Frustrated! :(

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Logan's ON diapers still smell so bad! I cut back my Tide, and now I think I need to add a little more back. Anders' prefold last night smelled off and so did some of the inserts Logan used yesterday.

I'm using disposable diapers at night for Logan until I feel like going back to cloth. I'm so over it.

I'm going to order some RLR and see how it goes.

Anyone else frustrated?

freezorburn · November 2014

Sorry to hear you're still having problems ... how committed are you to Tide?

unaveragejane · November 2014

stringy813 said:

I found the sbish love but now when M wakes up at night she asks for a dry diaper. None of our pockets will hold all night. Maybe if she starts drinking less at night they will but for now it's crappy with any option. So yes I'm frustrated but not for the same reason! And yes I use fleece liners but they don't cover a whole fitted.

I'm still not sure why Sbish doesn't come out with a fitted that has a full fleece lining. I think TT makes some, but I'm not sure.

BoothBaby · November 2014

Definitely try the RLR. Do you rinse/soak your ON dipes in the morning?

Rrrrrachel · November 2014

I'm sorry. Sometimes diaper problems can be so hard to figure out.

freezorburn · November 2014

Yeah, I've been battling ON ammonia since March and it is frustrating! For a while I thought we could live with it but lately I'm feeling proactive. Fingers crossed that I'm going to figure out my ON issues in the next few weeks. I'm finding it really helpful to write down my observations and wash routine changes in a calendar.

So, I had a bit of ammonia come back a couple of weeks ago (following a hot water strip in late Sept). I write down which diaper DS was wearing (I have 4 Sbish snapless and 4 TTs), how wet his diaper is, and whether I smell anything.

I increased the duration of my main cycle the first week and this week my experiment is to increase the amount of detergent from 1/2 to 3/4 of a scoop. I write down which day I make a change in my routine, so if a diaper is particularly problematic or improved, I can count back the days and see if there was something I did with the laundry that day.

Interestingly, this morning we had a saturated diaper and no smell. And I think this diaper was in last weekend's load when I accidentally did my old (short) routine instead of my new longer one. When I discovered my mistake, I did another full long cycle with my regular amount of detergent (1/2 scoop). So tonight I'm going to be using a TT from that same load of laundry. My notes say there was a mild ammonia smell the last time we used it, so it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow morning. If I don't have a smell tomorrow morning, that will probably tell me something about my next steps!

At the same time, I want to go a full rotation with my 3/4 scoop regimen. So I'm going to keep doing that until I know if it makes a difference or not. After that if I need to make another change I will probably look at lengthening my pre-wash or even doing a hot wash instead of a warm rinse at the end.

FWIW, we have someone in the FB group who was having rinsing problems with Tide. Don't know if it was her machine, her water, or what, but she switched to a "CD-safe" detergent last week and finally managed to get a load of diapers clean without needing to do a ridiculous number of rinses. Time will tell if that is her long-term solution, but you may want to look at getting some sample sizes of different detergents and see if that makes a difference or not.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

I soak my ON diapers in the morning. Soak in cold, wring out, soak in hot with some bacout and then they go in the wash on laundry day, which is EOD.

I don't want to change a bunch of things at once, but I don't want to spend weeks figuring it out.

After my RLR strip, I think I will change my first rinse back to a warm speed wash. Use calgon with my wash, with my cut back tide. And rinse as much as I need to.

Amores0121 · November 2014

oK, now I"m confused. I thought it was normal for ON diapers to smell like amonia in the AM b/c they wear them for so long?

If not, then I'm frustrated too. Well I am anyway. After my post last week, I changed my prewash to warm and cut down and little bit on the Tide and started doing 2 extra rinses to make sure all the detergent was out. I've been smelling all the dipes when I change him and most of them have no anomia smell anymore except for my BG, Nikki's and Simplex. (And the ON, which last night was S'Bish) so I'm going to strip those with washing soda.

freezorburn · November 2014

I think it's normal for people to find it more difficult to get ON diapers clean, and a small amount of stink in the morning can be tolerable. Our problem developed gradually so we tolerated it for a while. It just seemed to get really bad a couple of months ago, so I started experimenting to see if we could improve things.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Our ammonia is super strong. So bad it burns my nose and throat. Mild ammonia is normal.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

What detergent would you guys recommend? I need something fairly cheap and preferably on Amazon. Tiny Bubbles is the only one that comes to mind.

I have hard water, but not super hard. We get mineral build up if we let water evaporate from a glass, but we can still drink it and all that stuff. I would say it's mildly hard.

ETA and Country Save.

Amores0121 · November 2014

doeie04 said:

Our ammonia is super strong. So bad it burns my nose and throat. Mild ammonia is normal.

