Cloth Wipes

To save a bit of money, I've made the switch to cloth wipes.

I had a ton of receiving blankets sitting in a drawer not being used, so I cut them up into wipe size. I cut up about ten blankets, and I made 7-8 wipes out of each. I still have roughly 30 blankets sitting in the drawer. I didn't worry about hemming them because I have so many. I figure once they get too ratty I'll just toss them and cut up another blanket.

I poked around the internet for a good cloth wipe solution. There are a ton of recipes out there! Honey, chamomile, all kinds of stuff. E's butt is special, but not that special ;) I chose to go the plain route. Here's what I used:

Organic coconut oil
Distilled water (leftover from when I was supplementing, gotta use it up somehow!)
Baby shampoo (bought this for E before we went poo-less and its just sitting around collecting dust)
Lavender essential oil
Tea tree oil

The recipe I went off called for 2T oil, 2T soap, and 1 1/2 cups water. It wasn't until I had already poured all that out that I realized how off those ratios seemed to me. That's an awful lot of soap for a little baby butt. I ended up with this as my final:

2 T coconut oil
2 T baby shampoo
10 1/2 C distilled water
10 drops TTO
10 drops Lavender oil

I thought I would like using a squirt bottle (my peri bottle from the hospital...reuse and recyle!), but I'm finding that the solution comes out way too fast, the recieving blankets can't soak up the liquid fast enough and I end up making a mess (and wasting my solution). I'm going to switch to a plain ol' spray bottle. I strongly recommend spraying the WIPE not the baby bum :P

Pee wipes (which there aren't many of, I don't wipe pee unless she's been in a disposable for an excessive amount of time, I let her bits air dry) I stick in a laundry bag waiting to be washed. Poo wipes I soak in a solution of washing soda and water until they're ready to be washed to help combat stank and stains. If you aren't planning on washing every 1-2 days, add a couple drops of TTO or some vinegar to help combat mold.

There you have it! If I had to guess, I'd say it cost me around 1.10 to make the solution, and I didn't buy a single receiving blanket when E was born. They may not be the perfect cloth wipes, but they work great and they were CHEAP!