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If stains and odors are taking over the mattress in your child’s room, use this simple 3-step method to clean pee out of a mattress!
This is the very best way to clean pee out of a mattress. This easy process will remove those nasty odors and stains from wetting the bed will quickly become your best friend.
Table of Contents
How to Clean Pee Odors and Stains From A Mattress
This may be an odd topic to discuss on a food blog, but it’s a real life issue that we deal with on a weekly basis when my son was younger. Years ago I talked about my son’s bedwetting issues and I had a lot of feedback from moms dealing with the same thing. I figured maybe you could use some cleaning tips like this as well.
I would clean it as best I could but nothing worked. Febreze and other cleaners simply masked the urine odors, and some cleaning solutions that I’d found online would remove the odor but didn’t work well on the stains.
So I created my own method with a mattress cleaner based on items in my pantry, and it’s been working great! This method of removing odors from your mattress is really simple and doesn’t require any fancy scented oils or kitchen utensils. I also like that the products I use aren’t harmful and my son can help with the clean-up.
Follow these easy tips for how to clean your mattress with my easy, all-natural mattress cleaner.
Here’s What You Need:
There are only a few ingredients and tools that you need to clean pee out of a mattress.
- A roll of paper towels (or lots of rags that you don’t mind washing)
- Baking Soda
- Distilled White Vinegar
- An empty spray bottle
- Vacuum Cleaner
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Step-by-Step Instructions
Step One: Blot the pee as dry as possible with paper towels or rags. If it’s already dry, move on to step 2.
Step Two: Saturate the stain with distilled white vinegar. I highly recommend using a spray bottle as pouring the vinegar directly on the stain could over-saturate the mattress. If you’re concerned about a heavy vinegar smell, you can dilute the vinegar with water, which a lot of methods call for, but that just didn’t seem to work as well. The straight vinegar is very strong and really helps to pull out that nasty urine odor.
Step Three: Let the vinegar sit for 5-10 minutes. If you have a ceiling fan, turn it on, or run a stand alone fan if you can. At the very least open the windows. The increased air flow helps to speed up the process.
Step Four: Blot with paper towels or rags to soak up the vinegar. Press several layers of paper towels into the mattress for this step. You want to soak up as much of the vinegar as possible.
Step Five: Sprinkle baking soda all over and around the stain. You can get real fancy and use a sieve or a sifter for this step, but I don’t think it’s necessary. If there are a lot of clumps just break them up with your fingers. Let the baking soda sit for several hours. The longer the better. After a couple of hours, you’ll begin to see the baking soda caking as it soadks up the vinegar (and takes that nasty odor with it!).
Step Six: Vacuum up the baking soda from the mattress. Make sure to go over the crevices several times. It makes me kinda happy making those lines in the powder with the vacuum cleaner.
That’s it! If the stains and odors are really bad, you may have to repeat this process, but it really does work! And it doesn’t just get pee out of a mattress. Readers have used this method to remove blood stains, wine and more from their mattress. Be sure to read all of the tips readers have shared below.
Pro Tips
- If you have some really difficult stains, use an old toothbrush to rub the vinegar into them vigorously.
- I highly recommend using a spray bottle for the vinegar. However if you just don’t have one, saturate a rag with vinegar and lay it over the stain to pull the odor out.
- Some methods online tell you to dilute the vinegar. You can do that, and it will help with the vinegar smell. But it also dilutes the effectiveness in my experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
I recommend Distilled White Vinegar. I keep it on hand in the gallon bottles because it is amazing with so many different household cleaning tasks like this mattress cleaner, and it’s super cheap.
Other vinegars are for cooking and are more expensive, and really just won’t work as well. However I did have a reader mention that she used apple cider vinegar and it worked great. The vinegar is just a strong acid that breaks down the odor causing proteins.
We do – I actually have 3 of THIS ONE. It works really well, except for that time you are so tired that you forget to put it on, or it rips and you didn’t know, or your son makes his own bed and forgets to put it on, or it slips off the corner because he thrashes around too much at night, or he just doesn’t like the sound/feel of it so he takes it off without telling you, or he wets more than once in a night and you don’t have a back-up, or sometimes, they just fail.
It’s not for lack of trying, believe me. Sometimes these accidents just happen and are totally random and it’s always good to have a great mattress cleaner method ready to go.
Reader Tips
Here are some tips from readers who have tried this method.
Set your mattress in the sun.
