Crazy Update

This will not make sense unless you've read part 1.

I have "processed" about half the diaper stash with the aquarium ammonia remover. (The other half hasn't been done because I'm out of the solution and have been too busy lazy to go get more.) The verdict is...it works. Mostly.

Per the directions on the blog post I linked in part 1, I used the highest water setting my washer allows, adding 60 mL of the ammonia remover, and soaked the diapers in hot water for 6 hours. After the soak I ran a rinse cycle, followed by a full wash cycle which included detergent and an extra rinse.

Immediately you could tell the inserts were better off. The ammonia remover got out a lingering funk that was on all of the inserts.  That funk never really smelled like ammonia, nor did it smell like barnyard (which is another scent all the diaper blogs caution you about), and I'd always chalked it up to leftovers from our strange water conditions. It didn't smell bad, but it was just sort of there. You would only notice it when you placed an insert against your nose and intentionally took a good whiff. And yes, I did that often while trying to assess the problem with these diapers. I'm not weird. Check the other diaper blogs...those moms did it too.  The scent might have actually been from our water, it might not have, I have no idea. Either way it's gone now, if only temporarily.

The majority of the diapers go on the kids, get used, and come off with no issues. No rashes, no immediate ammonia stench coming from the diaper itself. But there are a select few diapers that the solution seemed to help, but didn't completely rid them of ammonia. And it's random across the diapers that have been treated, not like it is one of the 2 brands we use or something like that. The random diapers are better than they were before, just a bit of redness on the kids instead of full blown chemical burns, and they clearly smell like ammonia when you take them off (instead of smelling like some ammonia-mix weirdness which was part of the problem in diagnosing this issue) so I know I'm making progress. If I segregated those diapers from the bunch and repeated the process it would probably do the trick.

We are at least back to a manageable point. I can use our cloth diapers, though there is still work to be done before I'll be completely happy again.  I'd recommend the aquarium ammonia remover as a last ditch attempt to save your diapers (like I needed), but not as a regular maintenance type of thing.