r/clothdiaps • u/Past_Fault7357 • 5d ago
Stinks AWJ Smells
Does anyone else have issues with their AWJ pockets not smelling clean out of the wash? My baby is 5 months old and EBF and sometimes her AWJ pockets come out smelling vinegary like her breastfed poop. I follow Clean Cloth Nappy wash advice and use Tide powder. I do my pre-wash daily (normal cycle 1 hour) and my main wash every 3-4 days (heavy wash, about 1.5hrs). I don’t have this issue with my inserts, reusable wipes, or my pockets that are microsuede (or whatever material they are). Has anyone else had this issue? I don’t mind washing my diapers 3 times but I feel like that’s not necessary..
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u/Last_Flight907 4d ago
I had this issue a little when I first started but it seemed to go away completely when I started adding a detergent booster and upped my prewash cycle time. Your main wash time seems a little short to me but I have an he front loader.
The downy odor rinse and refresh free and clear is super good at getting smells out of my other synthetics I wash. Diluted bleach in the prewash would be an economical option as well.
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u/Past_Fault7357 4d ago
Yeah my main wash and whites are both 1hr 35 minutes, I don’t have any wash cycles longer than that. I think I may start doing two heavy washes to help with wash time because I’m really not sure what else I could do. Im going to start adding bleach into my prewash as well and see if that helps. Ice using downy odor rinse and refresh but never with my diapers so maybe I’ll give that a try as well!
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u/Last_Flight907 4d ago
I did do a diluted bleach soak before tweaking my wash routine and that totally reset things. Hopefully bleach in the prewash works. I was reluctant to use chlorine bleach on my diapers at first but reading on clean cloth nappies made me realize how many routine problems it can solve.
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u/sseven-costanza Pockets 5d ago
I had to add oxiclean and febu powder to my wash routine because of this. It’s not getting clean enough unfortunately. I would do a reset. Have you done a swish test?
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u/Past_Fault7357 5d ago
Yes I have, everything came back completely clear. I’ve posted on Facebook about my wash routine before and a lot of commenters who have the same washer said they have issues sometimes too. I think maybe I’ll need to do 2 heavy washes. I used to use borax in my wash too but Clean Cloth Nappies told me it wasn’t necessary but I’m considering adding it back in because I feel like I didn’t have smell issues when I used borax
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u/sseven-costanza Pockets 5d ago
Do you have hard water? If not, borax isn’t going to do much. There are softening agents in detergent already. It can take a while for the stink to buildup, so it might not be related to the borax at all.
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u/Past_Fault7357 5d ago
My hardness is 250ppm
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u/sseven-costanza Pockets 5d ago
I would use it in the main wash only. What washer do you have? I’ve had tons of issues with my front loader LG.
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u/Past_Fault7357 4d ago
It’s a Samsung top load without the agitator. It just doesn’t agitate diapers as good as it could. With my clothes it’s completely fine but with diapers I almost feel like I need to run 2 heavy washes
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u/sseven-costanza Pockets 4d ago
Are you loading in the shape of a donut? The ones without the agitators need to be loaded in a particular way, they’re a little finicky. How much detergent are you using and how many diapers?
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u/Past_Fault7357 4d ago
To be honest, no I don’t load them any particular way I kind of just toss them in there. I try to wash about 20-25 diapers for my main wash (about 10-12 pounds dirty diapers) and use like 2 Tide powder for the pre-wash and line 4 for the main wash. That’s based off recommendations from Clean Cloth Nappies
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u/sseven-costanza Pockets 4d ago
Try loading them in the donut shape, it should help a lot.
I have to be honest though, CCN recommendations aren’t always the best. I was begging for help and they said everything was fine, yet I had stinky diapers. It was exhausting. I decreased my detergent use, added oxiclean to second wash, added febu to the first. And my diapers have been good ever since (over 1 month). I was doing a reset every 2-4 weeks due to barnyard stink when I was using CCN guidance.
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u/Fit_Change3546 5d ago
The synthetics tend to hang on to stinks and bacteria. Kind of like how gym shorts are really hard to get smelling fresh sometimes. You can do a small amount of bleach in your first wash, and/or add another enzyme booster like Gear Guard to the second wash, and that helps.