Tuesday, July 13, 2010

How to strip cloth diapers

How to Tuesday

How to strip cloth diapers

I have been using my cloth diapers for about 3 months now and I have started to notice a little bit of a stronger smell to the dirty diapers. They smell clean after the wash but not so much after they have been worn for a while. So, it's time to "strip" my diapers.
Striping diapers is a way to "renew" them. It helps get rid of odor and detergent build up. It's a normal part of maintaining your diapers.

Steps in Striping Diapers:
#1 Wash as normal, you want to start with clean diapers.
#2 Wash on extreme Hot (you may want to even turn your hot water up a little*) with no soap. You will want to check the machine during the wash cycle to see if there are any soap bubbles, if so you may need to wash them again once the cycle has finished. You can continue Hot washes until there is no traces of soap in the wash cycle.
[*Note: if you don't want to mess with your hot water heater you can heat some on the stove and add it to your washer, be careful!]

I personally use Fuzzi Bunz diapers and tried this method on just the inserts and it worked well.

If you are having trouble with the micro-fleece repelling moisture instead of wicking it away, here is what you should try.
Add just a little bit of Dawn dish washing soap (make sure it's just plain Dawn... no bleach, lotion, etc.) to the wash cycle then continue to wash diapers until there the soap bubbles are gone.
This can be done by hand, and it might work better for just a few diapers at a time.

Drying your diapers in the sun will also help remove stains and sometimes smells!

Here are some great links if you have more questions on washing cloth diapers!
http://www.litegreenliving.com/stripping-cloth-diapers
http://www.zany-zebra.com/stripping-cloth-diapers.shtml

Are you wondering what detergent to use with your diapers? This website has a great review of all kinds of detergents: http://www.diaperjungle.com/detergent-chart.html

2 comments:

Elegant Mommy said...

FYI: When I striped my diapers it took 3 hot washes.

KirbeeLee said...

If the main problem is just an ammonia smell (which is what I am going to have to deal with soon), you can use an ammonia neutralizer in one of those hot water washes. It's sold an pet stores for fish tanks. The website babycenter.com has a huge CD board, and there's a lot of moms trying this with great success. Apparently, the contents of the neutralizer are just fine, especially if washed out thoroughly.