homemade baby wipes

Okay, this is something I never thought I would do.  The main attraction of disposable baby wipes (as well as disposable diapers) is that you can just throw the mess away.  So I'm quite happy with my Target baby wipes, thank you very much.  :o)

But over the weekend we had to put my car in the shop, and today I'm stranded at home.  And I came to the horrific realization this morning that we're down to maybe three wipes left in the whole house (not counting some in my kid's diaper bag, but they already dried out and are pretty useless at this point). 

Sigh.  Of COURSE this would happen when I can't get to the store.

So I went on Pinterest and found a tutorial I had pinned awhile back for homemade baby wipes.  I figured that I could just mix a solution up and use old washcloths, since we have cheap paper towels and they're not supposed to work all too well.  Plus this way I could just use what I already have and not worry about wasting a roll of paper towels in case this whole idea ends up failing.  Here goes nothing.

First, I found a pretty-much-empty bottle of hand sanitizer we keep at the changing table.

I washed it out really well, since I'm thinking all that alcohol they put into sanitizer isn't good for a little one's tush.  :o)  Then I assembled my ingredients.

I used the most basic recipe available:  2 cups of water, 1 tablespoon baby wash (or another kind of soap), and 1 tablespoon oil (the original recipe says baby oil, but I've never been a fan of the stuff.  I went for good old extra virgin olive oil instead.  I've heard coconut oil is great, but since it's solid at room temperature I'm not sure how it works here!).  I also added a few drops of tea tree oil to make it smell nice, and because it wards off bacteria.

I mixed everything together in a bowl.

Then used a funnel to transfer it to the bottle.

Yeah probably didn't need this big of a bottle, but hey, it was free!

I figured while I was at it, I'd make a few cloth wipes to go with it.  We still have some receiving blankets from when Caleb was a baby that we hardly used; they're nice and soft, but also on the small side, so they were never good for swaddling or even covering him up.  So I took one and cut it into eight equally sized rectangles.  I was lazy and didn't want to sew the edges, so I used pinking shears to prevent too much fraying.

I decided I liked the size of my rectangles...they're big enough to where I can fold them in half if need be, but also not too big where it's a waste.  I folded the finished wipes into thirds and placed them back on my son's changing table, along with the wipe solution.

Then it was a waiting game.  :o)  Luckily the next diaper was just wet, so I tried it out.  I put a few squirts of the solution on a cloth wipe, then went to business.  And they worked really well!  Much more pleasant-smelling than the store-bought wipes (which still have a chemical odor even if you get "unscented" like I do), and what's more, my kid had no objections.  So when life hands me lemons (in the form of no car and no wipes at the same time), I can always go back to this method and know it will work.

I have a dilemma though.  I'm really dreading using these for poopy diapers.  And I'm pretty sure my husband won't.  So I might just save this homemade solution for wet diapers, and still use disposables for the more yucky ones (as well as for when we're out and about or traveling).  We'll still save money since there's always more wet diapers than messy ones every day, and since I feel like I do laundry constantly we'll always have these homemade wipes on hand.

Then once he's toilet trained, it's just a matter of teaching him not to clog up the toilet with an entire roll of toilet paper.  But that's for another day.  :o)