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I have my son in bamboo Sandy's overnight (which never leak with the AF cover- I love this combo!) and when I change him in the morning there is an incredibly strong ammonia smell to the extent that my eyes water. A few times he's had a pinky - red rash on his bum that looks like a sunburn. It passes within a few hours. After reading several different forums, I stripped my entire lot with vinegar- about 500ml in a medium sized washer load and left to sit for ~1hr, but it hasn't seemed to work- still the ammonia stink this morning. I'm pretty sure it's something with the diapers and not just really stinky pee but can't be sure. I dry pail and use about 2-3 tablespoons of detergent (various liquid brands) with a hot wash, then hang to dry. Perhaps I just need to strip them a few times? Anyway, thought I'd see what you think. I can handle the smell and watery eyes, but the red bum isn't great.
Thanks for any tips.
HERE'S THE UPDATE- stripped all diapers and liners using four washes in very hot water with nothing added. There were some bubbles but not too many. Then washed the lot with soap nuts and hung dry. DS got a rash again in the morning. Did the whole routine again and added a bit of vinegar to one of the washes and still no resolution. The rash doesn't seem to bother him but the ammonia smell coming off the diapers is astounding! Could this have anything to do with the bamboo fabric as we use bamboo Sandy's overnight. Given that the rash passes in about and hour, I'm debating sticking with the cloth overnight, or using a disposable.
I'm wondering about soaking in a fairly stong vinegar solution might help or anything else that has worked for others. Is it possible it's just his pee that's radioactive? He's not dehydrated and in fact drinks a lot during the day so I don't think it's that.
Anyway, any and all comments are welcome. Thanks. |
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Sounds like classic build-up to me. How often did you wash them after the vinegar soak? Did you check for suds during the final one? Usually stripping involves more than just one vinegar soak, you can start with the vinegar soak but that is followed by at least 2-4 wash cycles in hot with nothing at all (sometimes more if the build-up is really bad). A good indication that you have build-up is suds at the beginning of the stripping and a lackthereof at the end. Preferably check at a point where there's hot water in the machine (cold may not lead to as many suds even if the build-up is still there).
If your problems come back after another round of more intensive stripping maybe consider switching to something like soap nuts. They work really well and leave no residue at all. Best part is that they're pretty frugal (even if ordering online) and eco-friendly too. If needed you can supplement their cleaning power with a sprinkle of washing soda (which should rinse out easily as well) but most don't even need that.
Karen.
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i agree with Karen. i was using the washing soda/simple green with my daughter and she would get a horrible red bottom that looked like a burn. i, too thought it was build up and stripped the diapers, but the problem continued. i switched to soapnuts and have never had a problem!! i highly recommend them! they are great, i make the liquid and use about a 1/4 cup and also only wash 8-10 diapers at a time to make sure they are moving around a bit. like i said ever since i switched i have not had a problem! Andrea
mom to a sweet girl and now a sweet boy! |
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| just bumping to get input |
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hi heather
i am sorry to hear that he's still getting the bad rash! are you still using reg detergent? after my troubles and someone saying that maybe i should go back to disposables i was determined!! i switched to soapnuts and the issue is gone!! when my daughter wakes up in the am her diapers smell strongly of ammonia - i immediately rinse them and wash those as soon as possible. and about once a month or if i notice that ammonia smell in the day time with my son then i soak with vinegar and hot water for a few hours then wash on hot, then on cold and the smell goes away. i believe someone on here mentioned a few places to get soapnuts - here they are again if you want to try it out: www.laundrytee.com and www.maggiespureland.com
i hope this helps and if you'd like to talk further you can email me!Andrea
mom to a sweet girl and now a sweet boy! |
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Try using the cotton overnight & see if you get any difference.
Do you use a barrier creme at night? It might be that his skin just can't take the urine against it that long. You could use cut strips of fleece scrap between the liner & his bum, keeping the moisture away and not allowing the barrier creme to cause repelling issues in his diapers.
