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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Bride2bMO
member
CDers, when to give up?
Bride2bMO
member
On iPhone, no paragraph breaks possible, sorry. Le sigh. Effing frontloader. After round 1 of failed stripping (which involved up to 20 washes or rinses), the ammonia stink was still apparent in first wet diaper. I've now had a load of diapers in the washer since Sat. am, starting with RLR and starting a new hot wash or rinse literally everytime I pass the washer. There are STILL bubbles. Gah!! I need my washer back. And this is only half of the stash. And I was always so conservative with detergent...used 1/3 T or less of Nellies, which was clearly not enough as they still sometimes smelled gross out of the wash, yet it was too much bc it wasn't rinsing out. When do I give up?and no...I can't add more water to the load at the beginning (it auto drains, I've tried) and the door locks a few minutes in, it can't be forced open. Yes, I'm using wet towels. I hate CDing now. There, I said it. It was great with a toploader, and then came bleeding ammonia burns. 
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Re: CDers, when to give up?
I only got rid of my ammonia stink by switching to Tide. After 2 washes, never had it again.
I'd say get yourself some Tide HE. Do a regular hot wash without detergent to get bubbles out, then do one with Tide up to line 1. You will be converted.
ETA: Oh and PM me with any questions.
we have a frontloader too. ours didn't stink, but they repelled and leaked no matter what i tried for stripping. once dd2's cds started leaking, it was enough for us to quit. right now both our kids are in disposables and while i feel enormous guilt over it, the leaks and failed stripping were leading to 2 and 3 outfit changes a day.
dh and i have said we'll give it a go when we get back home. (we're oot now). and if that's a fail, then i'll be selling them off.
I had this issue with a front loader a few times. After a million rinses, I pulled the whole mess out and rinsed them in the tub and with the hose outside. Ghetto? Maybe, but it worked. The only thing I have found to get the ammonium stink out of my BG's is vinegar. Stick them all in a bucket of HOT HOT water and dump a ton of vinegar in the mix. Let the whole mess sit overnight and then wash, rinse, repeat as usual. I know a lot of girls who do a vinegar, oxi-clean mix that works like magic ... but you have to be careful with that and do it outside. The mix of both ingredients causes a lot of bubbling and boiling. I would google it.
Hope that helps!
Tide works great too.
I cloth diapered from when DS was about 2 months until he was about 7ish months old - and then we quit. We had HORRIBLE stink issues, that no amount of stripping, sun drying, or detergent changes could help us with. Sure, I could have possibly done the "stand on your head and spin around three times while you spray them with vinegar" approach (yes, I'm kidding) - but it was just getting to be too much work for us to keep the stink out of them.
I had a lot of guilt about quitting. They were better for the environment, DS seemed comfortable in them, and they were soooo expensive - but at the end of the day, DS is just as happy in disposables (we use the pure and natural ones as the best compromise we can come up with) - and we're no longer battling stink issues... I'm not wrinkling my nose because my child smells like pee all the time. That is very worth the switch to me.
I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel it's time to throw in the towel, it's ok. Don't beat yourself up over it. I think they just work better for some people than others.
Powder. My dipes never stink now. His used to burn my eyes in the morning near the end.
The problem with front loaders is there isn't enough water used to get rid of the bacteria and ammonia salts that build up in dipes. There are tons of threads on Diaperswappers.com about it because it's a common issue.
Gotta watch vinegar though. It will eat away at the lining of the diaper and elastics if it's full strength.
we have a front end loader too but none of the problems said.
i do one cold rinse, one full cycle, and an extra rinse. to strip i use a squirt of dawn. vinegar can ruin your diapers. we use allen's detergent.
I hope it works out for you, but if not...let me know what you're selling.
OP- sorry, i would give up too- or get a new wahser, lol. Good luck.
i always wondered if my washer was to blame. but i'm not getting a new washer, so it looks like my problem with cd's won't go away no matter how much effort i put in. this kind of made my decision a little easier.
I too just recently switched to Tide HE and haven't had any problems.
I stripped in my parents' top loader and then started fresh with the Tide. I'm hoping this solves the problem. I so wish we had a top loader just b/c of the dipes.
Good Luck!
I have FINALLLLLY gotten into a pretty decent wash routine. We had stink issues as well...and it seemed like we could never get rid of all the bubbles.
I rinse once on cold. (if I remember...I stop it mid rinse...before it spins dry)
I do a HOT wash/extra rinse with detergent.
One regular wash on hot, no detergent
One quick wash on hot...no detergent
Final rinse and spin.
So far this is the only thing that's worked for us. We have no stink and no repelling issues. But wash day seems to last FOREEEVER.
We use Allen's detergent and I seriously use a syringe dropper to measure out the amt. it is so minimal.
I completely agree with your CD frustrations! I loved my CDs until my DS was about 10 months old and got a yeast rash. NOTHING I did got it out and everytime he got back into a cloth dipe, the rash was back. I sent them to a professional diaper service to be cleaned, bleached them, boiled them, used grapefruit seed extract, you name it. I was so exhausted and frustrated from researching and trying ways to get rid of it - I finally packed them up and haven't looked at them since.
I saved them all, though, and will try again when we have another baby. Hopefully 3 years will be enough to kill yeast