Rockin a soak

This is a cloth diaper related post. I am obsessed with laundry routines right now. I feel like in the past four months I have tweaked my routine...oh...a million times. There are so many factors (who knew?) that can make such a difference on how your diapers turn out. Mine...were smelly. So I "rocked a soak" today. If you are not familiar with this term it is when you soak your diapers in rockin green detergent to "strip" the diapers of all the junky stink causing buildup. I was so tired of the never ending battle with ammonia on my cloth diapers. I felt my only option was to do something drastic.

I filled up the tub in the guest bathroom with super hot water and 3tbsp of rockin green. I also added in a nice big squirt of bac-out for good measure. Next I added all my diapers. All of them. I am afraid to count how many of them I have (I don't have a problem...really I don't). Let's just say the bathtub was quite full! I agitated them all a bit with my hand and just let them soak. This actually worked out really well because we had a pack of disposables from The Honest Company that Emery is growing out of. So we just used those up while the diapers were soaking.

The directions on the detergent said to soak the diapers for 30-60 minutes. I knew I would need more soaking than that. This build-up was legit and I decided I would soak the dipes for a few hours. I would head into the bathroom every 30 mins or so and give them all a little swish in the tub. I drained the tub once (um...the water was greyish/yellow! These were "clean" diapers! Eeeek!) and then refilled it again with cold water. I removed the diapers with PUL after about 4 hours and I left the inserts (mostly microfiber) to soak for a few hours more. I laundered as usual without any detergent and since it was night time by the time I was through washing I just threw them in the dryer.

This might just have been the best decision I have EVER made so far in my cloth diaper career. Okay choosing cloth was the best, actually switching to a detergent MEANT for cloth diapers was the second, and this soak was the third. All factors combined = awesome! The diapers look AMAZING. They smell like nothing (no ammonia, must, weird barnyard funk) for maybe the first time ever.  It was such a joy to put away my stash today (and of course smell them all while doing so) and feel confident that these suckers were all clean. If you are having any stink issues with your diapers I really recommend doing something like this. You don't have to use your tub! I just thought it would be easier to soak in the tub with my HE front load washer.

Clean Diapers!