Giving up on cloth - ammonia overload

cablegirl · October 2010

We've been successfully cloth diapering our eldest for 20 months but recently things have gotten bad. I can not get rid of the ammonia!

I've stripped them I can't count how many times and nothing seems to work. I've stripped with vinegar and washing soda, with Dawn and rinsed forever and finally with the sanitary setting and extra hot water. I put him in a diaper today and when I took it off, I almost fell over from the smell.

We recently moved and I did most of the stripping before we left except for the sanitary wash. That was done in our new machine (front loader, HE) without any detergent. I have a combo of KL0's and BG organic AIO's and it's the BG that stink and burn.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to break this cycle? If I can't figure it out, I'm going to have to switch to *shudder* disposables.

HELP!!

MrsCarroll.6-10-07 · October 2010

I find that I have to use more detergent because of the size of my loads What kind of detergent are you using?

wingedbride · October 2010

What kind of inserts are you using? I have heard of ammonia build up over time with MF and that is why some people replace them with a natural fiber.

Dr.Loretta · October 2010

Did you move from hard to soft water, or vice versa? that may be contributing to things.

Have you tried vinegar in your CD wash?

AJBMD915 · October 2010

We had this for awhile w/ DD's diapers. It seemed to be because of the diaper rash cream we were using; A&D. The diapers were foul smelling when we took them off. I stripped with Dawn and bleach. I think the bleach is causing some premature wearing of the diapers though because I had to strip them a lot. I don't know if you can use bleach w/ BGs though, maybe just with the inserts?

kissntell · October 2010

I've heard that plain Tide really helps with ammonia. The blog on Abby's Lane has really helpful articles about cloth diaper laundry. Linky

cablegirl · October 2010

We used to use Ecos but moved to Canada so are switching to Nature Clean, but I haven't washed the diapers in it yet.

The only inserts we use are for nighttime and it's a hemp/ microfiber combo. I haven't used those yet as our daytime diapers smell so bad that I'm hesitant to put him in one over night and possibly wake up to a chemical burn from ammonia.

Sometimes I would put a Downy ball filled with vinegar in the wash but I've stripped since then so I don't think it could be that.

No diaper cream has been used on the diapers so there's no repelling issues either.

The BG organic AIO's are my issue and I can't figure out what the problem is. I really do not want to switch to disposables now. Crying

liza0828 · October 2010

I had horrible ammonia smell with Charlie's Soap. I switched to Tide Free and it cleared right up. I would try a different detergent.

pixy_stix · October 2010

If you're really desperate go to the pet store and get an ammonia neutralizer from the fish section. Soak your diapers in that, wash and rinse rinse rinse.

My guess is that your original problem is a combo of too much detergent/wrong detergent with your new machine. You'll want to experiment so the ammonia doesn't come back.

mamamimi77 · October 2010

I was told that with HE machines, the diaps dont get enough water because the machine only uses just enough for the weight load. So soak a big towel and throw in with your dipes.Basically there isnt enough water, so they are just getting washed in dirty water. Have you tried an odor remover or rockin green?

stewiegriffin · October 2010

Try boiling them. That got rid of it for us. I basically boiled a ton of water, took it off the heat, and soaked the diapers in it for 10 minutes. Then I ran a regular cycle with no detergent. Worked great and we haven't had problems since.

LI444 · October 2010

I had awful ammonia issues, even w/ powder Tide. Finally I realized I was using too much detergent (RNG suggests 2 TB, I started using 1 and it got so much better). Good luck!

Wilwarin · October 2010

With my HE, we had to reduce the amount of RG and turn off the spin function on the first (cold) cycle and add an extra rinse. It helped the water soak the diapers. Smell went away after that switch.