OH, ok.

freezorburn · November 2014

At its worst I could smell the ammonia when I got within 5 feet of DS, before getting the diaper off of him. He occasionally complained about his diaper in the middle of the night because it was irritating him. I was wondering if maybe he was near PT then we wouldn't have to deal with it much longer, but since I have no idea how PT will go, I want to try to deal with the diapers. Especially if I end up passing them on to someone else when we are done with them. I don't want to pass on problematic diapers.

I've had good results with both Country Save and Tiny Bubbles. I think they are fairly similar. I used Country Save in Seattle's soft water, and Tiny Bubbles now in combination with Calgon in the very hard water that we have. If your hardness is below 15gpg (157ppm), you may be able to get away with just adjusting the amount of your detergent (but Calgon will still probably help). Above that and you will definitely notice a difference if you add Calgon.

freezorburn · November 2014

@Mapleme I'm curious too, but we're not going to find out. Our problem is only with his ON diapers. I would probably be able to get the diapers clean, but with DS's eczema concerns we need to avoid fragrances, enzymes etc. We used a mainstream detergent on our regular clothes when it was provided on vacation, and it caused a major flare-up.

Also, I haven't seen Tide sold here. So I would have to figure out what is a comparable brand.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

AFwifelife said:
So you are using both Calgon and Tide? If your water isn't ridiculously hard, you can be softening the water too much. I have just regular hard water and just need to use Tide to get everything clean (including TTNNs- up to 3 in a wash).

I just started using calgon after I had issues.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Yes.

tjkdlhb · November 2014

Would you consider a flat for overnight? They wash so much easier than fitteds. DS is a heavywetter (pees significantly more than my toddler girl) and we are doing the airplane fold with a flannel receiving blanket and a padfolded birdseye flat in a blueberry cover. It's working well.

We're still using the S'Bish for my daughter most nights (my husband gets her ready for bed and I get my son ready)... I'm constantly afraid that it will stink of ammonia in the morning when I change her. The ammonia build up was gradual last time, but so far so good.

We did the FL method as mentioned above. I've got hard water and an HE FL machine.
My wash routine is warm normal cycle with up to line 1 with TIde, then Long Hot wash with line 3+ Tide. No extra rinse. (Theory that the extra rinse re-deposits minerals... not sure if it's true, but it seems to be working - the morning soaking would also maybe contribute to this? - we used to soak in the morning too)
We haven't had repelling or stink issues develop since. I did the FL method towards the end of the summer and changed from 1 scoop Tiny Bubbles to the Tide at that time. (will continue to update if issues develop - I don't mind being a guinea pig

)

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

How do you not have bubbles for days?? If I use more than a tablespoon, I have to do three or four rinse washes!

I have some FST I can use but I think he would pee through them, even if I used two. Maybe not, though. I will try it tomorrow night.

tjkdlhb · November 2014

I don't think FST would be as absorbant as flannel. I know that my birdseye alone wouldn't be able to handle it at all - It barely holds 1-2 hours of his heavy pee. If you don't have any flannel blankets, can you get one from a secondhand store to try?

I haven't worried about the bubbles, and it hasn't been an issue. Still no stink/no repelling, and zero rashes. I'm thinking with the hard water that the extra rinsing may be causing more issues... When we had ammonia, she was so sore all the time. She used to cry.

As a side note... I think I'm gonna do an experiment and see which is more absorbant - S'bish, Bummis Dimple diaper or the flannel flat combo.

Amores0121 · November 2014

Well I'm joining the frustration with you guys..seems our ammonia issues are also getting worse. LE had a WH on last night and I could smell it through his clothes and sleep sack so I changed him at 630 am, which resulted in me losing an hour of sleep!

I put on his Kawaii pocket, which has been used mostly for ON and when I changed him at 830 I could smell ammonia through his clothes.

Ugh, so stripping today and going to buy a test to see if I have hard water or not.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Oh no, Amores0121!

Good luck!

I didn't try an FST, I completely forgot. I'm washing diapers tomorrow and then running them all with the RLR that should be here tomorrow. Then we'll see how it goes.

Testing out a couple FSTs for ON would be a great experiment to see if it's a wash routine issue or if his pee is just strong. They couldn't possibly hold onto enough of anything to have ammonia issues right?

freezorburn · November 2014

I think you would have to have a serious wash routine issue if you couldn't get a flat clean.

Knock on wood, we have had nothing more than a mild pee smell for the past three mornings. The first two of those were from a load where I randomly added a product called Bio-D Nappy Fresh to the final rinse. This morning's diaper is the first that I know for sure was washed in the higher amount of detergent I started last week. Either he's dry most of the night and only peeing just before we get up in the morning, or something about my laundry routine is starting to work! Fingers crossed.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Awesome! I hope it keeps working!!

