Cloth Diapering: Maintenance & Stripping

Now that we've got THAT out of the way....

On Sunday morning we noticed a lot of redness on Lulu's tush; the culprit:  wicked diaper rash.  So we buttered her up with Desitin and waited.  The rash continued to get worse and worse, and it eventually got so bad that when I wiped her bum, she would scream bloody murder.  It was heartbreaking. 

Goose has always had some kind of redness on her (otherwise perfect) buns.  And so, girlfriend gets/got Desitin and a liner at every diaper change.  Not normal - not normal at all.  I always chaulked it up to sensitive skin and not being changed frequently enough; but, I'm laundering over a dozen diapers each day - so clearly the girl is getting changed plenty.

It never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, there was some detergent build up in her cloth diapers.  ::smacks head::  Whoops!

Fast forward to Monday morning.  I decided to stay home from work to take care of my Goosey's tush.  (I didn't want my dad to have to deal with her when she was like that.)  We had a lot of nakey baby time, in hopes of airing out the evil rash:

And when Lulu did need to be diapered, I put her in (way too small) prefolds and used luke warm washcloths instead of wipes.  I also stopped using Desitin and started using a prescription diaper rash cream.  That's when I had my revelation about the detergent build up.

I turned to google, this site and this site, two other cloth diapering mommas, and this cloth diaper boutique for advice.  Eventually I wound up with these instructions:

Wash once in hot water with one tablespoon of original liquid Dawn and up to 1/2 cup bleach in the wash cycle. 

Do two additional hot water washes with no detergent to completely rinse the diapers clean. If you still see suds, keep rinsing until the diapers are rinsed clean.

Voila!

   

So after many, MANY rinse cycles, the stripping was complete.  We decided to put Lulu in disposable diapers in the interim.  Boy, was I glad to get her back in cloth last night!

I should have known to strip the diapers sooner, but I'm still a novice in the cloth diaper realm.  Lesson learned!  As a preventitive measure, I plan to start doing a bleach wash every two weeks.  And, one helpful tip I picked up along the way, you can test your diapers absorbency by spooning a few tablespoons of water onto the diapers.  If it takes an inordinate amount of time to absorb, you know you've got some build up.

ETA:  Lulu's tushy is all better, good as new!