Monday, November 7, 2011

Reusable What?

I'm about to share something that makes most people think I'm insane. Honestly, I thought it was overboard when I first saw them on Etsy. Then, I read. It used things I already had in the house, so it'd be free. I mean, there'd be the initial time to make it, but, after that, free. How could I not try it?

So I tried it...and I LOVE it.

So I had my husband try it and he LOVES it.

What is this magical discovery?...reusable wipes.

Yes, we reuse wipes in my house. Now, I know what you're thinking: GROSS, you use those to clean pooey, baby butts!

Yes, they clean pooey, baby butts, but seriously, they're awesome.
  1. The solution uses things most parents already have: baby wash, baby oil, water, and a spray bottle (you know, your best friend if you had a vaginal birth?)
  2. The wipes are two pieces of 8" flannel sewn together or you can buy them
  3. They clean even the biggest pooey messes with one wipe
  4. Less or no chemicals depending on what you use
  5. No running out of wipes
  6. Cost savings
  7. If you're already using cloth diapers, why not wash wipes? However, you could do wipes even using disposables. It's very easy.
Want to try them out? Well, there's different solution recipes here. We use one tablespoon baby oil, one tablespoon soap, one drop tea tree oil, and one cup water. From making it, the best way to do it is oil, water, and soap last. Make sure to shake it up each time before you squirt it out just to mix up the oil.

As for how to apply the solution to the wipe, there's different ways of doing that too. Some people put the solution and wipes in an old disposal wipe box or some other box and pull them out like regular wipes. We use the squirter and my husband and I squirt the wipe differently too. I go for a little all over; he squirts a lot in the middle with the edges for drying.

The wipes we use are old flannel sheets that didn't fit any beds. To make them, I folded the sheet in two, measured 8" from the edge and pinned at the 8" mark all across the sheet, and cut under the pins.
Imagine this is a decent picture of a sheet, folded in half, and the red marks are stick pins.

Once I had a really long 8" piece of flannel, I measured 8" from the side and pinned, again cutting after the pins.


You're going to end up with 8" squares of flannel that's double-sided.


Now, you sew. I used this time to practice my sewing and use the different settings on my sewing machine. Remember, they don't have to be pretty; they're cleaning poo. Mine are dark blue, striped flannel with hot pink thread. I didn't flip the seem inside, so there was a lot of threads for a while when we did laundry. I made some more with the seem on the inside, but I don't like them as much. However, I like them more than disposable wipes.

As for cleaning, they clean the messiest poos with one wipe. Since we started using them 2 months ago, I can count on one hand the times I've used two wipes. Really, I can only think of one time. It's so nice not fighting with the wipe box when I trying to get Wombat clean.

The other benefits pretty much speak for themselves: less or no chemicals, no running out of wipes, cost savings, and ease of washing them. You can read up about chemicals in wipes. Honestly, I didn't even think about it when deciding to do reusable wipes. I did it for the cost savings, which I read is about $440 a year. Washing them is so simple. They're never so dirty that we have to rinse them out. We just throw them into the wash and they come out perfectly clean.

Oh, and if you're wondering about how we pack them in the diaper bag, it's super easy. We have a diaper pad that has a pockets. I fold each wipe into fours so I can pull out one wipe at a time. Our diaper bag also has a bottle holder which I use to hold the squirt bottle. Simple.

If you have any questions, post them in the comments.

2 comments:

  1. awesome! I was intrigued by the idea of cloth wipes (i'm totally into doing cloth diapers!) but was ...afraid, for some reason. to be honest, I don't know why. I suppose I should be more afraid of the cloth diapers than the wipes! since I've got quite a bit of time on my hands (no bfp yet!) maybe I'll routinely check out jo-anns bargains and stock up on some flannel..you've convinced me!

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  2. Do it! It's the easiest and best thing I've done to save us money. Plus, they work great. And don't forget to sign up for JoAnne coupons so you'll get 50% off coupons almost every week.

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