Jim says, “Vinegar and baking soda do an excellent job for cleaning a mattress. It has always worked for me. If there is too much odor, you may have to put the mattress out in the sun.” (editor’s note – this is great for freshening pillows, too!).
Works on pet stains and odors, too.
Hadley says, “This method works wonderfully on urine odor and stains from pets, too! Last weekend, my sister’s dog had an accident on the end of my bed, and there was a large, yellow urine stain. I was going to purchase some fancy expensive pet stain remover, but I found your website, and read about your method, instead. Ingenious!
I saturated the stain with distilled white vinegar, let it set for about ten minutes, blotted the vinegar with some paper towels, sprinkled a generous amount of baking soda on the stain. I let the baking soda sit for about three hours, and I literally just finished vacuuming the baking soda up, and the stain and smell is completely gone! Thank you so much for telling folks about this method! Your mattress cleaner saved me time and money!”
Bridget says, “I just had to tell you I wish I could give you the biggest hug! I have a tempurpedic mattress and my cat decided to pee on it! I almost had it out my door to throw away and I was so angry that I knew I would NEVER get that smell out! Yes it had ALL the appropriate waterproof covers too! Still soaked through! Well something told me google it before you throw it. I did and I saw this. Well I did it and oh my god! It worked!!! No smell at all!!!! Thank you!”
Add vinegar to really smelly laundry.
Cassie says, “Thank you! I am going to try this! Why didn’t I think of vinegar before? It’s the best to use on any odors, and I’ve even used to get odors out of clothes and bedding. I tried the baking soda [but] didn’t try vinegar! Genius – I will be doing this today. FYI, they do make vinegar for laundry [too].”
Worried about the strong smell of vinegar? Add scented oils.
Katie says, “I have found that adding a few drops of essential oil (lemon works well) to the vinegar in the spray bottle works wonders to mask the strong smell of the vinegar.”
Don’t have vinegar? Try…vodka?
Sheridan says, “I also have another remedy that is great for getting rid of smells… Vodka! I tried it once to get mildew smell out of a hat and have used it for smelly fabric issues ever since. Same principle, put it in a spray bottle, spray the fabric object down with it until it’s pretty moist to the touch, but for best results put it in a warm sunny spot to evaporate. You can’t really do that with a mattress but alcohol evaporates fairly quickly anyway, and using a fan helps. It doesn’t do much for stains, but works wonders on smells, including mildew!”
*Editor’s note: Basic rubbing alcohol would work the same way, similar to how hand sanitizer works.
Works on vomit, too.
Laura says, “I tried it today on vomit as my son got sick on my bed this morning. It worked great, and luckily there weren’t any stains. I also used a hot iron and damp cloth to get the stains up (to soak up the vinegar & stain), before the baking soda. It’s not great on the iron, but the stains come up so much easier. It’s the same trick used to get (pet) urine stains out of carpet.”
All-Natural Mattress Cleaner
Equipment
- Spray bottle
- Paper towels and/or rags
- Vaccuum cleaner
- Fan optional
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Distilled white vinegar
Instructions
- Blot the pee as dry as possible with paper towels or rags. If it’s already dry, move on to step 2.
- Pour vinegar into the spray bottle and spray all over the stain to saturate. Let sit for 10 minutes. Run your ceiling fan or open window so air can circulate.
- Blot with paper towels or rags to soak up the vinegar.
- Sprinkle baking soda liberally all over and around the stain. Let sit for 3-4 hours.
- Vacuum up the baking soda from the mattress.
Notes
- If you have some really difficult stains, use an old toothbrush to rub the vinegar into them vigorously.
- I highly recommend using a spray bottle for the vinegar. However if you just don’t have one, saturate a rag with vinegar and lay it over the stain to pull the odor out.
- Some methods online tell you to dilute the vinegar. You can do that, and it will help with the vinegar smell. But it also dilutes the effectiveness in my experience.
- For really stubborn stains and odors, you may need to repeat the process.
Nutritional Disclaimer Kristin Maxwell of “Yellow Bliss Road” is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. For accurate calorie counts and other nutritional values, we recommend running the ingredients through your preferred online nutritional calculator. Calories and other nutritional values can vary depending on which brands were used.
I did this…it took the stains out pretty good, it hardly took any smell out. The smell might even be the same, I left the vinegar on for 10 minutes, damped it out a bit, and then left the baking soda on for 4 hours. Does it make a difference if the mattress is a pillow top…do you have any suggestions for further action?? Any professional type of services that would work??
