Stripping Cloth Diapers

It's been over a year now, and I am so happy that I have stuck with cloth diapering.  Not only have I saved money, but my daughter knows exactly when she has a dirty/wet diaper.  She is VERY vocal about this!  I hope this translates to easy potty training, but that's yet to be seen.

The one minor detail I've noticed as I've cloth diapered is that, occasionally, there is a smell to the diapers when they become wet or dirty.  It makes me think that each diaper is a poopy diaper, yet when I open it up, it's simply wet.  This has gotten kind of annoying. So, I did some research.

Did you know that cloth diapers need occasional maintenance in order to maintain their absorbency and eliminate detergent buildup?  I didn't.  You'd think that this information would be more readily accessible within the cloth diapering community.  But, seeing as I am one of the first of my friends to use cloth diapers, perhaps it's just not known in my community.

It's possible that I am either using too much or too little detergent when laundering my diapers.  These are both common issues with smells.  I use a heavy duty cycle with multiple rinses.  I also use an all-natural detergent.  But, buildup can still occur.

Therefore, I've now stripped my diapers.  When I first heard this term, "stripping diapers", I thought that it was going to be extremely complicated and too much work for me.  The easy news...it's not.  It's simply a term that refers to getting rid of that extra buildup in the diapers.  And, with regular maintenance, this is as simple as doing multiple rinse cycles with zero detergent on clean diapers.  By continually rinsing the diapers, you get out all of that buildup that, over time, affects the absorbency - and therefore smell - of cloth diapers.

Now, there are products out there to assist with stripping cloth diapers.  Thankfully, most of them are unneeded.  Before spending lots of money on chemicals, try doing a couple of simple heavy duty, hot rinse cycles on a load of clean diapers (note, be sure to actually clean the diapers first!).  With regular maintenance, your diapers will continue to work the way you know and love them to.

Happy diapering!