General Chat Thread for Real Nappy Users ***PART 2***

[BigBadMousey]

WooHoo! I got here first!

Essie - It depends on the kind of bamboo - the bamboo terry or velour stuff doesn'e like direct heat but the stuff like baby beehinds are made from is fine - think it is a lot to do with the matrix of the fabric too. I've dried my bamboo LL in front of my woodburner (very hot) and it hasn't been the same since. If MB say it is fine then it must be. I think crunchy is fine tbh but that is because i use fleece liners. DCs have never complained about my concretey hemp ones

ILMD - that is so funny - sounds like some places around 'ere! Hope the nightmares improve soonn - are you all ok? no whiplash?

Hi all, I have very fretty baby who's full of cold, so haven't been able to keep up much.
BBM - I have the Bambinex bamboo nappies
Lollipop Sebastian is COVERED in spots, he even has them on his chest. ruining his good looks.

SMELLY NAPPIES- ??? Minee are beginning to get a bit pongy!!

I dry pail and wash at 60 with nappy bright antibacterial stuff and non bio!!

IDEAS??

HAve run out of nappy bright - what else can i use.?

How often are you washing?

I have 2 in nappies and wet pail with a drop of tea tree or lavender oil.

Could the smell be coming from the pail? Are you using a net? Does this get washed?

no noet, just dry pail and wash every other day, third tops, whenever it gets full!!

Rinse pail every now and again.

Sunflower - Thanks for the offer of your XS Sandy's but I think Elizabeth is going to be out of them very swiftly as well, her small Sandy's very nearly fit now where as the XS leave slight red marks around her legs, so I give her about a week max. Sorry that I can't help you. I assume you're keeping your XS airflows? Elizabeth is still on the smallest poppers on hers.

rusmum - is it the smell while they are waiting to be washed or still smelly after washing?

AnnVan - I was wondering where you had got to. How is Sebastian (other than his fetching spots!)? Elizabeth was on a feeding frenzy yesterday, my nipples are falling off! She's the same today except I have managed to curb the crying by putting her in a sling. I'm going out to a fancy restaurant for lunch with my mum tomorrow so I hope to God she behaves herself, too much to ask I feel!

Ladies - how wet should a nappy get? I change every couple of hours and the nappies are soaked right through, is this how it should be or am I needing to boost or am I doing something wrong?

lollipop - I thought so, as I guess Elizabeth and Maia are about the same size, but thought I'd ask before putting them for sale.

But found out that a friend back in italy due at Halloween is going for cloth (my first conversion!!), so might send her the xs sandy's.

We're into our second full cloth day, now that she can fit into her small bamboo sandy's. What nappy were you using? she soakes her xs terry sandys I'd say within 1-1.5hrs, but her bamboo one was still partly dry after 4 hours (and it was one that had only been washed twice, so it'll be soem time before all the 10 will reach full absorbency), same with the bamboozles and the pop-in, but as you can see I only have bamboo a part from the 4 xs. keeping the xs airflow as still fits better than small one (smallest setting on tummy, middle on legs). she's put on another 200grams (think that's 7oz?) this week, though, growing soooooooo fast.... ,though she's such a smily chatterbox now!

smelly whilst in drier and slioghtly after - ok inpail (with lid on) LOL

Am loving - sandys, ellas house at mo and rikki wraps!!!!

ANyone selling any let me know!!

What else would you reccommend trying?? Anyone?????

lollipop sebastian is having a difficult patch and his latch seems to have gone wrong so my nipples are blistered so hopefully things will pick up soon. had a peer supporter come out today, so hopefully can sort out his latch soon!

Rusmum - Is it a washer drier? Are you using powder or liquid detergent?

I note a Sandy's theme running through this thread

lollipop - the nappies will be pretty soaked when you take them off - shouldn't be dripping wet but definitely wet all over. Boosting will mean you can change less frequently.

AnnVan Ouch! I had that with my DS at about 10 days. It was incredibly painful and my DDs learnt some colourful new words that week . I'm glad I stuck with it though. His latch has never been good and we found a happy medium (until he decided there were more interesting things than feeding and kept turning his head right round without detaching!) Glad you have some good support on board. Bambnex are quite absorbant as bamboo nappies go. I think you might find sandy's more absorbant though - have you tried them (sorry can't keep up with who has what )

and to add, posted pictures of DD wearing xs sandys on my profile, BBMIHH

(it's halloween-sunflower, btw)

rusmum - do you do a cold rinse first before the wash? This removes alot of the wee before the actual wash cycle. If you go straight to cycle the hot water can make the smell kind of set in the nappy.

