SS - Cloth Nappies ( sorry! )

[sweetapplecider]

Sorry about this ladies - I know it's already been a heavily covered topic, and I SWEAR I read the thread(s). We're just having issues and I can't for the life of me figure out what's going wrong, so I was kinda hoping everyone would forgive me for dredging it back up and offer some suggestions?

We use Bambooty (Aussie company) AI2s. I did the washing in the beginning to prep them, I follow the care instructions to the T. Their inserts fold over so they're double layered, microfibre with 3 layers. They've started leaking around the legs sporadically. Sometimes he will have one on for less than 2 hours and leak. Sometimes they'll be on for nearly 4 and don't leak. When we first got them (3 months ago) none of them seemed to have a problem. Is this just a dodgy brand? Does he just sometimes wee a lot and other times doesn't?

They seemed to be getting tight and I thought that may be the issue so I loosened them and he still leaked. When I take a soaked one off it feels heavy, but not saturated? I'm really committed to CD but it's been hard to find them here and obviously the initial stash costs a lot so I desperately don't want to have to start over! It's just getting seriously inconvenient to be changing his clothes 2 - 3 times a day if he wets through. Anyone have suggestions, or know what's going wrong? :-(

[LittleStarSweeper]

Have you tried stripping the diapers? Could be detergent buildup. Since you say the insert doesn't seem saturated, this could be the problem. What's your wash routine like?

[sweetapplecider]

No, I haven't tried stripping yet actually! I kinda just thought because they were only a few months old it wouldn't be an issue..

I wash every 2 - 3 days, on either just cold or just hot water, with half a scoop of what I would usually use of washing powder. No softeners, no bleach, etc. J never gets nappy rash so they have no cream on them or anything like that.

[LittleStarSweeper]

I don't know if others will weigh in, but I'd say: STRIP. Haha

You may also want to adjust your wash routine. It could be the detergent isn't rinsing out enough - detergent left behind on the microfiber can cause baby's pee to repel and then leak out the diaper.

So when you wash, you need LOTS of water. I do a pre-rinse on cold (no detergent), then a hot wash with detergent AND an extra rinse at the end.

Hopefully stripping and adjusting your wash routine will be your answer! You may want to look into a specific cloth diaper safe detergent, too, which won't build-up in your diapers.

Edit:words

[sweetapplecider]

Thanks so much! I'll give all of that a go :-) I didn't know I needed lots of water, so I have always just done a normal wash on the small setting! I've also never thought about a CD safe detergent because J hasn't reacted to our normal one - it never even occurred to me it might still cause problems.

[LittleStarSweeper]

You may not need a special detergent, it's just another suggestion if you keep having problems. A lot of CD mamas use regular powdered Tide -- but the rinsing is key no matter what detergent you use.
Good luck. I hope this helps. Let us know how things go!

[jsonya]

Agrees, strip! What kind of washing machine do you have? I have a front loader and have so much trouble with my microfibre inserts. They don't produce enough water to rinse them properly so detergent build up is really common. After you strip, you may want to try a new detergent and add in a rinse or two at the end of your wash, with hot water if your machine will do it.

[jsonya]

Jan 21, 2015 8:02:56 GMT -5 LittleStarSweeper said:

You may not need a special detergent, it's just another suggestion if you keep having problems. A lot of CD mamas use regular powdered Tide -- but the rinsing is key no matter what detergent you use.
Good luck. I hope this helps. Let us know how things go!

I just use normal tide powder. But, again, if you have a front loader he machine, make sure you get the he detergent. I made this mistake and have had problems with my microfibre inserts for months.

[LittleStarSweeper]

Good point about the machine. I have a top-loading HE machine. I add in two towels to my diaper load to make sure the machine fills up with enough water.

I had to strip my diapers when we got home after using my mom's front loading HE machine while we were visiting over the holidays. Not because of repelling issues, but because LO was developing a rash (I think from detergent build-up). After stripping and going back to my machine and laundry routine, her rash cleared up.