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

So I put a packet of RLR in my clean diapers. There are so many suds!!! It's bad when my 1 1/2 year old notices the bubbles in my rinse wash.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

His WAHM fitted stunk to high heaven this morning.

Aaaaand he got a slight ammonia burn from it, I think. Sunburn looking redness in his whole diaper area, even his hips.

Did I not rinse enough with the RLR? Should I have washed them with tide again, before using them? I have been using prefolds and inserts from the same wash and they are fine on both kids.

I'm going to put him in an S'bish OBF tonight, and if that stinks, use a couple FSTs the next night to see if it's his pee. The WAHM fitted has always smelled the worst. I bought all of them used, so maybe that one is just stinky?

Advice?

tjkdlhb · November 2014

Can you try a quick bleach wash to kill any bacteria in it?

Is that crazy?!?

tjkdlhb · November 2014

https://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/ammonia-causes-treatment-and-prevention/

freezorburn · November 2014

So, I think your plan to try out flats overnight will tell you something. Because unless your laundry routine is way off base, your flats are probably getting clean and rinsing out adequately, at least more so than your ON diapers.

I don't have experience with RLR. But I feel like I've seen a fair number of posts lately where people seem to have issues with either rashes or repelling following an RLR treatment, so maybe some additional rinses or hot water washes would help resolve that.

To me bleach is a last resort option, so you have to decide how far along you are in your troubleshooting process, whether you want to try that. The only time I have ever used bleach was on a small lot of used diapers that I bought.

This week I am 3 days in to our rotation of ON diapers, with the latest tweak to our routine, and so far no ammonia. It has been a long process.

I started doing hot water soaks over the summer, that seemed to keep the problem tolerable but didn't eliminate it completely.
I did a series of hot water strips (used Calgon in the first cycle) on the problematic diapers in mid-September. We had a little over one rotation of non-stinky diapers before the ammonia started to creep back.
Then, I switched to the longest wash cycle my machine offers - nearly 2 hours - also ended with another warm quick wash -- and we had inconsistent results with that. We had no smell some mornings, but ammonia on other mornings. (Shortly after this change I read that Grovia recommends at least a 45 minute wash cycle, so that the detergent has time to do its thing).
Finally, I increased my detergent (Tiny Bubbles) a tiny amount, from 1/2 scoop to 3/4 scoop. This is at most a teaspoon, but so far it's looking like we may have finally found our solution, but I need 5 more nights before I'm feeling more certain about it.

I think these may all be things you can try, in whatever order you think makes sense for you. I'm thinking if I start to feel really confident with the wash routine, I might see if I can skip the hot water soaks, because that is the one thing that would probably be the biggest time saver, if I could eliminate it.

tjkdlhb · November 2014

You said you cut back the tide and the diapers smell more now.

What is your exact routine?

I know how stressful it is. It was just brutal when we had ammonia. Her bum used to bleed.

freezorburn · November 2014

If you are committed to using Tide, maybe if you can figure out how hard your water is, relative to tjletters, you could adjust your detergent amount accordingly.

You can also play with which cycles you are using with your machine. And check that your water is getting hot enough.

tjkdlhb · November 2014

I ordered another test strip when I ordered my covers yesterday. I should be able to tell you in about a week exactly how hard my water is.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

I am mobile, so I can't find my original post. It was something along the lines of "Slight Stink" if anyone can find it.

I have to start dinner, but I will be back. I'll post my issues and what I have tried so far when I get back.

zaraceligon · November 2014

I think you should try to boil the fitteds for five mn at least. It will help better to take off, all the smell and it will clean the fabric from all the build up the made have.

tjkdlhb · November 2014

https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/12460844/stink-question#latest

found it!

You need way more detergent IMO. 1 tbsp is not enough. bleach the diapers once. then use a short wash with Line 1 tide. Long hot wash with line 3 of Tide. NO extra rinse. NO soaking in the morning. The minerals may be re-depositing on your diapers.

Don't even think about the bubbles. They have not been an issue with me after 2.5 months of doing this. You need to get your diapers clean.

Mine is an HE too.

ETA: At least try it. If it doesn't work for you, you can always do a hot water strip.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

I'm scared to use that much! Eek! I should, though. I don't have much to lose...

My water isn't super hard, I don't think. Would it work? How much is line 3? I don't have the original scoop any more.

I had a few inserts that had a bit of ammonia. One was only partially wet and he only had it on for two hours.