I haven’t tried this with a pillow-top. My theory would be that’s the reason it didn’t work as well.
Pillow tops are harder to get clean! I had to do it like four times but it will come out !
Thank you…it worked great, even on more than a year old stains! I wished I had know way sooner as I wouldn’t have let this build up so long. My wife and I now have ammunition and can rest easier knowing we can hold on to our current mattresses until the accidents stop completely.
Thanks for the tips. I was curious if the title of your blog, the Yellow Bliss Road came from fighting the pee stain battle for so many years? LOL. We have five kids, one of whom is still afraid to leave her room at night to go pee, and she’s eight… Thanks again.
We should get her and my son together he’s nearly 9 and same thing…..he hides it and their room is third floor and only great room up there bathroom 2nd floor and laundry all the way in the basement unfortunately it makes this mama quite cranky to find thibgs under furniture and when i find it or i get all the eay up stairs its usually been sitting a day or 2 tops so its set in….i still smell it on sheets and blankets. I thought i had to be the only mom still having a child in the 3rd grade but ped told me it could last into teens…..ughhhhh
Um yes way into the teens! My son is 14 and he still has this problem! Ugh! We’ve tried EVERYTHING!
Feel your pain. My daughter will be 12 next week. We’re during Much better but at least 2 if not 3 nights a week, there’s issues. The struggle is real.
My 6 year old son has accidents in the night once in a while and when he was younger his pediatricIan ran a test and during the procedure we discovered that his colon was full. I used to have a hard time getting him to eat veggies and fruit so his pediatrician had me give him Mira-lax in Apple juice every day to help him poop. After a week, he stopped having accidents! Life gets busy and sometimes it’s pizza night so if he starts wetting the bed, I get out the Mira-lax. ( I used 1 cap full Mira-lax in a 6 Oz glass of AJ).
It is best to give with their after school snack so they can go at home.
Caffeine makes people have to pee more my doctor told my son to stop drinking caffeine watch and be careful not to drink anytime close to before bedtime. My son is 16 now we haven’t seen any major problems for months there has been 1 or 2 very very minor problems but not much.
From someone who fought this until the early teens. You can never have sleep overs or spend the night at someone else’s house. It is a terrible burden on the child. We did all the behavioral stuff. Nothing worked.
My mom took me to urologist at age 14. This was in 1967. After a cystoscope, he said my bladder was smaller than normal. He prescribed a medicine called Tofranil. I never wet the bed after starting the medicine. I think I took it for a year or two. Changed my life. This is an off label use for Tofranil so it doesn’t list this in any of the searches I have done on the medicine.
Thank you for posting this. I don’t think I let the vinegar sit long enough before I started blotting but I just sprinkled the baking soda and I’m letting it sit. My son’s room never stinks and I walked in there this morning to an animal smell. Lol. I asked my 6 year old what is that smell and he said he pee peed the bed a few days ago and Daddy washed his sheets. Well he forgot to clean the mattress and matress pad. Smelly! I hope this works cause the smell is wrecking my nose! Thanks again!
What if i cant get distilled vinegar is there perhaps another type of vinegar i can use?
You definitely want to use distilled vinegar. It’s the strongest vinegar you can get and will work the best. The other could stain and wouldn’t work nearly as well.
How do u get rid.of the small of vingear?
The baking soda helps to remove the smell, but for me it’s always disapated within the day.
I would reather smell vingar then pee pee just saying
Hi could I use normal white vinger and water it down?
White vinegar is what you need to use. No need to dilute it.
We did the viniger and baking soda. It still smells of urine. What do you suggest? Thanks
I would do another round.
I would like to know does this work on dry stains as well
Yes! I’ve used it on month old stains!
What about stains older than that
LOVE LOVE LOVE
used it for some new urine stains and smell on a sofa bed and also for some old vomit stains on my son`s mattress… thank you so much i will always use this on my furniture
for the strong vinegar smell I used lemon essential oil and Lysol spray BUT i think the smell disappeared after the third day so NO WORRIES
Thank you again so much you saved my furniture especially the sofa bed (my guests use it A LOT don`t want it to smell like pee 😀 )
I used this method and now the urine stains have gone but I have huge yellow stains over the mattress which are even worse than the original stains.
Can you offer any further advice plse?
I’ve never had that problem…you did use white distilled vinegar?
I had the same issue! I did use white distilled. But there is now a huge yellow stain. The odor is gone. Which i am thankful for. But would like to find a way to get rid of the yellow stain.
