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Well, I'm back again. Seems like one challenge after another here. So I seem to have solved the leakage problem, but now my dd has blisters in the morning and her diapers reek! I called the local CD store and they said to start by switching detergent and they don't recommend stripping - because they always tell people to start with Allen's detergent which they claim guarantees no build up. But here's my question - if I have a build up problem, which it seems pretty clear to me that I do - don't I need to strip before I switch detergents? I understand that Allen's (or almost anything other than what I am using - oooops) would be better, but it seems like I still need to get rid of whatever is causing these burns on my daughter. We have a front loader, so I'm not totally sure how to do the stripping, but I want to master cd before the next baby comes in August - and before my inlaws come next week and chew me out for switching and hurting my daughter!! Thanks in advance,
Laura |
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you can throw your diapers in the washing machine (clean diapers  and set your machine to the highest heat/water settings that you have and then watch to see if bubbles appear (don't add detergent). If you have lots of bubbles then you definitely have a buildup issue. You can also throw in a few cups of vinegar and that sometimes helps break up any detergent/mineral buildup on your diapers. Keep repeating this until few to no bubbles are visible.
If it were me (and I have had to strip my diapers before ... Lanolin works great to help heal a sore bottom but too much and it pretty much waterproofs your diapers...I know .. Duh! I would strip the diapers before starting a new detergent ... anything to heal up your DD's poor bottom. If it were mild buildup that just caused a bit of odor but no skin issues then you could probably make the switch and let the old detergent just wash out of the diapers. That is just my opinion though.
Hope that helps! There is a bit of a learning curve with cloth but you will get the hang of it! |
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Will I see bubbles if I have a front loader? I've never stood and looked for bubbles before, but I also have never seen them before, so I just wonder. I put her in disposables today and looked on pinstripesandpolkadots.com to see what they say. We have very hard water, and the detergent I was using is considered pretty bad for CD (oooops!) so I had my husband buy calgon to strip the mineral buildup and All Free and Clear to wash. I'll do the hot water wash and look for bubbles - I've heard in front loaders you might not see any, so now I am curious. Thanks for your help - we'll see how this goes.
Laura |
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I use charlie's Soap. I HIGHLY recommend it. We use it on ALL our clothes, cloth diapers everything.
www.charliesoap.com |
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well dont feel bad. a year on from switching to cd and my father still complains about it. i called him to get some suggestions on a rash that my son had a few weeks ago and naturally, the first thing that he blamed the rash on were the cloth diapers. no, it was not the diaper itself that caused the rash, it was the stealth poop that my son did and dh and i did not know that he had done a doody until we got him ready for his bath. but as far as the amonia smell is concerned, perhaps it is build up, or perhaps it is just normal toddler pee. i wash my dipes in soap nuts so there is no build up in them at all, but this morning, his diaper absolutely wreeked of amonia. i think it is just the urine, after all, toddler urine is extremely concentrated and strong in the morning time. try hydrating her well and giving her plenty to drink the night before and see if that fixes the saverity of the odor and burns in the morning. make sure to put a diaper doubler in at bedtime to avoid any morning leaks when you do this method.
my father does not like that we switched to cloth simply due to the fact that he thinks that it is unhygenic to diaper with cloth and to clean the baby with a damp cloth wipe. not many people use cloth today even though it is finally making a comeback. cloth is more convenient for my dh and i because we are both visually impaired (i have no vision at all and he has about half of his vision, yet not enough to drive) and we cannot afford to buy diapers every week because we are on a fixed income and saving up to move after our lease is up in september, nor can we afford to take the bus out to walmart every week. walmart is a 5 minute drive by car, but on the public bus, it takes an hour and a half to get there because of all of the stops and the transfer from one bus to another on the way there, and yet again, 2 more transfers on the way home. so a 15 minute trip just to by disposables and wipes, turns into a 3-5 hour trip. pretty inconvenient in my opinion lol. |
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Stripping is a good idea in my opinion. It certainly can't hurt anything and can only help... I suppose it's not strictly necessary if you start using a 'perfect' (is there such a thing???) detergent and just let the build-up wash out gradually but in the meantime you'll still have the same issues... You can try adding water through the detergent dispenser, this will help in stripping and may aid in seeing suds. Because it's true that sometimes there's no suds at all in HE machines, I figure in part because HE detergents are low sudsing and in part because they use so little water (suds form on water so if there's no 'puddle' in the machine at all then there's nowhere for suds to form).
