Wednesday, October 27, 2010

My baby's rear smells like lavender and vanilla.

When I started looking into cloth diapering I kept coming across reusable cloth wipes. I'll admit, I thought it was a little ridiculous. Disposable wipes are so cheap, why bother?

But after I starting cloth diapering I found that it was a pain to have to separate the disposable wipe from the washable diaper, and I often found crusty wipes in my diaper pail, and later in my laundry. So I decided to experiment with my own homemade ones. After all, whether you're choosing cloth for the environment or for your wallet, this makes sense.

This is so simple I don't even need to show pictures.

1. Gather all of those receiving blankets you don't know what to do with.
2. Cut them up.
3. (optional) sew around the edges. The wipes will fray if you don't, but really, they're here to get covered in poo, not to be pretty.

Now, for my wipe solution, I use witch hazel, water and some essential oils. I was using just water, but I didn't feel like that was doing enough. I also bought some Thirsties brand Booty Luster, which I love, but I couldn't justify the 11 bucks a bottle.

This is a great use for those milk storage bottles you hopefully didn't but probably did get at the hospital. I mix one for use right away and then keep another in my diaper bin for use later.

one part witch hazel (witch hazel is a natural astringent and a great cleanser.)
3 parts water
2-3 drops of your choice of essential oil or blend. Today, Henry's heiny is wearing lavender and vanilla.

I'm also messing around with putting some soap shavings in and letting them dissolve. I use Indigo Wild's Zum bars, which are all natural goat's milk soap. I love them and we've used them for years in my family.

Be sure you check to make sure the oil isn't going to be harsh on your baby's butt. Here's a good list of oils and their uses that I found. Don't assume that because it's natural it's safe. Also, keep your oils out of reach of little hands.

I fold my wipes up and put them in a glad container instead of a regular wipe container. The glad container is airtight, so I don't have to worry about them drying out.

4 comments:

  1. This is a great mixture. I had cloth wipes for my first baby 15 years ago. This was before I new anything about essential oils and natural soaps. I made a mixture of water, glycerine and a dab of baby wash. It worked pretty well. I cloth diapered her, but we had a diaper service, I didn't wash them myself. Then we had too many babies too quickly and I got overwhelmed, so she is the only one we successfully cloth diapered. It is one of the only things I wish I had done differently. That and my cleaning products. When I think of all the chemical exposure...Ack!

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  2. I'm going to gather all the receiving blankets so I can do this!
    All I need is witch hazel and eo's. Not sure how I have gone on this long without them.

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  3. The best thing about cloth wipes (and family cloth if you ever choose to go that far) is how much better they work vs disposable.

    I cut my receiving blankets up with pinking shears so they didn't fray out too bad and I didn't have to sew them.

    My wipe solution is water w/ a squirt of California baby wash or Dr Bronner's baby wash and a squirt of oil (almond, hemp or olive). In an old soap or squirt bottle.

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