I would use some javex and water in a spray bottle. I use vinegar and baking soda weekly just to keep the beds clean never had an issue with yellow stains.
I realize I am super late to the conversation but wanted to add something. It sounds like the stain got bigger because of the fizzing action of the baking soda and vinegar pulling urine out of the mattress from deeper down. This is actually what you want to happen to get rid of the odours completely. I would repeat several times more if necessary to get it all out.
you need to spray the whole mattress otherwise there will be a water mark where you have sprayed.
Try the hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, blue liquid dish soap recepie. Do not use water. This works wonders
thank you so much it worked like a charm 🙂
What did you use to make it work si hambledon?
My daughter fell asleep on our brand new pillow top Matress and wet the bed. ? I tried this and there is still a slight urine smell. Would you suggest doing everything another time? I am desperate to get the smell out!!!
I would definitely try a second time – it couldn’t hurt!
Add a few drops of Lavender Essential Oil to the wet solution. The Essential Oil helps neutralize the odor and Lavender helps you sleep.
I owned a dry cleaners for over 25 years. You can also use a premixed douche. It works really good!
A vinegar douce? How does this work?
My dogs got skunked by a skunk and I couldn’t get the smell out AT ALL! I called a groomer and she recommended a vinegar douche. I tried TONS of things and I’ll be dadgum, if that douche took the entire smell away. The key is to NOT rinse it out. Didn’t harm my dogs at all! I bet it would work for any odor! Since I wasn’t sure how much I needed for each dog, I got 6 & you should have seen the way the checker checking me out looked at me! She looked at the items I wanted to purchase and then back at me. I said, “These are for my dogs!” She did a polite nod and then “Uhhh Huh”. Talk about embarrassing!
Does it really?
use hydrogen peroxide baking soda and a small fabuloso and it smell great
Do you mix all these together??? I just need to get rid of the odor
2 C hydrogen peroxide
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 drops Dawn dish soap
Drench the item with the stain/smell. Let it dry, vacuum. Repeat as necessary. Works if you are persistent. Even with cat urine. Yuck!
Does it have to be Dawn dish soap?
Do you have to rub it at all? Does it remove just the smell or the stain as well? My daughter has had a serious bed wetting problem her entire life and the bad part is she won’t tell you out of embarrassment so when I go in her room eventually I smell it and there’s a huge yellow stain in the middle of her new mattress from multiple times that she’s wet the bed. HELP! Mom to mom I need some other tricks.
I had this same problem with my son not wanting to tell me. I just eventually had to be diligent about checking every day. He did (and still does) take meds every night and that has helped tremendously. I never had to rub any of the stains out though, and some were pretty bad. They didn’t all come out 100% but they were a ton better with this method.
what about old tomato sauce stain
You can buy this stuff called Odorzout and all it is is zeolite all natural . This works wonders and the smell out. I use it even outside in the area where my dog goes and totally removes the smell. I get this on eBay. For the stain I would use Dawn dishwashing liquid and mix with vinegar.
This is what I use all the time
Where did I get odorzout pls
They sell on Amazon
I have a disabled child who even at 19 wets the bed occasionally. I have used Odoban for years. You can use it anywhere. I throw some in with his wet linens, wipe or spray with it. It is wonderful stuff and safe. I have purchased it at Home Depot and Sams. You can get a gallon of concentrate and it lasts forever.
see if u can a mattress that tucks on the sides of the bed i have one the belonged to my great grams and believe me it is really absorbant. try thrift stores its really wide with thin cloth flaps on the ends
Yes it is awesome stuff. Was actually recommended to me by a vet about fifteen years ago when I did rescue work for animals. I took in all the puppies because no one else would take full litters. I loved the odoban because it’s one thing knowing I have fifteen animals in my house and another thing smelling like I have fifteen animals my house.
Dr. Bronner’s lavender (only the lavender takes out the smell) liquid soap. It works extremely well for my cloth couch clothes etc.. I have 4 cats…. Old or new material it doesn’t matter. Leave it on for a few hrs it can even dry. Wet the item again and while up. Clothing. Soak item then rinse. Happy cleaning!!!
Nature’s Miracle pet Urine & Odor is the best for the odor. I swear by this it works overtime. I did not know what to do about the stains so I will be using this method.