What detergent were you using before and how much? Is it possible you were using too little detergent? Especially if you were aware that your detergent wasn't the best choice, it wouldn't be unheard of to use a very small amount in an effort to avoid build-up. Perhaps you could use more and just rinse more or add more water to the washer? Two short cycles would be better than one long one in terms of rinsing out detergent (especially if the second cycle is hot or at least warm). Adding hot water to the wash and/or rinse cycle could also be helpful. Some also put their detergent in the pre-rinse to help give it more chance to rinse out better. That way it has a chance to kind of do it's thing on the diapers but it's got more chances to rinse out of the diapers before drying. Some have even suggested that using a warm or hot pre-rinse would be even more helpful (though if you're big on preventing stains this might not be the best thing to do).
I don't really believe there is such a thing as a 'perfect' detergent that's guaranteed to work for everyone all the time (those charts can be helpful but they're not the be all and end all of chosing a detergent). I've spent too much time on forums like this one (some much bigger and more active) and have seen too often where people have issues with supposedly 'cd-safe' detergents and others have great success with supposedly 'horrible' detergents. I've seen people using way too much detergent and others using way too little, both can cause problems.
For smells in the morning, I think a light smell may be normal with toddlers but nothing that really reeks of ammonia (like burn your eyes and irritate your nose kind of smell). My 4 (almost 5) year old twins wear bedwetter pants at night and their 'fresh' diapers never smell at all now. They will smell horribly in the pail after a few days but when they're fresh off their bums they only smell very lightly of urine (and even that is only if I get my nose really close to the diaper). In the past I had issues with really horrible ammonia smells and what may have been ammonia burns (really bad blisters in the morning). I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps I wasn't getting my diapers clean enough, I'm still really not sure. I solved the problem with either using bleach or soap nuts with washing soda (and a sanitary cycle on my new machine - didn't do this on my old machine though). It thought it was a really bad sensitivity to detergent build-up on their part but that wouldn't explain why using bleach always solved the problem. After some posts on another board I'm doing an experiment using the full recomended amount of Tide on my diapers. We'll see what happens, so far it's working fine but it's only been a couple washes so it's probably too early to tell.
Sorry, hope I haven't confused you further. Maybe if you give us morre specifics on your wash routine (how much of which exact detergent, wet vs dry pail, do you pre-rinse the diapers, how often do you wash, do you do an additional rinse etc...).
Karen. |
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Karen, thank you so much for your response. Here's the low-down on my diaper story.
I bought them all used (except for 2) on this forum. I was using Melaleuca HE fragrance free detergent at half the amount I use for our clothes and washing hot/cold rinse every 2-3 days. Whenever I washed I did a pre-wash and extra rinse and always put the soap in the regular soap place on my front loader. Only just recently learned the wet towel trick, though when I had diapers soaking in a bucket I would pout out the water from the bucket if it was really gross but dump the sopping wet diapers in the washer.
Yesterday I took the diapers that were in the dry pail and washed them once with All free and clear using a pre wash and extra rinse. Last night I turned up the heat on the water heater and did a pre wash, extra rinse, hot wash/cold rinse with 1/4 cup Calgon powder. Then I did 2 rinse and spin cycles with hot/cold water. THose diapers hung on the line most of the day.
Then I took all of the diapers in the house and did a prewash/extra rinse, hot water/cold rinse cycle with the 1/4 cup calgon in it, then I did an 2 extra rinse and spin cycles using teh super hot water for the other 2 or 3 loads of diapers I had. In all of these loads I added a dripping wet bath towel to teh machine to add the extra water. All of the diapers are now either dry or are still on the line. I've had in her disposables while I do all of this to clear up her blisters, which seem to be gone though the skin is still red. She likes having the disposables back! (oh no!!!).
My plan forward, assuming that the stripping has worked (I understand it is not an exact science), is to wash for now with the All Free and Clear and strip every month or so with the Calgon, since we do have very hard water. I may go to the cd store about an hour from here to buy some Allen's soap, but I'm not sure yet. SOmeone else has suggested Charlies. Pinstripesandpolkadots.com indicates that All F&C is as good for CD as Allen's is, and right now I have the All, so I'll use that.