You could try boiling your overnight diapers to see if you have hard to get rid of buildup, since it's a nighttime issue mainly.
Poor guy! Do whatever you need to do. Posies at night, cotton, fleece, wool. I guess just experiment until you find out what stops your little man from waking up with a red bum.
Good luck mama! |
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Some ammonia smell in the morning is probably fairly normal, but it shouldn't be that strong, and it shouldn't be causing a rash.
I second the suggestion to use a barrier cream and/or a stay-dry liner like fleece at night, if you're not already.
I also find that rinsing out the night diapers seems to help.
Although I have nothing to support this, my DH has theorized that bamboo might be more prone to buildup problems because of their extra-absorbant nature. That's just his theory, but who knows, can't hurt to try cotton at night if you have it.
My diapers had some nasty buildup last summer after an evil detergent/water combination for a month at my in-laws. I soaked them in about half a jug of vinegar and hot hot hot water (periodically adding another kettle to the top loader, having it agitate for a few minutes, and then leave them to soak while I heated up the kettle again). I'd follow that with several hot cycles (interrupting the machine before it went to cold rinse, and reset it back to start the hot wash over again. I'd think I'd have it, and then a week later they'd be stinking again (this was ammonia even during the day, as well as just plain stinky as soon as they were wet). It was seriously demoralizing, and I've used cloth for years! It took several times through the stripping routine to really get them back to their happy selves. I haven't had to do anything like that before or since, but they'd just gotten to a horrible place and took some serious intervention to make them happy again. So I guess all that to say, soap nuts might be a happy cleaning solution for you, but they might not work magic, since it's very possible that you still have gunk in the diapers. If the situation is liveable, soap nuts are unlikely to make it worse, and the diapers may gradually get de-gunked as they go through more and more hot wash cycles as you continue to use them and wash with soap nuts. That would be the path of least intervention, but I'd speculate that for faster happy diapers you'll want to run them through another stripping round.
Good luck! |
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I have the exact same problem and am bumping this post to ask for more help. I have stripped my dipes countless times, soaked in vinegar overnight and use soapnuts. I also use fleece liners overnight. I took my 6 month old son to the doctor, who prescribed hydrocortisone. I used that for a week (and used disposables), rash went away completely. As soon as I put cloth dipes on again, the rash returned in full force. I was changing his diaper so often too, every time he would get wet. PLEASE HELP! I love cloth diapering and don't want to have to switch to disposables.
Kristen |
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So here's the update, update. It seems that the morning rash is worst once my DS has pooped. I read on another site that the bacteria in the poo feed on the uric acid in the pee and give off ammonia (or at least something like that). In any case, I have found that if I change him right away (and put the laziness aside for a bit), the ammonia smell isn't as bad, and he doesn't have that burnt-lookiing rash. It just means another diaper catches the poo a while later. I'm still using soap nuts and am hoping that over time this will really do the trick.
I can't believe how easy it is to get lazy with the diapers when your kid would be happy to sit in a dirty one for three days!! |
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Yes, I've heard that about poop as well. Poop really is horrible for the skin just in itself though so if he tends to poop really early in the morning and it takes a while before you get to changing it then that could certainly be a big contributor to the rash, if not the entire problem. I know what you mean about kids who just don't care about poopy diapers. My twins were the same exact way. They'd even go so far as fighting me when I wanted to change their poopy diapers!! Sure didn't help motivate me to change them as soon as possible I'll tell ya!
Kristen, I wonder if maybe he had a yeast rash and the yeast is now in the diapers? Have you tried treating the diapers for yeast (ie high heat like steam or boiling water, antifungal agents like tea tree oil or even perhaps the big guns of chlorine bleach)? When you say that you've stripped them, what exactly did you do? Did the problem go away at least for a while after stripping? What detergent do you use? Do you have this problem at night only or during the day as well? Maybe start a new thread with all these details and we can help you figure this out...
Karen. |
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