I often see people complaining that their nappies smell and don't know what to do about it. I have had issues with smells once or twice and after a bit of trial and error managed to get rid of them.
This post is going to a be one of a couple related to troubleshooting when you have issues with your nappies. The solutions listed in this post and ones to follow are things to try first before doing a strip wash, that should always be a last resort.
Ok back to smells.
I have found that there are 4 main smells associated with cloth nappies, not including the smell of poop. When I talk about the smells I mean the smell of the nappy as soon as your child pees in it not the smell after it has sat in a bucket or wet bag for a few hours.
Overwhelming Ammonia;
This smell is most common for night nappies. This is because your child is often in the nappy for an extended period of time and their pee has a chance to sit in the nappy and develop into ammonia. Generally speaking this is not really something you can avoid and some mornings your night nappies are going to be eye watering. Rockin Green has developed an ammonia bouncer called funk rock which is supposed to help however as I have never used it I cannot say for sure whether it has.
The ammonia smell can also be associated with detergent build up from using either the wrong detergent and/or using too much. If your nappy smells of ammonia as soon as your child pees then this could be your issue. When your child pees in the nappy the chemicals in their pee react to the built up detergent and cause the ammonia smell.
I recommend to rinse night nappies as soon as you take them off and wash them as soon as possible. If you think it is a build up issue try the following:
Use a little less detergent.
Add an extra rinse to the end of your wash cycle
Wash more often if possible
Do a long hot wash of no more than 60 degrees celcius and try add a 10-30 minute soak to the hot wash if your machine has that option.
If you are altering your wash cycle to use less detergent or adding an extra rinse, do this for 1-2 weeks. This allows your whole stash to be used, washed and dried at least once allowing you to work out if the change worked for you.
The Zoo Smell...
Sometimes your child's nappy just smells like a zoo. The horrible animal stink. This one is most often caused by not being cleaned properly. After researching for the post I did on care recommendations I noticed that quite often modern cloth nappy companies recommended using 1/4-1/2 the recommended amount of detergent. When you think about how much pee your nappies absorb and soiled they can get, how can 1/4 the recommended amount clean them? Nappies are considered heavily soiled and should be treated as such.
If you find your nappies smell like a zoo then I would try:
- Use more detergent
- Adjust the water level.
- Try a longer wash cycle.
- Try washing on warm if you only wash on cold.
- If you use a powder try dissolving in a little warm water first before adding to the machine.
- If none of those work with your chosen detergent try another.
The terrible teething pee
Quite often when your child/baby is teething their wee can take on a pungent smell. Each child is different and therefore the smell is different so I cannot give a definitive description of the smell.
If you get the teething smell there isn't really much you can do for this one as your child's pee is just naturally more concentrated and pungent. I generally make no adjustments to my wash cycle if I get this smell, however if it has been quite pungent I will add an extra rinse at the beginning just to make sure that the pee is fully rinsed from my nappies.
The didn't dry fast enough smell.
This one I find occurs most often in the winter when it is hard to dry your nappies in a timely manor. I don't own a drier so am reliant on the sun and my outside washing line to dry my nappies. However where I live winter is often wet and miserable meaning that I have to dry my nappies inside on the clothes horse more often than I like. They can take a good 24-48hrs to dry which allows a musty smell to build up, which to be honest I cannot stand.
Like with the teething smell this cannot be solved by changing detergents, wash cycles or strip washing. Follow these tips to help avoid this issue:
- Hang outside wherever possible, even if all you do is place the clothes horse outside on the deck.
- Hang up as soon as the machine has finished its wash cycle, don't leave them in the machine.
- Don't overload the clothes horse, if you have to wash everyday during winter so that its smaller loads, then just do it.
- Allow your nappies space for airflow when hanging up. I like skipping a line on my washing line if I have room.
I have had issues with all 4 smells listed above and after 16 months of using cloth full time I have never strip washed. Here's what I did:
The first smell I ever came across was when my nappies didn't dry fast enough. I just adjusted my wash cycle so that I washed every day rather than every second day during the cooler months. This meant smaller loads and therefore more room on the line for air circulation.
Next I found out all about the Zoo smell.
I opted right from the word go that I would use a supermarket laundry detergent rather than one specifically formulated for modern cloth nappies like Rockin Green. I chose to do that for convenince and to save money. I started with a natural powder as I don't like using too many chemicals. I found that I had to use at least a full scoop of powder. When my son was exclusively breastfed I found this brand worked well at cleaning the nappies, however once he started eating solids more than once a day I found it stopped cleaning them quite as well. I started getting the zoo smell again so changed to a generic brand detergent that didn't contain added fabric softener(a hard thing find). After a bit of trial and error I found that for me using a full scoop gets my nappies clean enough. I also adjusted my wash routine so that I wash my nappies on the heavy duty cycle rather than a shorter gentler one.
I only get the ammonia smell for my sons night nappies and only after he has been in them for a while. I so far haven't had a build up issue. I just give my night nappies an extra rinse by hand and try to wash them as soon as they are taken off.
I found that working on getting a better wash routine and changing laundry detergent has stopped the smells and so far I haven't had to strip.
For those of you who want to know this is my wash routine:
- Put poop in toilet, nappy in dry bucket
- Rinse any poop residue off in laundry sink
- Put nappies into machine
- Cold rinse on highest water level(2 rinses if son is teething or if I have left for more than 48hrs since last washing)
- Heavy duty wash with cold water and medium water level(2 days worth of nappies come to approx medium load line on my machine).
- Dry outside on washing line if possible or on clothes horse inside.
- I use a full scoop of Cold Power Sensitive Touch powder available from most supermarkets here in New Zealand.
Disclaimer: I have read quite a bit recently about detergent buildup being a made up issue and not something that can happen. I am undecided on this as I do think that it can buildup over time if too much is used and it isn't rinsed out properly, a bit like soap scum on the shower. It is not something that can occur with just one wash and would take many washes to buildup and therefore cause repelling issues. Because I am undecided as to whether I fully believe in detergent buildup I have left it listed as a cause.
Also I am not an expert on caring for cloth nappies, I just go by what I know works/worked for me. While a supermarket detergent may work for me and the water we have, another person may need to use Rockin' Green to achieve good results. Please do a bit of research and trial and error about this stuff.