I did wonder today if all the rinsing in my hard water is doing any good, if part of the problem is the hard water to begin with.
I put her in a disposable tonight since the diapers were still on the line at bedtime and she is still red, though the blisters have gone. It breaks my heart to see her with blisters on that tender skin! I'm hoping the washing and rinsing I did today helped. It seems like I needed to wash out both detergent build up and hard water build up. My understanding is that the Calgon and the extra rinses should have done that, so I am hopeful. I now have dry, stripped, diapers so tomorrow we'll go back to cloth. The blisters only show up in the morning, so we'll see. If you have any other suggestions, or if you think I missed a step or did something wrong, please let me know! I want to figure this out as much as I can before baby #5 arrives later this summer. Thanks again for all of your help.
Laura |
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| wow, your daughter likes having the disposables back? lol my son is the opposite. whenever i come near him with a disposable if i really need one, he screams and runs off, he can walk now for those of you who dont know. he has actually always hated disposables. when he was a newborn and i had him in pampers, he would cry at the top of his lungs and kick and push the diaper away because they would make him and i cough because of the strong scent in them and he always had a horrible rash from them. not blisters or anything, but his skin was always fevered and full of dry patches in his diaper area. to be honest, i dont blame him for rejecting disposables. disposables in general really heat up things in that area. those diapers that were entirely covered in plastic and that closed with sticky tape must have been even worse for the little ones.. |
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If the problem is the hard water then the Calgon should indeed help. You may well have to use it every so often or some even find that they need it in every load. We have very hard water and the best investment we made when we built was to get a water softener!! Worth every penny!
If you feel the need you can also add a lot more water by just pouring it right through the detergent dispenser once the cycle has started. The times I've done this I've just filled an old empty detergent bottle with hot water at the laundry sink and then poured it right in the dispenser. You can add as much water as you want that way, just make sure it's after the cycle has started. If you do it before it starts then it'll probably just empty out the excess water before starting the cycle.
Hopefully you've solved the problem with stripping but if it ever presents itself again I would explore using Calgon more often, adding more water, switching detergents or using less detergent. Using less detergent can greatly help reduce build-up but be careful you don't go too far and use too little (using too little can also cause issues).
Karen. |
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Thanks everyone! I'm watching her closely, and smelling the diapers as they get changed, and so far, so good. I never thought about adding more water through the detergent dispenser, but I'll keep that in mind for future washes. That would probably help too, and certainly wouldn't hurt. I find myself wondering if I could get a top loader through freecycle - my husband would think I've lost my mind! Hopefully we've got this solved now. THanks again,
Laura |
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| Honeslty Rockin green is amazing...it solved all my diapering dillemas!!! Look them up on the internet...and doing a soak with 3 tbsps in your washer or bathtub overnight will get everything thats builtup out of your dipes! Its amazing!!!! Try it and Im sure you'll love it! |
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| I just ordered a sample of the hard rock. After you soak with it, do you still wash with detergent or do you wash with rockin green or do you just rinse? I've been rinsing, washing, then rinsing 3 times. I don't mind it, necessarily, though it does seem to take up all day. But the ammonia seems less than it was. Still reeks sometimes though. |
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| I soak overnight usually (you don't need to soak everytime) I start with a cold rinse cycle, then add hot water and soak with 3 tbsp rockin gree, then run the load, then run another rinse cycle. Dipes should be ammonia free...sometime it may take one more wash or an extra rinse cycle depending on how nad the dipes are. Then I use that exclusively for every wash. Only adding 2 tbsp with a normal wash. I still do the rinse cycle cold water, then do a hot wash cycle, you don't need a rinse after that but can if you want...it won't hurt. Good luck...Im sure your gonna love it! and alot of ppl soak in the bathtub..it works great. As well, if you have a large stash don't overfill soak...split it and you'll get a better result. Hope that helps! |
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Okay, so I ordered a sample of Hard Rock and a sample of Allen's. I used the Hard Rock - soaking the dipes in the laundry sink with 3Tbsp Hard Rock for about 2 hrs. ThenI rinsed, rinsed, rinsed, but never washed with soap again per package instructions. DD still got small blisters. So this time I rinsed with water in laundry sink, then soaked in hot water w/hard rock overnight but I could still smell ammonia in the water. So I rinsed in sink again, washed with Allen's and rinsed 4 times before the suds in the sink were minimal - but still not gone. I was told Allen's is guaranteed not to build up - yet it took so many rinses to get down to minimal bubbles in the sink as the rinse cycle went through. And teh video for Hard Rock shows clear water after putting the soap in and the package says if you soak in it you don't need to wash in it. At this point I feel stuck. Do I put DD in disposables overnight so she doesn't get the blisters? Spending all day rinsing diapers and checking the rinse water for suds feels like a bit much. Is using CD with a front loader going to always be this hard?! I'm not sure what I am missing, but I need to figure this out fairly soon. The next baby is due in 6 weeks! Thanks for all your help.
