# Strong urine smell--is this my diapers?



## Crunchie (Jan 9, 2007)

Or something else that I should be concerned about? My son's wet diapers smell awful of ammonia, and have so for about a week now.

DS is 1 year old. He still nurses several times per day....4 or 5 times...and 2 to 3 times overnight. He's eating a lot more solids now and has just now started drinking water in any quanitity other than little sips--though still not a lot. Some days he'll drink 8 oz of water, some days maybe 1 oz. I offer him water often and he seems to drink it when he's truly thirsty, which seemed like the best plan, so...







With nursing and the water he does drink, combined with the fact that he still has many wet (and sometimes super-soaked wet!) diapers per day doesn't indicate to me that he's dehydrated which could make his urine smell strong.

He has no fever and no signs of any infection. He's not unusually cranky (well, he was one day earlier this week and, pop! Out came a new tooth







). The urine smells of ammonia, it's not foul like an infection would be. I really don't think that's the case.

We use BumGenius at night and prefolds during the day. I've used these same diapers since day 1, his prefolds are getting a bit small but still work. Could it just be that I need to strip my diapers?? I think I'm going to try and find or borrow a 'sposie (gosh, we've only ever bought 1 pack for a long road trip, I don't even know if I have any laying around!!) and see if the urine still smells in that...If he were acting sick or had a fever I'd rush him right to the Dr., but he's absolutely fine so I don't want to panic. If I go to the ped they are going to want to retract him and put a catheter in for a urine sample.







: I _really_ don't want to do that unecessarily...but of course I _really_ don't want to wait to treat if he's got something going on....

Has anybody had this issue and it just be their diapers? They smell clean out of the wash? My husband thinks I'm freaking out too much and it's probably just because the little one's diet is so much more varied now. But I don't see where solids (except for certain foods, like asparagus, which he's not eating) would make his urine smell strong?

Sorry this is so long! I'm just confused, and maybe a bit too paranoid...


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## sunshine's mama (Mar 3, 2007)

IDK...

My hemp ones stink when combined with urine.....


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## ShyDaisi (Jan 22, 2007)

I am interested to know if anyone has any answers as well. I actually started using sposies at night because I couldn't take the STRONG ammonia smell in the mornings -- I mean, so strong it burned my eyes! But, we don't have that problem any other time of the day with the same diapers.


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## Jilian (Jun 16, 2003)

Bumgenius inserts are famous for having stink and buildup issues. Our stash is mostly bumgenius too. What helps most is washing the diapers over and over on hot until ALL of the bubbles are gone. Then we dry them in the sun - the sun has an amazing ability to get rid of the stink.


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## tbone_kneegrabber (Oct 16, 2007)

you may have detergent build up on your dipes... there is a lot of talk of stinky diapers in the diapering forum


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## Crunchie (Jan 9, 2007)

Thank you for your responses! Since I posted this morning I have discovered that it is, in fact, my diapers--and not some health issue with my child (I was having a minor panic attack over this possibility







). I found a 'sposie, albeit something like a size 2 (just a wee bit too small...hehe), but it worked just fine through his afternoon nap and subsequent super-soaking. No smell.







Well, it smelled like pee if I got real close to it, but no horrible strong ammonia smell. Yay! So, I'm off to the diaper forum to get some more hints on stripping my stash. Funny thing about the stink build-up, though, it started right after we built a clothesline and I started exclusively hanging my dipes in the sun. HHhhhmmm...I am a true believer in sunning things...maybe it's just a coincidence and the build-up just happened to get really bad at the same time I started line drying.

Thanks again!


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## User101 (Mar 3, 2002)

Moving to diapering


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## Liberty5_3000 (Feb 12, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Crunchie* 
Funny thing about the stink build-up, though, it started right after we built a clothesline and I started exclusively hanging my dipes in the sun. HHhhhmmm...I am a true believer in sunning things...maybe it's just a coincidence and the build-up just happened to get really bad at the same time I started line drying.

Thanks again!

That is exactly what happened to mine, they didn't have that strong smell until I started hanging them in the sun mid-April. I put up with it for about a month before I stripped them and they are much better now. I was really wondering why they started smelling worse once I started drying them outside. I'm still kind of curious about the connection.


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## Crunchie (Jan 9, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *annettemarie* 
Moving to diapering

Thanks for moving this--I honestly didn't know if it was my diapers or a health problem when I posted it originally, hence the reason why I posted in Life With a Babe....









I can't imagine why sunning them would make it worse--but that is when they started stinking! Though I did have to do one load through the dryer recently on account of all of the rain we've been having, and those stunk, too. So I'm thinking maybe it was just their time to start stinking!


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## mommathea (Apr 7, 2008)

I'm glad you posted about this. The same thing happened with our prefolds. As soon as I started hanging out on our line the stink started. I hope someone has an idea.


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## mommy777 (Nov 12, 2007)

Strip them. I think for sure that is build up on the diapers. The smell is awful!


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## LawrenceDoula (May 2, 2007)

I second (or third) the detergent build up theory. I had this when my daughter was potty training and I was using any old detergent I had on hand. Now I use Country Save exclusively on my 3 month old with no pee smell.


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