[sweetapplecider]

Jan 21, 2015 10:49:44 GMT -5 jsonya said:

Agrees, strip! What kind of washing machine do you have? I have a front loader and have so much trouble with my microfibre inserts. They don't produce enough water to rinse them properly so detergent build up is really common. After you strip, you may want to try a new detergent and add in a rinse or two at the end of your wash, with hot water if your machine will do it.

I have a top loader. It always defaults to a large load when I put the nappies in, but I've been changing it back to small because they don't take up much room and I just thought they didn't need that much water :-P *clueless*

[ashanne88]

Can someone explain how to strip?

Also, FWIW, I do a cold rinse, hot wash with detergent, followed by two cold rinses. I use a very small amount of liquid tide. Should I be using powdered? IT seems like everyone is using powder...

[sweetapplecider]

Jan 21, 2015 17:56:13 GMT -5 ashanne88 said:

Can someone explain how to strip?

Also, FWIW, I do a cold rinse, hot wash with detergent, followed by two cold rinses. I use a very small amount of liquid tide. Should I be using powdered? IT seems like everyone is using powder...

Edit - hit post before I wrote anything.. Lol.

I didn't think that liquid or powder matters? I could be wrong. I'm going to look into making my own CD safe detergent.

As far as stripping goes, here you can buy a little bottle of stuff you just add to your load and it apparently does the job. Or I think there's a simple way of just washing a whole heap of times in hot water..

I haven't been very helpful here, sorry :-P

[LittleStarSweeper]

I use ECOS liquid detergent. It has worked well for me so far. When I have had to strip in the past, I have basically just run the dipes through two or three hot washes plus the rinses as sweetapplecider mentioned. Basically you're just using a ton of water to "strip" the diapers of any residue or buildup. Some diaper companies (eg Cotton Babies) recommends using bleach, but definitely check the wash instructions for the type(s) of diapers you have before adding anything like bleach to the wash.

ETA: Anyone have any good homemade cloth diaper detergent recipes to share?
EDIT : words

[jsonya]

Jan 21, 2015 17:56:13 GMT -5 ashanne88 said:

Can someone explain how to strip?

Also, FWIW, I do a cold rinse, hot wash with detergent, followed by two cold rinses. I use a very small amount of liquid tide. Should I be using powdered? IT seems like everyone is using powder...

That's exactly what I do. I seem to remember reading on the thread on the Dump that powdered dissolves and rinses out easier? But I can't say for sure. I use powder but I've found my front loader can pretty much never rinse all the detergent out of my microfibre inserts. I'm working on switching my whole stash to natural material inserts at the moment.

[sweetapplecider]

Jan 21, 2015 19:38:35 GMT -5 LittleStarSweeper said:

I use ECOS liquid detergent. It has worked well for me so far. When I have had to strip in the past, I have basically just run the dipes through two or three hot washes plus the rinses as sweetapplecider mentioned. Basically you're just using a ton of water to "strip" the diapers of any residue or buildup. Some diaper companies (eg Cotton Babies) recommends using bleach, but definitely check the wash instructions for the type(s) of diapers you have before adding anything like bleach to the wash.

ETA: Anyone have any good homemade cloth diaper detergent recipes to share?
EDIT : words

I've been hunting around on Google and I assume the recipes I've found would be great for nappies because they are as basic as possible, with no chemicals, softeners or harsh scents. So far the most common one I've found is -

Washing Soda
Borax
1 bar of Dr Bronner's soap (all natural, vegan friendly soap.)

You just grate up the soap, mix all the ingredients together and store it in an air tight container. All ingredients are available at the supermarket, and you should only need 1 tablespoon of mixture per load. So you save tons of money and it's environmentally friendly! I'll post more if I find some.

[hampire]

Piggy backing.
My microfiber inserts are starting to have an ammonia problem and I intended to strip them but if I did a load of just inserts couldn't I just hit them with a little bleach?

[ashanne88]

hampire I would think if you're just doing inserts bleach would be fine. I have thought about using bleach on just the inserts to take some of the stains out. The sun works great for stain removal, but it seems like I'm never drying them when it's sunny.