I think to refresh nappies someone suggested soaking in white vinegar overnight, cold rinse then a wash with bio powder - one of those scented ones, then wash again with the non bio.

Just popping on this thread so it's on my list.

My DD is 3 weeks and I've been using cloth since day one, I have quite a varied collection all bought second hand.

AnnVan dd also has loads of spots, I'm waiting to take her passport photos to see if they clear up

RUSMUM this is the thread that tells you what you need to know about how to get rid of the smell once it is there. I wanted to find the one with flibbertyjibbets comments but couldn't

Next thing is to work out why it is there in the first place...

THanks will try thid. What causes nasty niffs?? Am i doing something wrong????

Lacksa nappies arrived!! Thank you!!!!!!

RUSMUM - this is the better thread - it has the right wash temps.

This is in essence what I said...

Clean the filters and wipe out the rim and door seal of your washing machine. Do a service wash if you think you need to (empty cycle / hot wash or whatever your manual suggests). You really only need to do one if you think your machine has suffered at the hands of dirty nappies for too long!

Then...

Buy 500ml WHITE MALT vinegar (it's cheap stuff)
Put CLEAN nappies in nappy bucket
Pour all of vinegar over nappies and top up bucket (almost to top) with warm or cold water
Leave to soak overnight
Plonk nappies in wasing machine next morning and wash at 30 or 40C with a full dose of BIOLOGICAL powder
(I also add some warm water with several - up to 10 - drops of lavender or tea tree to the softener compartment but this is optional and if you use nice smelling powder you won't need it - I used a tub of value stuff so I needed it )
Once the wash cycle is over then rinse once or twice to get rid of any excess powder.

This gets rid of the smell from even very stinky nappies - it's not something you should need to do often.

The reason behind the biological powder and the low temp was is the enzymes in the biological powder are very good at dealing with nappy type smells in particular but you need to do a low temp wash or the enzymes are denatured and won't work. I thought that this wasn't the case anymore but have since discovered otherwise - there are plenty of enzymes that will work at higher temps but they don't use them in bio powder from what I can tell - I guess they are more expensive and defeat the object of trying to get people to wash at lower temps anyway. Biological powder is fine for a baby's skin -esp with the final rinses.

anything really - sometimes it is just stronger wees causing it. Other causes like already suggested....

dirty washing machine (rim esp)
using liquid detergent
leaving them in the pail for too long
not drying them quickly enough - that one is a PITA, if it takes days for your nappies to dry they will start to smell.
not washing out the pail between uses

liquid detergent? How?

bbm better night? DS thought it was party central last night and got his freak on about, wait for it, 3:30. he needs a reboot...

glad they got to you rusmum. As I said the wraps are now third hand, but still life left in them. I hope you get on better with the teddy one than I did ...it is gorgeous though.

ILMD - Excuse the cut and paste - my raptor is attached and I'm still half asleep so probably wouldn't phrase it as well anyway

"The most important thing to realise about liquid detergent is that it doesn't contain bleaching agents. It's therefore kind to coloured laundry but not so effective for whites. A nasty side effect is that these missing bleaching agents actually help keep the washing machine free from bacteria and black mould. Combined with using low temperature washing it can result in a nasty slime and grease build up and a smelly washing machine - Causes of grease, slime and black mould inside washing machine" and thus smelly clothes.

The liquitabs are worse - the gel coating doesn't always dissolve properly so you get a really yucky build up which is hard to remove.

Incidently if you have a washer dryer the effects of these things are much worse.

My DS would have loved to be getting his freak on with your DS at 3.30 . He's getting to be quite a wriggler in his sleep atm - I thought I'd had my last of being kicked in the stomach all night once I gave birth but obviously not! His cold is much worse so there was much coughing and spluttering all night - my eyes are so bloodshot all the time I reckon I could attend a halloween party sans make-up and still be the scariest one there Oh well, at least he is the last one and I won't be doing the tiny baby bit all over again

ILMD - tell me more about this rebooting thing - how do you do it? If it doesn't work can I return for a refund or exchange? I have several candidates here......