Stinky Diapers

I recently posted about my experience so far with my cloth diapers. I think I was jinxed. I had never had an issue with overly stinky diapers, but the past few day, I have. To clarify, I'm specifically talking about the actual diaper having an odor, not the poop in the diaper having an odor.

I have heard before this, that there are three common ways to get them back to normal:

Option One: Wash them as usual and lay them out in the sun to dry. the sun's healing power would make it all better.

Option Two: Wash them as usual (which consists of one wash cycle and two rinse cycles) and then do two extra rinse cycles without detergent.

Option Three: Wash them with Dial soap

Typically, the smell comes from a build up of detergent and all of these options apparently aid in stripping the diapers of excess and get them fresh again.

Regardless of whether they smelled or not, I had plans to air dry them in the sun when a nice spring day rolled around, but I didn't make it to spring. One day last week I woke up to a smell that I just couldn't place. It was clearly coming from Jude. It didn't smell like poop, it didn't smell like pee... it just smelled... funny. I immediately determined that the smell was what other cloth diapering mothers had been talking about. I wasn't going to just wash the 2-3 diapers that were currently in the dirty pail, so I had to get through them all. Some had the odor, others did not. When wash time came around, I washed them as normal and then turned the washer back on for a couple extra rinse cycles.

So far, it seems to have been effective, but I did an extra rinse for the last time I washed them also. I figured if I add an extra rinse regularly, it would be effective in keeping them from getting the odor in the future.

In addition to this apparently being 'normal' for them to get a funny smell every now and then, I was recently presented with some information that basically says the two types of detergent I use are probably the worse you could use on cloth diapers. Go figure. I specifically use "Bright Green Free and Clear" or homemade detergent. Both contain soaps that cause a build up which can cause leaks and stinky diapers. Considering I've been using these detergents for over 8+ months now, I'm hesitant to believe it's as bad as they say, but I am currently considering alternate detergent options for our diapers (and possibly our clothes).