Part A Solved: WoHoo!

I have finally solved my ammonia delima in my flats and prefolds.  It has taken a while to come up with a solution.  I have been actively working for the last 5 weeks, though I have been dealing with stink for many months now.  

I wanted to get away from bleach.  When my diapers came out of the washer, they smelled so strong.  Not a poop or unclean smell, but the bleach smell.  It just seemed so toxic to me.  I tried to cut it out completely, but that was just not going to cut it.  However, what I did do, was alter my wash routine.  And I am finding it is a bit of a unique routine compared to many.  Fortunately I believe I have been able to cut out some utility use as well with my new routine.  

First of all, if I smell ammonia, I soak.  I take my trash can and pour in 1/8 cup or less of bleach and put in some water.  Just enough to cover the articles in the bucket.  Once I take the diaper off the child, I rinse/wring out the diaper (flat, prefold, AIO which I use only for nights) in the sink to get any saturated urine out.  Then I simply soak the item in the bucket.  I have to maintain an every other day wash routine to stay on top of the stink, so the items will be in the bucket for no longer than 2 days.  

When it is time to wash I throw the items from the diaper pail into the washer and wring out the items from the bleach bucket and put in washer.  I set it for a cold short wash (some do just a cold rinse, but with the small amount of water that my machine uses, I have to do a whole cycle).  With that cold wash I will dilute less than 1/8 cup of bleach in a cup of water and add that to the cycle.  I let this bleach water swish and soak in to all of the diapers and covers in the machine.  I think this is the most effective part, alongside of the soak because my machine will add and spin out the water about 3-4 times during the whole cycle.  Okay, so when that is done, I switch to a hot heavy cycle with 1-1 1/2 cups of homemade liquid detergent (side note:  I used 1 cup Borax in my mixture).  From there I can toss everything into the dryer on low heat for 60-70 minutes.  

So where did I cut something out?  I have cut out at least one whole "rinse" cycle after the hot wash.  I had been adding bleach to my bleach dispenser in the hot wash, but as I had mentioned this was leaving them smelling so heavily like bleach.  I would then run a whole short wash to try to rinse out the undiluted bleach.  

I feel (totally my opinion and not scientific fact) that adding the diluted bleach to the first cycle aids in killing all the bacteria and breaking down the ammonia.  Oh, but the biggest factor here is definitely the bleach soak.  

Now this has all been done on just my flats, prefolds, and 4 AIO used for night.  I will still occasionally have some very slight ammonia in a night prefold if it is totally saturated.  If so, then I just do the soak with it.  I'm not having to soak 3/4 of my load anymore; rather I've only had to do maybe 2 prefolds.  What a huge difference.  

My next step is my pockets.  I've begun my bleach soak today.  I am first starting out by soaking only the microfiber inserts.  I know many will say that bleach on pockets won't damage them, but I feel if I am soaking them for two days there will most definitely be an effect on them in some way.  I say this only because I had soaked a white Knickernappies pocket and the white does not look quite so white.  The inside does, but the outside looks a bit more, well off whiteish/pinkish.  Not sure what happened to it, but I don't think the bleach soak was very good for it.  What I am hoping will work for the pockets will be the diluted bleach that I add to the pre-wash cycle.  Since the pocket lining is so thin, I think this will be adequate enough to break down any ammonia in them.  

So, I am glad to be confident in my routine for my flats and prefolds.  Now to see if it will work on my pockets.