Laura |
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| wow...I hate to say this but are you using ME OS? I only ask because while I loved the diapers and they were the most absorent...because of the material the pee is right against babies skin and I found my little girl got burns and so forth from them. When I switched to pocket diapers that had the fleece like barrier with the soaker pad underneath and not right on babies skin, I have had no problems. I love ME but maybe that is the problem your having because the moisture is right against the skin? Just a thought....not sure if Im right but its a possiblity....the Rockin Green should have taken care of the ammonia....how many did you soak in one load? If you put too many dipes in the load it won't work as well...I had to divide my stash to get an effective soak. Good luck...I know this can be frustrating! |
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I don't know, I've never heard of babies getting burns just from contact with a wet diaper, that just doesn't seem plausible. Prolonged contact with urine may cause irritation and diaper rash but it won't burn the skin or cause blisters. That's just not normal and is almost definetly an indication of an problem like detergent or bacteria build-up.
Have you tried upping the amount of detergent (possibly along with additional water and/or regular use of Calgon)? The Calgon and additional water would definetly help regardless of the detergent you're using.
Your problem sounds a lot like what I went through with my twins. Daytime diapers they were fine, no problems at all. Nighttime was fine till about 18 months and then the blisters started. No irritations, no redness, nothing except these horrible blisters. I tried additional rinses (whole additional cycles often), different detergents, soap nuts, soap nuts with washing soda and even bleach. If I used regular detergent it seemed to work only if I rinsed the heck out of them (we're talking 2-3 cycles every single wash!!). So I figured they were just really sensitive to any minute amount of detergent residue. But then the soap nuts alone didn't really work either (the diapers smelled cleaned and it worked great on clothing but they still got the blisters). So that rather confused me as there was no way that detergent build-up was causing that problem. Figured maybe they weren't getting a deep enough clean and that maybe the girls were super sensitive to the least trace of bacteria as well as detergent. Tried bleach and that worked well. But I didn't want to continue that... Tried soap nuts with a little washing soda and a sanitary cycle, sometimes followed by another hot cycle (and almost always adding water to the wash and/or rinse). Again that worked but it was long and used a lot of water (though I figured it was still probably less than in my top loader so I convinced myself it was ok).
Now I've been doing a lot of reading on another forum from people who are convinced that detergent build-up is a total myth and that people are using way too little detergent. That 'our' problems are due to bacteria in the diapers and not detergent build-up. While I don't agree that detergent build-up is a myth, I am starting to wonder if bacteria build-up doesn't explain the problems I had. Only things that worked were things that would really kill bacteria (sanitary cycles, bleach, tons of hot water 'rinses').
Anyway, all that to say that I've been experimenting with the full recomended amount of regular powder HE Tide for a few weeks now and I have to admit it's working well so far. I chose regular powder Tide because many swear by Tide (it is a pretty strong detergent after all), many swear that powder rinses out better than liquid (something about the fats they use to make the liquid or something, not sure). And finally I didn't pick the Tide Free because I have heard that many 'free' detergents have anti-pollen type ingredients that are helpful to people with allergies but could cause irritations to baby's skin. So far no blisters or rashes at all. Also no ammonia smells whatsoever in the morning. The diapers only start smelling a little of ammonia after about 2-3 days in the pail. I'm trying not to obsess about suds in the wash but I do add additional water to every load - just to be sure I don't get problems from a lack of water as opposed to a problem truly caused by the detergent.
