w/bleach in every load I wash. He used to have very soft stool everytime and it would leak through his diapers and get on his clothes. The smell always lingered until I started using the Borax. I've never had a smell problem with my laundry since (including my husbands smelly PT clothes!). Now I've never used the vinegar, but I do know you add it to the rinse water, but I don't know how much.

I use Vinegar for everything. It is so cheap and replaces so many expensive products.
I use it in the regular cycle sometimes when we need that extra kick and I use it everyday in various ways.

In the fabric softener dispenser.
In the dishwasher instead of jet dry.
With baking soda in the sinks weekly to keep them clog free.
On the hardwood floors for cleaning.
I use it outside a lot for killing weeds and other uses.

I could go on and on. Here's a site I check often for uses.
http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/homemaking/vinegar.html

Hi Crystal,
Vinegar will help with this. I launder cloth diapers for my little ones, so I've had lots of practice with odors in laundry. My suggestion is putting about 1/4 cup of baking soda in a normal size laundry load and do the vinegar in the downy ball. I would just fill it to the line like you do your softener. This should cover your bases. The baking soda helps smells and even is a natural color safe bleach. The vinegar is a great fabric softener and will balance the ph. If this smell is very stubborn, soak your load in cold water with the baking soda for a while before running the wash. I would add your detergent after soaking. Many times if there is detergent left in fabric, it holds smells. To check for detergent residue, just look to see if there are suds on the last rinse. Good luck!

all I can say beware of what you are mixing many products today are made not from one manufacture and most of them can be toxic to you and your family. margec

Hi Crystal,

The answer to your question is that you add the vinegar at the beginning of the cycle with the soap. Vinegar is also good for some tough stains such as grease. But do put softner to the clothes cause vinegar tends to stiffen it up. Hope its of help to you.

Good luck with your smelly laundry,
G..

Vinegar works great!!! It is also a fabric softener if you have hard water, Yes you can put it in the downy ball (it works better than downy anyway) Also, you can try using BORAX soap with your regular laundry detergent, I have found that works great. I am the laundry queen in my family, so if you have any more questions about that sort of thing, I can help... oh yeah, just so you know, you can use vinegar for just about any kind of cleaning! It's amazing!

Crystal
First off let me say, you are wonderful for donating your milk to preemies. That is such a selfless beautiful gift.
I too have an asthma household and my youngest has allergies.
Regarding your smelly laundry,just be careful on all the things you are using as it can end up irritating babies skin. You mention a musty smell, so make sure your clothes are fully drying through because you are getting this smell repeatedly. Also, you might want to check where you are storing the babies clothes, the smell might be coming from there. The vinegar is added in the beginning of the cycle, with your soap. There are soaps out there that direct themselves at strong odors, try Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent and there is a powdered detergent called Trend, I'm not sure if it comes in liquid. My mom swore by trend for odors and it never failed her. I too have used it for smelly clothes. Always add some downy when using vinegar, it tends to stiffen clothes.

I'm not sure about vinegar but I have heard (and tried) adding baking soda to it...it is supposed to neutralize odors. I added about a cup to a full load at the begining of the wash (i usually sprinkled it over the clothes after I put them in as apposed to putting the detergent then the clothes so it would go turn on then detergent then clothes then baking soda that way it didn't cake up on the bottom)Good luck!

I WOULD THINK YOU COULD JUST AD IT IN THE BEGING OF YOUR WASH LIKE YOU WOULD DO WITH BLEACH

The only advice I can think of is making sure the clothes are dried all the way. I had a friend whose clothes always had a mildewy smell and I realized it was because she would leave the clothes in the dryer and they hadn't dried completely. I don't know about the vinegar situation, but this made me remember that situation. I hope this helps in some way. Maybe it happened once and the mildew is embedded in the clothes...?
-M.

BORAX. Try adding 1/2 cup of Borax "laundry detergent booster" to your loads of laundry, it helps the detergent do it's job much better by opening up the material fibers and allowing the fibers to be properly cleased, that's the way I've come to understand it. It seems to work fine for us! I use it in my cloth diaper laundry... if not for that the "clean" diapers would still have that smell you're talking about!!