Ammonia & TTs

freezorburn

I don't know if it's our hard water or something about the fabric that my TTs are made of, but they seem to build up ammonia faster than my Sbish. This morning DS had a light ammonia burn all over his diaper area and was pissed at me when I put cream on him and re-dressed him. Short of doing a hot water strip once a month, any suggestions?

I do a rinse/spin on my ON fitteds in the morning -- it's cool water but it gets lots of agitation. It's a tiny machine so I feel okay putting one diaper in there. Sometimes if I think of it I'll also add the previous day's already-rinsed poopy diapers for a bit more bulk. If I want to use warm or hot water in my machine, I would need to use a longer cycle that uses less water.

My bathroom sinks are only a few inches deep so they aren't really ideal for soaking. I don't really want to soak in our kitchen sink. I could get a dedicated bucket, but I would have to figure out a safe place to keep it while soaking and there's no good place to stash it while it's not in use.

Laundry routine is: warm pre-wash with Calgon, and extra rinse, hot wash with 1/2 scoop Miocare detergent and Calgon, extra rinse, extra rinse.

freezorburn

Wow .... 42 views in 24 hours and no takers. This has got to be a record of some kind!

In my sleepless haze last night I remembered that I've seen collapsible buckets in a store nearby, so I'm going to go today to see if they have any in stock.

And I have hard water, but I'm gonna walk on the wild side and add a dash of vinegar to my soaking water. Will report back if anyone is interested.

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freezorburn

I went back through the GMD booklet to see their recommendations on ammonia. One of the suggestions is to add vinegar to the prewash.

Vinegar gets mentioned in several places and it seems a "sometimes, but not always" helps or makes things worse when it comes to hard water. Depends on your specific water composition, so you have to do trial and error. 

I think I'll try hot water first, and hold off on the vinegar until I see if the hot water makes a difference. Gotta be methodical and change one thing at a time, right?

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YellowLily2013

Can you do a soak in your washer? If so that could be easier than getting a bucket / storing it.

freezorburn

@YellowLily2013 I can't figure out how to do that. I have a FL and it doesn't have a soak function. And it sounds like hot water is key. Only the full cycles on my machine will let me do hot water. It seems silly to run a full cycle on one diaper.

YellowLily2013

I don't have a FL, so no idea how they work. But could you put the diaper in there. Close the door. And then pour hot water through the detergent thing for a soak?? is that even possible?

freezorburn

That's an interesting idea ... now I'm curious. Although the down side to that would be multiple trips to the kitchen to get enough hot water to cover the diaper.

YellowLily2013

Maybe a pitcher would be helpful?

freezorburn

Well, yes. But even with a pitcher I'm guessing it will probably require 4-5 trips. Won't know until I try.

I'm more worried about all the stuff that DS could get up to while I'm busy trying to figure out how to soak a diaper!

welly01

Can you do a bucket on the bathroom counter, on top of the toilet, or in the bathtub?  I know this probably isn't recommended, but could you soak it in the toilet?  We had ammonia 2 days in a row in his ON diapers and I've started soaking them during the day.  Problem solved (for us).

freezorburn

welly01 said:

Can you do a bucket on the bathroom counter, on top of the toilet, or in the bathtub?  I know this probably isn't recommended, but could you soak it in the toilet?  We had ammonia 2 days in a row in his ON diapers and I've started soaking them during the day.  Problem solved (for us).

The real problem is where to stash a bucket while someone needs to use the toilet or the tub, where we won't also be tripping over it. The sink is set into the countertop so that it juts out about 6". The countertop is wood so I try to avoid anything dripping on it. We have no cabinets to speak of. I'm already tripping over DS's step stool and potty as it is. The laundry room is not really an option because it has no sink -- the nearest sink is 30' away in the kitchen. And it just doesn't seem to be a good idea to put a bucket with a soaking diaper on a kitchen counter.

Anyhow, I managed to find that collapsible bucket today. I still don't know where I'm going to store it, but at least now I'm looking to store something the size of a pie plate rather than a whole bucket.

Mandmeesh

I don't soak ON fitteds. I just rinse and gently wring them out in the sink with running water. I bring an extra pf with me, rinse the fitted really well, gently squish out extra water and put directly in the wet bag-no need for extra buckets or anything