The story continues....
You can catch up with Part I {HERE}.The smell. Oh. God. The smell. I can't even describe it. Definitely not wet dog anymore. Definitely not faint. Not a "knock you over" smell, but it definitely gave me a firm push. I could smell it as soon as I opened his diaper. It didn't necessarily rape my nostrils, but I felt like they at least deserved a kiss when all was said and done.
To be honest? I wanted to cry.
I had JUST fixed our smell issue!!!!! What had I done?!?!?!?!?! I quickly gathered up all of the diapers I had JUST washed, marched to the laundry room and threw them all in the washer. Then I stood there. "It's only one diaper...maybe I should wait and see how this goes before doing anything drastic." I told myself. So I pulled them all out, refolded them all, and put them back. The second diaper, wasn't as bad, but definitely smelled. So I promised to give it one more try. The third? Still had the smell.
I decided to wait until the next morning to tackle the situation.
I started by putting G in a disposable. Then I took all of our dirty diapers and threw those in the wash first. I did a cold wash cycle, without detergent, a hot wash cycle with 1tbsp. of detergent, and a warm wash cycle to rinse. Of course, I checked all of the diapers, each one, as I threw them in the wash. Didn't they smell like detergent??? I didn't think so. But I couldn't tell. Some seemed to have a very, very faint smell of....something. But what? I don't know. I honestly thought they were good enough, most didn't smell at all, not even faintly. So I threw them in the dryer. And tackled the clean diapers. I decided that because they were clean that all they would need would be lots, and lots of rinsing.
So that's what I did. I rinsed. And rinsed. To be honest I can't even remember what all I did to the poor diapers. 2? 3 cycles maybe? I checked and again, couldn't smell anything on the majority of the diapers. I threw them in the dryer. Once everything was dried, I stuffed and folded and put everything in our basket, ready to go.
To be honest. I regret doing that. I regret not keeping track of what diapers were in which batch.
Finally, I placed Grayons back into cloth. {Yay} When it was time for a change I was soooo nervous! I pulled the diaper off slowly....
and there was NOOOO smell! I was sooo happy! I grabbed the next diaper in line, and snapped it on with happiness! Convinced that the smell issue was gone and that I was going to have success with such a convenient detergent.
An hour or two later, it was diaper change time! I laid G down, pulled the diaper off, and gasped.
The smell.
The smell was back. No, it wasn't back, it hadn't returned, this was a new smell. A much different smell than "faint wet dog". This was a smell I knew.
Ammonia.
Again. I wanted to cry.
I knew the smell immediately, I knew what it was, and I knew what it meant. It meant the Tide wasn't working. At all. And not only that...
I was going to have to strip.
{The diapers yuck-o's! Not my clothes, from my body! Geeze!} I was super, super bummed at first. I really, really wanted Tide to work. And it didn't. And now I was going to have to spend pretty much an entire day stripping my diapers, and praying they would be okay. I was bummed, and felt betrayed by the cloth diapers I love so much.
I'm going to be honest though, stripping was NOT a big deal. Not at all. It was more the fear that it wouldn't work that got to me. But you know what? It worked. And it wasn't bad at all. 1tbsp of blue Dawn dish soap in the laundry detergent dispenser, hot wash, and lots and lots of rinses later, my diapers were completely smell free.
SO. What did I learn from the horrors of ammonia build up?
•Don't mess with perfection! I had finally gotten a wash routine down that worked, and worked well. I shouldn't have messed with that.
•Don't freak out over things like stinky diapers! The internet can be a scary place. And actually I think a place that really can push someone away from cloth diapering. It had me so worked up, thinking I had ruined my entire stash of cloth diapers. When all they needed was a few extra washings. No biggie.
•Smelling each and every article that comes out of the washer is very time consuming.
•What works for some may not work for you. Everyone has different situations.
•I need more clothes pins!
•Stripping your diapers is actually super easy.
•Crunchy Clean detergent is my best friend. {And my cloth diapers best friend.}
•Cloth diapers do take a little more time to figure out, but are really, really worth it! I haven't had to buy a single diaper since Grayson was born. My cloth diapers are working off their tab and paying for themselves!
•I HATE DIPOSABLE DIAPERS!! I know they work for some, they worked for me with 3 kids! But I didn't know what I was missing then. Having Grayson in disposables while I stripped the cloth was not fun. I had forgotten how easily they leak, and how red they make his little bum :(, plus I think dirty disposables are a lot more gross than dirty cloth now. I don't know why...there's just something gag worthy about smushy, pee filled gel being against my baby's bum. I'd take pee filled cotton any day.
So there you have it, my first real cloth diaper disaster. I hope someone, somewhere learned something, anything!
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