How Do You Freshen Your Cloth Diapers?

[KansasMom]

Our diapers are getting icky...they don't smell when they are dry but after the kids wet in them they just have a putrid smell to them. I use tea tree oil in the wash and I try to hang them outside to whiten every now and then but is there something else you can do to freshen them up and get the stinky out of them?

Melanie

[paulab]

Have you tried baking soda?

[KansasMom]

What do you do with the baking soda? do you put it on the dry diaper or do you put it in the wash? I have tried putting it in a sock in the drier while they dried but that didn't really work.

[Rach]

My favorite is: a cold soak (anywhere from 30 min to 2 hrs.) with 1 cup baking soda, then the prewash to spin them out, then wash on hot with a cold rinse. (All small and mighty fresh rain is what I use, like 1/3 of the cap.)

[KansasMom]

Thanks Rachel, I will try that and let you know if it solves my problem. Someone around here said it could be our extremely hard water causing the problem...Have you ever heard of that ?

Melanie

[Rach]

you can also try adding a few drops of tea tree oil to the spin cycle.

[KansasMom]

Have you ever had your diapers MOLD? I am wondering if that is what happened? I know they say not to bleach diapers but I may have to do it once just to kill whatever the smell is. I really think they molded! I must not have gotten them dry or something...two of them have had this very grey look to them that wasn't there when I folded them. It doesn't come off or anything but I wonder if it isn't meshed into the layers...ooh yuck...I think my diapers molded!

[Crissyanna]

I wouldn't try bleach just yet. I just did a HUGE load of diapers that my MIL sent me, and what I did was I put them in the wash on an extra large load to get a ton of water through them, along with my detergent (I just get whatever is cheap, normally purex, arm and hammer or something else, can't remember the name of it), about a half cup of borax and then a half downey ball filled with vinegar. I like vinegar better than fabric softener and bleach. It gets all the soap residue off, and it acts like a fabric softner (my towels are so fluffy!) and vinegar gets my whites whiter than bleach (that can leave a yellow look on my socks, and I never used that much), it is gentler on clothes than bleach, and since you aren't using bleach and fabric softner, you end up saving money! Oh, and vinegar kills germs and stuff like that too. And another plus is that vinegar won't bleach out something if you accidently spill it, and it isn't poisonous in case a little person gets into it.

Oh, and I put the washer on an extra rinse cycle too just to make sure everything was rinsed out. I was being a tad bit paranoid. Granted, I will probably have to rewash all those diapers since I don't need them until the end of September, but it was good to get them clean now, so I know they are clean (mom got them off Ebay.)

Hope that helps some.

Crystal

[KansasMom]

Thanks Crissyanna...the vinegar seems to have worked great. We will see once I go to use them this week but I soaked them in the washer with a cup of vinegar for a while and some baking soda and between the two they are whiter and don't have that smell...at least not yet anyway. We will see...

Thanks for the suggestions. Melanie

Are they the fitted type? I read to wash them with tea tree oil and vinegar.

If they are just prefolds have you soaked them in Napisan? I always soaked mine in Napisan and never had a problem with them smelling or going mouldy...

I'm glad the vinegar worked.