I'm fairly new to cloth diapering but I have found that this method of washing has gotton the smell out of all my diapers.
soak your diapers overnight in cold with detergent and a 1/2 cup of baking soda. I usually agitate the load a little bit before I leave it to soak.
Then in the morning I do a prewash with the water from the night before. Then I do a regular wash with Hot and 1/2 as much soap (I use a detergent that I found on the website cottonbabies.com. They have a list that contains tons of detergents that work for cloth diapers and gives them ratings, It's awesome.)with a second rinse that has a 1/2 cup of vinegar. The baking soda helps with the smell and stains and using baking soda and vinegar together balances out the ph of the diapers so your baby doesn't get diaper rash. Like I said this has worked well for me but I don't have fuzzy bunz. I do mostly prefolds, AIO's and Bum Genius. Good Luck!
Hi
Here's my method and it seems to work(except with one A-I-O that I'm tempted to pitch because it takes 2x as long to dry as well:kushies=bad news)
I remove solids (if it's messy I don the gloves and rinse it out in the toilet) keep in diaper pail no longer than 3 days, use a cold rinse cycle and then wash on Hot with (I think this is the trick) 1/2 cup BORAX and some detergent(non-scented). I generally buy it at Target 1,000 mule? /mile? team Borax.
Hope this helps
Hello... This may sound crazy... but trust me it works. Put your diapers in the dishwasher and run them through (of course after you wash them as normal). Half way through the dishwasher cycle... open it up and hopefully you will see tons and tons of bubbles! That will help strip the diapers.
Vinegar I have been told has a negative effect if you have hot water. Try using Calgon in your rinse cycle. Tea Tree oil works too.
Besides the dishwasher... the only other way is to boil them and then run through a few loads without any detergent.
Cloth diapers tend to get detergent build up especially with hard water. I would use half the detergent that you normally use for regular wash loads.
Good luck! Trust me on the dishwasher stripping.. it's fun!
Courtney
Try washing them with a baking soda, vinegar mixture. Baking soda is a natural deodorizer and usually a great helper to vinegar.
I've had this same problem, I've cloth diapered four babies over the last 18 years, and I'm still cloth diapering number four, lol. Try adding a half cup of baking soda to the main wash. If that doesn't work, add about a half teaspoon of tea tree oil along with the baking soda. What's always worked for me over the years has been a cold rinse, then a hot wash, followed by two cold rinses. I also use a half cup of vinegar in the first rinse cycle (after the wash cycle). I've had stink-free diapers for the past 18 years!
I resorted to clorox, but I don't recommend it because
1. it didn't seem to wash out completely (even with 2 rinses) and I think contributed to diaper rash.
2. it broke down the cotton cloth so it wasn't as absorbent, and diapers began to leak.
I stopped using cloth for awhile, but now my baby (of 3) is nearly ready for undies, and I broke into the box of diapers in the closet yesterday when we ran clear out of disposables. He likes them because he thinks they are like undies! This time I am trying a new method:
soaking in a bucket of 1 C vinegar and water until wash day.
I'm going to skip the bleach! And read what other advise you've garnered... good luck!
Hi, i'm a mom of three who works at home and the product i swear by, is called odor handler. It's a multi-purpose cleaner/deodorizer you can use for everything!! You can order from the company senproco in sioux falls or pick it up at mini-critters pet village. (it's also used for skunk smells in dogs! You're laughing aren't you. Trust me, it works. I used cloth diapers for my first-born. This product is enviromentally friendly and it will also help you save water. Good luck
jesse
Have you tried Oxy Clean? I use that for everything! If you use it on the diapers you will need to rinse twice though, it is hard on their skin if not rinsed thoroughly. I also use Odo Ban to freshen things up, it has a very clean fresh scent and covers bad odors very well.
I didn't read all the responses so I'm sorry if someone already suggested this. Also, I don't know what Fuzzi Bunz are, so this might not be appropriate for them. I used the plain old cloth with all 4 of ours. After rinsing out solids, I soaked them in a diaper pail full of water with approximately 1/2 cup bleach, 1/2 cup white vinegar, & a generour sprinkling of baking soda until laundry day (washed 1-2/week). I only ran them through 1 cycle in the washer, in hot water with 1 cup bleach for a full load. They always smelled fresh & stayed white. Didn't seem to break down the cloth too fast; many of them lasted for 2-3 of the kids.
So did Fuzzi Bunz say Borax was okay or not?
what I found worked best and didn't require a second wash was to keep a pail of baking soda water available and they would get put in to soak as soon they came off the body. then after they soaked awhile I would wash using 1 cup clorox bleach and regular detergent. I also did one extra rinse just because I am anal to be sure all the bleach is out so it doesnt irritate the skin. Use about 1 to 1 1/2 cup baking soda to about 3 gallons water for soaking. I love baking soda, havent found a smell yet it couldnt get rid of!!
Stink means build up. Coincidentally, both of the detergents you're using are notorious for causing build-up. Charlie's Soap is a soap, not a detergent, and has long-term build up issues associated with it, and Tide Free has a number of components known to build up on fabric over time. Strip with a tiny bit of blue Dawn and run hot rinses til the bubbles are gone, and then switch permanently to a residue free detergent (I recommend Country Save or Allen's Naturally - they're both relatively easy to find, as far as cloth-safe detergents go, and they both perform well on other laundry, too).
If your water is slightly hard (most water is at least a little bit hard), adding some baking soda or borax to the wash cycle may help, too. Good luck!
Wow, thanks for all of your responses. It’s great to know so many people out there are having success with cloth diapering. Well, I now have a number of solutions to try out, and one of them is bound to work! A lot of people suggested borax, so I’m checking with the makers of Fuzzi Bunz to see if borax is okay to use on this type of diaper.
UPDATE: Fuzzi Bunz never did directly respond to my question about Borax, just sent me instructions on how to get the smell out. I can’t remember all of it but Oxiclean was involved. Also multiple washings and dryings. So I’m assuming you are not supposed to use Borax but I am not sure if it would actually be harmful. Their suggestions did help get the diapers back to a more normal smell.