To strip them, I did a sanitary cycle, which is very hot water. Then I cut my detergent down to what I was using. After this, my inserts were fine. My ON fitteds were still rank. So I moved on to those and that's when I tried the RLR strip on all of them. I'm thinking I didn't rinse enough, there were a ton of suds for multiple washes!! But I'm also nervous to do a ton of rinses because of deposits.

I think I'll see how the S'bish does tonight, wash like I did last time and then if I'm still having issues, I'm going to try more detergent. And possibly burn the damn fitteds.

freezorburn · November 2014

doeie04 said:

I My water isn't super hard, I don't think.

What are you basing this on? Did you check with your local water authority? Have you tested your water with a strip or with drops?

tjkdlhb · November 2014

What did you do for the RLR strip? Machine or tub?

tjkdlhb · November 2014

Definitely test your water!

Just measured for you.

Line 1 = 4 tbsp
Line 3 = 8 tbsp

freezorburn · November 2014

Ok, so I just copied all of your posts from the other thread and this one into a Word document so that I could get a sense of where you started and where you are with your troubleshooting.

Please get some hard water test strips already. Morton Salt has them for free: https://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/test-your-water Not sure how precise they are, but without this information, it's hard to make recommendations as to how much detergent you should be using. There are a lot of Tide users on this board, with many different types of water. If you can confirm how hard your water is, you might be able to get better guidance on how much you should be using, and whether you should be incorporating a water softener and at which stage in your routine.

Another thing that occurs to me is that since you are doing laundry for 2, and doing laundry EOD, you have a larger load. I know that you increased your detergent at one point. But you might try doing smaller loads ED and see if that helps.

I don't know how many rinses/hot water washes you need to follow your RLR treatment with. It sounds like people seem to have issues unless they have done at least a few.

With regards to extra rinses and the concern about mineral deposits ... this is a subject where FLCDS has a particular stance, and you have to decide if it applies to your situation or not. For example, in my situation, Calgon seems to have kept mineral deposits to a minimum ... it probably took a year of regular use before I felt a need to do anything about my Sbish. And, since my child has eczema, I'm not willing to take risks with detergent residue hanging around on his diapers. Also, in the FB group we consulted an organic chemist about this, and here is what she had to say about it:

"Odor causing bacteria are unlikely to get snared due to any sort of cleaning procedure, but instead due to not thorough cleaning. That said, it would not take much to kill these guys. If you machine dry your diapers, especially if you can dry them on hot, the bacteria will be dead. Keep in mind that while these bacteria may be smelly, they are not harmful unless allowed to run rampant. In regard to multiple rinses, I think they would do more good than bad. I would rather have some hard water minerals against my skin than any residue from caustic washing sodas. Extra rinses have a dilution effect, not an summing effect, because anything in solution in the first rinse is removed, and the things left over are going to be diluted in the volume of the second rinse, so the overall concentration will be much lower. The less residue in contact with your baby's skin, the better, so I would avoid any sort of extra products unless you really have to, and then I would probably lean towards things like baking soda where you know all the ingredients. Most scientists will admit there's a whole lot we don't know about the transdermal properties of most substances, and this is a controversial area I know almost nothing about, but I don't think you'd be doing any harm by limiting the exposure of your family to excess chemicals."

So, I say rinse away. Hard water is not as effective as soft water at rinsing. That alone could be one reason for your problems. You might simply need more water or more rinses/washes. You would probably need a very sophisticated lab, equipped with an electron microscope, to verify which set of claims is correct. So, figure out what makes sense to you. YMMV.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Sorry I haven't responded much. The boys kept me super busy yesterday.

I haven't tested my water. We get mineral build up on fixtures but not horrible. I need to test it. I just ordered this strips, thanks freezorburn!

I don't have many options with my washer. Only an extra water button. I have found that my rinse and spin cycle uses a lot of water and has the same amount of agitation and spin cycles as my other washes, it just doesn't agitate very long. I use this for my initial rinse.

For the RLR strip I put it in my machine. After I started it, I thought the tub was be better so I could soak them. I rinsed probably four cycles with the rinse and spin cycle, warm/warm. Until the bubbles were gone. Then they went into the dryer and used.

His S'bish wasn't smelly this morning. He barely had it half wet, though.

I was thinking I might have to do laundry every day, but we had the slight stink with inserts when it was just Logan, so I don't think it's that? Thoughts? And his ON fitteds stunk then, too.

bumpuser5078523 · November 2014

Since that last post, I was putting a cap full of calgon in with my cut back detergent with the same routine, I believe. My inserts were better. My fitteds were the same.

After the RLR strip, I had ammonia smell in some inserts and Logan got a burn from his WAHM fitted, but not the S'bish.

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