Anyway, take from this what works for you. If you're really getting fed up with the blisters at night then don't feel bad about using some disposables temporarily at least. I certainly did this a lot when I was dealing with the problems... You can always just forget about cloth for nighttime for now, give your dd's skin a chance to heal really well and yourself a chance to just relax a bit. After that you can try any of the above suggestions in a more relaxed manner. For now I think it's more important to just be happy and relaxed with your diapers rather than get so frustrated that you end up quitting altogether. I know you haven't said that but combining your current problems with pregnancy stress/fatigue and then a new baby in just a few weeks, it would certainly be enough to send more than a few over the edge!
If you're concerned about chemicals and such you can always search out the slightly more natural diapers like 7th Generation. Or you could even consider the hybrid/flushable diapers like G's or Flips. You wouldn't even necessarily have to buy the special covers or anything. You can use them in any velcro cover you already have or even in many pocket diapers (laid on top using the shell like a cover, the fleece will keep the insert in place just fine). You could even put the flushable insert inside a cloth diaper/cover. I did that for a while and it worked well. It was much greener since there was no plastic in the insert and I could then compost it. Plus the cloth and cover made it totally bullet-proof when it came to leaks (unlike many disposables that just leaked like mad!). And because the disposable insert was doing most of the absorbing there weren't any ammonia problems! You can often find the Gs insert in local health food stores so you wouldn't have to go through the trouble/expense of ordering online.
HTH,
Karen. |
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| I hope your troubles improve soon. I feel like I can relate...I have been unhappy with how my diapers are for some weeks now too! The diapers are more stinky than what they used to be and my toddler has a couple little open spots (not the first time). Luckily they are healing up, but I'm afraid it could easily happen again. I have gone through a number of strippings, adding extra water to my front loader for rinses, using less detergent, tried more detergent (and then rinsing well), different detergents...I don't think I have a diaper routine anymore Anyways I found this (http://www.bummis.com/us/en/detergent-residue.php) and it felt helpful to read how they lay out the difference between detergent build up and urine residue...I'm still not sure which I have, but getting enough water for rinses and washing seems to be the key (too bad I can't adjust it on my machine...they talk about a wet towel trick, but I haven't tried that...yet...I've only been adding water through the detergent drawer as I think Karen mentioned somewhere). Good luck! I hope I can figure it all out too...we have a 4 month old and will be having diapers around for some time to come...I want them to be happy/bum friendly diapers! |
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I have some fleece liners - would adding them in really help?
For now, she is in disposables at night.
I'm debating taking the Allen's back to the store where I bought it - maybe Tide would work? Feels a bit like I'll have my own personal store of laundry detergents soon! Not really what I want though.
I did my last load of diapers yesterday. Soaked them overnight in the last of the Hard Rock, then soaked them in a sink of hot water for about 2 hours. Washed them with Allen's in hot water. Did 3 rinse and spins, 2 with extra rinse, all in cold water. Put them out on the line last evening and left them out all day (it was a nice warm, sunny Michigan day!) then tossed them in for 10 min on air dry to soften them up. Haven't used them yet - we'll see. It almost feels like I need to copy out the routine I did and attach it to the laundry basket I put them in so I know if that routine worked or not! HA!! Don't have that much time.
As I said, for now, she's in disposables at night. It seems like the pocket diapers would be harder to clean, which is why I chose MEOS. Hopefully the latest round of washing worked - but that is still more time than I want to spend washing diapers every 2-3 days.
Laura |
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If the problem is skin irritation from prolonged contact with wetness then yes the fleece liners should help. But I just can't see wetness irritation causing blisters... If the problem is bacteria or detergent build-up then the fleece liners won't do much (might help her skin heal as it'll keep her dryer). In fact, polyester is typically more difficult to keep clean so it could make things worse in theory (in reality I don't think it would make that big a difference but just thought I'd mention it).
I know what you mean about feeling like you need to write things down. I experimented so much that's how I felt too. Like I needed to write it down so I'd remember precisely what helped or didn't. I also never did find the time to get around to that. ;-)
Karen. |
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