Rashes and flats and elastics oH My!

dodiesdoodles

New member
Help! I’ve been exclusively cloth diaping or one and a half-year-old since birth. We have a crappy cheap HE machine that I’ve never liked. I am constantly changing our wash routine lately. The elastics never seem to get clean. No amount of bleach, bac out, oxi, or soaking, even 3 to 4 full wash cycles with soap, without soap, you name it. Didn’t have an issue for a long time. On our pockets and covers, the elastic always seems to smell after any extreme measures taken to get them clean. They were new when we started them. He gets a rash only were the elastics touch on the front of his legs and top of his thighs. Do they need replacing?

I’ve started using wool covers and flowersack towels more often in the day, but he will get this rash in a perfect shape of the origami fold (only day time). But the FST‘s never smell and come out actually clean (I think). We’ve used these at night for a long time with no rash issues at all and no cream even.

I’ve done the suds test. I’ve cleaned the washer and read the manual a million times. I’ve switched detergents 3-4 times. We even had a repairman look at the washer. Help!
 
@dodiesdoodles Have you tried using a little bit more detergent and adding an extra rinse? I know it seems counterintuitive, but if you don't have enough detergent, the diapers may not be getting completely clean. The extra rinse at the end of the cycle takes care of the extra detergent.
 
@dodiesdoodles I had the same problem with the elastics and I had to switch to a stronger detergent and add borax. Basically, the detergent I was using wasn’t strong enough for the hardness of my water.
 
@dodiesdoodles No advice, just here to say I have the same issue!!! I’m new to cloth, my baby is only 4.5 months old. My prefolds get clean just fine - no smell, no rash - but those damn covers smell like a barnyard no matter how I adjust my wash cycle. We have a front loading HE washer.
 
@dodiesdoodles You might have to gently scrub elastics with a soft tooth brush after prewash and before they go in to the main wash.
If you have a top loader they just don’t clean as well as front loaders so elastics can be hard to sort out without a little extra work.
 
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