Do cloth diapers make the house smell?
No one likes the idea of their house smelling like poop and this leads many people to avoid trying cloth diapers.
Even when the cloth diapers themselves may not be at fault.
Cloth diapers don’t smell, disposable diapers don’t smell, it’s the poop and pee in them that smells.
All diapers smell, it’s an unfortunate fact of life, but if smell is the reason you are choosing not to cloth diaper then let me break down why you really have nothing to worry about.
To learn more about cloth diapering check out my article “How hard is it to cloth diaper?”
Do cloth diapers smell worse than disposables?
Saying that cloth diapers smell worse than disposable diapers is like saying that the spinach on the porcelain plate smells worse than the spinach on the paper plate.
Also if disposable diapers didn’t smell then the Diaper Genie wouldn’t exist.
Now where you could see a difference is the fact that you don’t just take cloth diapers out to the trash everyday.
So the dirty cloth diapers would be sitting in the house somewhere until you wash them.
Which is usually every other but in reality you can wash your cloth diapers as often as you want.
I wash my cloth diapers everyday because I have 3 kids in diapers, so if I try to wait longer they won’t all fit in the washing machine.
On the other hand with cloth diapers there isn’t actual poop in the diaper pail/ wetbag or wherever you keep your dirty cloth diapers.
With cloth diapers the poop is dumped or sprayed into the toilet and flushed away, but with disposables the poop is just sitting there in the trash can.
3 ways to reduce the smell of your cloth diapers
Tip #1
Make sure you are using a good wash routine with the right amount of a good detergent.
If you are using really hard water, an HE washing machine and like a tablespoon of a ground up Fels-Naptha soap bar, you’re probably gonna have some problems.
Hard water has a lot of minerals in it, the more minerals, the harder the water.
Hard water can cause problems because since there are minerals just floating in the water they are what the detergent is going to go after first, meaning there is less detergent to clean the diapers.
Also if you don’t have enough detergent to remove all the minerals then the minerals can build up in your diapers and cause them to repel pee and hold stink.
Plus if there isn’t enough detergent to remove all the minerals then guess what else didn’t get completely removed? that’s right, the poop.
The entire purpose of an HE washing machine is to use less water, however when you need to wash remnants of poop and pee out of something sometimes you just need more water.
I personally don’t have an HE washing machine but I have heard of people putting a damp bath towel in with their cloth diaper laundry to add weight.
This tricks the washing machine into thinking there is more laundry then there actually is and it will then use more water.
Fels-Naptha is a soap not a detergent, soap needs hot, soft water to work properly and also needs to be scrubbed not just agitated to reduce soap scum build up in/on your cloth diapers.
Tip #2
Make sure your cloth diapers are getting enough airflow.
A lot of people seem to think they can just get a Diaper Genie or an Ubbi diaper pail and they’ll be stink free forever.
If only that were true, while they may keep the smell in for a little while at some point you are gonna open that lid, to either put a dirty diaper in or to take the full bag out.
When you do this, because these diapers have not had any airflow at all, you will have just opened a Pandora’s diaper pail of nasty upon yourself.
So trust me, you want airflow.
Tip #3
Take special care of the overnight diaper.
The overnight cloth diaper is bane of many peoples existence, there’s all the trial and error to find a cloth diaper combination that’s absorbent enough.
Then there is the fact that overnight diapers have 8-12 hours of pee in them, so guess what? they’re gonna smell like pee.
Some people choose to rinse the overnight diaper with the diaper sprayer or just in the sink.
I personally just start my cloth diaper laundry every morning so I’m washing the overnight diapers almost right after I take them off.
So why do so many people think cloth diapers smell?
Don’t get me wrong cloth diapers can smell really really bad if you have a bad wash routine or are just a not using the right amount of detergent.
But I feel that a lot of people just don’t want to take the time to figure out what’s causing the problem.
They just write it off as cloth diapers just stink and either live with the smell or switch to disposables.
Now if cloth diapering is just plain killing your soul then don’t do it, disposables are there for a reason.
But while you don’t have to pressure yourself into learning how to properly care for cloth diapers, please don’t just go around saying that you quit because cloth diapers as a whole just stink.
I truly feel that many people who could benefit from cloth diapers never even think to try cloth diapering because of other people being slightly dishonest about why cloth diapers didn’t work for them.
Resources
Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from qualifying purchases made through those links. * Indicates an affiliate link
Link to the Thirsties pail liner I use at Thirstiesbaby.com
Link to slightly cheaper Planet Wise pail liner clothdiaper.com *
Link to Planet Wise hanging wet/dry bag on clothdiaper.com *
Link to cloth diaper sprayers on Amazon.com
