ammonia wee smelling nappies...phewwweeeee

[mrsleroyjethrogibbs]

I have bought some second hand nappies and when ds wee'ed in them they amonia smell nearly knocked me out. phewwweeey. Honestly my eyes were watering and everything.
Should I soak them in white vinegar?

Hi
Yes definately go with the white vingegar. when mine get a bit smelly, I put some in the prewash section of the machine and some in the fabric softener bit.
Other things I found that worked to get rid of smell, was a good wash in biological powder (sorry know not everyone likes it, but you could always do couple of extra rinses after to get rid of it).
Also, I always do a cold prewash and get them out on washing line!
Hope that helps!
x

Yep had that prob too, especially when teething, they seem to smell much worse. I did a bio wash, extra rinse and a tumble dry occasionally and this seems to help zap any build up of smells.

Oh vinegar, is that the answer?
I find that DS's nappies can do this sometimes; we tend to boil wash them at this point (unwillingly, both for the nappies and the world) and then give them a day or two on the line. Vinegar sounds much easier. How do you do it though, do you wet pail them or something? And am I right that you MUSTN'T put PUL wraps in when you're using vinegar cos it kills them? (sure i read that somewhere...)

White vinegar works well for many just put some in a drawer in your machine or in one of those ball things for liquid washing solution that you put inside the drum.

I just find a regular cold pre-wash usually keeps the problem at bay so try that before you do a boil wash!

Also make sure you haven't got a build up of powder in your nappies - that can make them smell. Give them a final rinse after your wash and make sure there are no bubbles coming out of the nappies.

not sure about vinegar and PUL - essentail oils and PUL not good for sure. I would tend to avoid doing anything with PUL other than dry pailing and washing in non-bio tbh.

When washing nappies, put them on a long cycle (i.e. cotton cycle). I always put them on an extra rinse too.

Only that when I once washed some nappies on short cycle (woollens), for quickness, they came out of the machine stinking of amonia. This only happened with this short cycle so can only assume they need to be thoroughly washed on a long cycle (cottons).

Nappy websites recommend only using a quarter to half the amount of washing powder - in order to avoid residue build up.