Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Cloth wipes


When Inara was about 9 months old I entertained the idea of using cloth diapers. In the end Justin and I decided it probably wasn't for us, but I also felt with how much waste we created.  Over the past 3 years I think I have learned a lot about green and reusable products.  I have found is that sometimes they are either expensive to start with or don't work as well.  When I was pregnant with Shepherd I still knew we wouldn't be clothe diapering but I was still interested in getting chemicals away from my baby's bottom, saving some money, and treating our Earth well.  I found a couple different ways to make homemade wipes.  One was was to use paper towels.  While this way is cheaper I still wanted something that was a little more eco-friendly.  So I found a few other ways. You could buy cloth wipes, which were reusable, but also cost more money upfront.  So I found a few pins on making your own reusable wipes. I combined a couple different methods and recipes and this is what I came up with.



A lot of people said use wipes that match your diapers. It makes sense....sort of, but I found that cloth wipes were so much cheaper upfront and less time consuming that diapers, that I don't really agree with that.

I used baby washcloths as my wipes. I found them for super cheap on Amazon (btw, if you don't have Amazon Prime...get it! A.ma.zing).  I was going to use t-shirt scraps because Justin had just gone through his old shirts, but I had preggo brain and forgot to tell him to save them so he threw them away :(  But t-shirts seem like the cheapest option. This is the solution I have used and it seems to be going great.  I am using water, tea tree oil (for anti-bacterial effect and to help prevent mold), and Dr Bronners Castile Soap. I bought the one scented with Peppermint Oil this time.  Although it hasn't caused any irritation to Shepherd's skin, I think the I will buy the Organic Baby Mild one next time.



The solution is super easy to make. 

  1. Boil 1.5 cups of water
  2. Add a squirt or 2 of Bronner's Castile Soap
  3. Add a few drops of tea tree oil
  4. Stir solution
  5. Pour over wipes in container.
Yes it really is that easy!  I have about enough wipes to last about 5 days which is plenty and actually helps me keep up on the laundry in the rest of the house. I use an old wipe container that I had around the house as my storage container and it works fine.  I will say we still use disposable wipes on the go, and we also don't use them for really poopy diapers.  You can use them for poopy diapers, but since we wash our wipes with the rest of laundry (and because Justin requested we still have them for this reason), we use disposable for poo.



If you already cloth diaper then you can just throw them in with your wet bag, but since we don't have a wet bag, I got this super cheap garment bag from Ikea and it works great. It keeps all our wipes together that way I don't have to go digging through the laundry to find them.

Have you tried/do you use cloth wipes?  Any other tips?


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