Hi Jody. This recepie I discovered works %100 to get the stain and the odour out. In a spray bottle combine 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide. 1 tbsp baking soda, and a 1tsp blue liquid dawn dish soap. Shake it all up. Spray generously on stain. Let dry completely. Brush away excess baking soda. Done. Works like a charm. This also works on cat pee stains. Tip: Do not use water on any pee stains. Will not work.To get pee out of clothing , add 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar to your laundry detergent. Wash as usual. For some reason this works even though the washing machine uses water. Hope this helps.
Cheryl, I just used this method on our pee-soaked latex mattress and it worked like a charm! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Any essential oil will clean the mattress, it’s anti microbial
Hello,
I tried this method today in the morning( usual apple cider viniger, baking soda I did twice) but I don’t know why the stains disnt diseaper 🙁 at night before bed I sprayed on top of the soda let see morning. If not what should I do for disapearing the urine stains.? Thank you
I’m guessing it’s because you used apple cider vinegar instead of distilled white vinegar. The apple cider vinegar has a slight golden color to it.
Oh I got it.. Where can I buy the distilled viniger?? Thank you
It’s an old urine which I didn’t know how to clean. Right now I did the first, second and third steps should I cavum right away baking soda or let it seat for couple hours Or minutes? Thanks
I have used your tip several times and find it works great! The reason my little girl wets the bed is she is a Type 1 Diabetic and sometimes these accidents occur because this is a side effect of her Diabetes.
One of the early warning signs of Type 1 Diabetes is frequent bedwetting along with extreme thirst. You can’t cause Type 1 Diabetes or prevent it the best thing you can do is find out as early as possible to start managing it immediately. Children may be tired, wetting the bed, losing weight and have flu like symptoms. IF this is the case ask your Doctor to rule out Diabetes before just accepting it is a common cold. This year alone, several children have been misdiagnosed and have ended up in a coma or have died.
Type 1 is not to be compared or confused with Type 2. Type 2 is reversible with diet and exercise in most cases. Type 1 Diabetics are 100% insulin dependent the rest of their life. I felt sharing this information with everyone on this site is because you are looking for a solution to urine stained mattresses. I hope no one who reads this will ever have to know what I know about Type 1 Diabetes.
I appreciate your feedback JC. It’s always a good idea to talk with your doctor about these issues. My cousin is Type 1 and has bee since she was 13 years old. I know what it’s like to watch a child go through that. I’m so sorry!
Like that idea about the vinegar in the wash as well. Thanks for that tip
I read the posts from others about this idea and even though I was like yeah right, I was desperate to try anything. So I armed myself with this stuff and followed the directions and I was completely amazed. It is a wonderful idea.
When I thought to try ammonia in a load of laundry for cat pee on the girls clothes I was also amazed that it removed the smell. Not sure if everyone knows that 2 1/2 cap fulls in a load of laundry works. You do though have to give it another run through the rinse. No one told me about, I just thought what the heck. I was tired of throwing away clothes and sheets etc..
You can put vinegar in the wash too, and it works great!
my 3 year old just managed to pee on my superking size mattress. He had a pull up diaper on too. Nearly cried as have just finished laundering all the duvet, sheets, pillows and mattress cover from his room. Arghhh!
Anyhow, followed all the steps given (after an uncustomary whisky, a little elbow grease and some crying at this ungodly hour of 12 midnight).
I used cider vinegar as didn’t have any white. And am sleeping on my little boys floor. Hope it works. Thank you for sharing.
Oh no Amy, that sounds like quite a night! I hope it works for you!
Awesome advice! We were going to buy a new mattress but a little voice told me to google how to get rid of utube smells from a mattress. THANKYOU so much! I’ve even shares this blog in Facebook.
How long will it take before the vinegar smell goes away? My husband absolutely hates vinegar and I am freaking out right now because the whole house smells, and he will probably kill me if he finds out I purposely used vinegar on our mattress! 🙁
The baking soda should absorb the vinegar odor. I’ve never had a problem with the smell.
Okay thank you so much! I need to get more of both ingredients as our mattress is terrible, and I ended up short of baking soda. It did seem to work though, and I read somewhere else to try a hair dryer. I did that and squirted a little oxyclean on it and I don’t smell vinegar anymore. Thank you so much for this great cleaning tip!
This procedure worked perfectly! Both ingredients are very cheap also!
Trying this right now after a random accident. Honestly right now it smells like vomit. I hope it improves after the baking soda!
What is step 2? Cannot read it through the sign over it.
Just click through to page 2 and 3 at the bottom of the post. I’ve broken it down into a few pages because it’s a lot for one page to load.