Two reasons you may have trouble stripping your cloth diapers

I cloth diaper.  Yes, I have jumped on that bandwagon.  Long before Baby Girl was born I talked with a few cloth diapering friends and felt it fit me. I don't do it 100% of the time, but I do it a significant amount of the time and I love it.

I'm a simple girl:  prefolds and those adorable Thirsties covers.  They work great!  I loved washing them, I loved the way those diapers looked in the basket, I loved the padded bum my baby had.

But the other week I ran into a bit of trouble:  After almost a year of cloth diapering, they were starting to stink upon urination and I knew it was time to strip them. 

A quick Google search says plenty about stripping diapers.  Some say you should never have to do it if you have a great rinsing system, others say they are a regular part of the cloth diapering world.  I lean toward the former notion and couldn't figure out why I suddenly had to strip them.

So I went one route:  a few cycles of hot water and nothing else.

Six cycles later, I would open up the washer to see not just a few soapy bubbles, but an entire bathtub's worth.  I clean the washing machine monthly.  I added no detergent or soap.

What the heck? 

I narrowed my troubles down to two reasons:

1.  Wrong detergent.  Now, I've seen all those great lists of the best detergents for cloth diapers and it seems Seventh Generation Natural Detergent always gets a bad wrap.  Not a terrible wrap, but not the best.  But I also thought most everything would rinse out of cotton and those lists always admit there are far too many variables in laundry to give 100% accurate advice. So I had the mistake of picking that off the clearance rack at Smith's.

2.  Water temperature.  I believe this was the biggy.  We currently live in my grandmother's basement apartment.  Recently, terrified the baby would get scalded, she turned down the water heater temperature.  Which is fine and caring, but does affect laundry.

The basics of laundry science require some balance of time, cleanser, and temperature.  This next boils down to I needed hot water to properly rinse out those diapers because I didn't have much else going for me. 

Sure enough, turning up the heat assisted with rinsing out those diapers.

And now I understand why I had to strip them in the first place!