Better Homemade Diaper Wipes, Solution and Ointment for Your Baby's Bum

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We knew we didn't want to use traditional wipes for Gv - too many icky chemicals listed as the ingredients, not to mention the extra cost and garbage generated from all those single-use squares.

We do still keep a refill packet of regular wipes in the diaper bag, though.  For longer trips, we bring along our home bum-cleaning supplies, but for short, just-in-case-it's-needed wipe situations, we've found it's easier to keep things simple and use the standard wipes.

So, what do we do at home?  First, we make our own wipe solution.  We've actually played around with different "recipes," but have found that what works best for us is just a simple mixture of aloe and water.

Luckily, we have a few aloe plants in the yard:

They're really simple to grow and are so handy to have on hand for medicinal needs; I think everyone needs to grow at least one of these plants at home!

To make your wipe solution, begin by snipping a lower leaf off with some kitchen shears and bringing it inside.  Wear gloves to do this, or just be careful, because the prickly edges of the leaves hurt if they poke you!

Next, use your kitchen shears to cut away those spines:

You could use a knife to do this, too, but it's so much easier with the shears.  Now your leaf is ready to work with, prickle-free:

Take a knife and slice through the leaf, lengthwise:

Now you have two halves with all the gel and goo exposed:

Take your knife, flip it over (watch your hands!) and scrape the goo off the leaf:

I can never really get my goo completely clear/without a few bits of leaf mixed in, but it doesn't hurt anything to keep the green in there.

Scrape your goo into an up-cycled glass jar and add a cup of distilled water.  Shake it all up and you're all set.

We use distilled water and keep the solution supply jar in the fridge to keep the mold away.  We pour just a little at a time into a small plastic container to use next to our changing table.

Now you need to make your wipes.  I cut up three flannel receiving blankets, because we had lots of those to spare.  You could get fancy and go buy flannel fabric - and even hem the edges - but we've found that the fabric doesn't unravel too badly with raw edges and we didn't really care if our wipes had some special pattern or not.

They're just wipes, after all.

But you could totally get fabric to match your nursery theme and make everything look cute and fancy and coordinated and I bet it would look fabulous.

I cut mine in different sizes - figuring that some jobs would require larger squares and some smaller.  I'm happy I did that.  

This is a larger square - probably 4x4 inches

You can even store your wipe squares in a plastic wipes container so they pop up - How fun is that?

Cleaning the wipes couldn't be easier.  I just toss them in our diaper pail - along with the diaper - and wash everything together.  I've never run out in-between washings and probably could have been fine with just two cut-up blankets, but I like to be prepared, just in case.

Besides the wipes and solution, we also have a jar of just regular water nearby.  This doesn't have to be special water, because you can just dump the old and refill it every few days.  We use the water pretty much every time we change her, before the aloe solution.  Sometimes we just use one or the other, though, depending on our mood and the job.

Some jobs need more aloe solution than others {grin}.

Our final diapering tool is a jar of Coconut Oil

Oh, coconut oil.  How I love thee.  We actually have a ginormous vat of the stuff because we got through so much of it, but I just refill this jar kept next to the changing table since it's a more manageable size.

We use this in place of nasty (or non-nasty, but expensive) conventional diaper creams and love how it keeps Gv diaper rash-free.  I think once or twice in the last year her bum has gotten a tad red, but we just let her sit in some water in the tub for a bit, then gave her some "air time" on a shower curtain liner before slathering on extra coconut oil and putting her in a clean diaper.  Worked like a charm!

Homemade wipes in their pop-up box, glass jar for water, jar of coconut oil, and small container with a bit of wipe solution that gets refilled by our fridge stash

It may all seem like more work than just buying disposable wipes from the store, but we feel so much better with this system.  We're only putting good stuff on Gv's sensitive parts and helping the Earth at the same time!

What do you think?  Will it work for you, too?  I'd love to hear about it!  Leave a comment here or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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