Homemade Disposible Wipes Tutorial

Here is a SUPER easy and cheap way to make your own wipes for home use. Store bought wipes generally contain all sorts of unnecessary chemicals and ingredients and depending on the brand can feel too wet or too dry for your little ones bum. Its all a matter of preference but whats great about making your own is that YOU control what goes in and how moist you want them to be! The tutorial I originally came across said to use baby oil, baby lotion and baby wash in the solution but I am skeptical to leave behind a soapy residue on my baby's tushie. Therefore I modified the original solution to better suit my needs and also is definitely cloth diaper friendly.

Supplies:
• Container ( The Better Homes 7.5 cup square container at Walmart is PERFECT! )
• Bounty 'Select-a-Size' Paper Towels
• Cutting Board
• Non-serrated knife

For the solution:
• Water
• Tea Tree Oil
• Coconut Oil

After you round up your supplies you can begin. Unwrap your roll of Bounty Select-a-Size paper towels. Apparently it is important to use this specific brand of paper towel as the off brands don't hold together or clean as well as this kind.

 Cut it in half using a sharp non-serrated knife and cutting board.

Your roll should now look something like this. We will be using one half, put the other away for later use.

Now you need your container. The one I used it from Walmart. It is a 7.5 cups square air tight container by Better Homes. Seriously, its a perfect size. If you can't get your hands on this exact one, any container will do as long as its airtight so it will keep the wipes from drying out. Squeeze the paper towel roll into the container.

To make your solution mix 5 drops of Tea Tree Oil and 1 teaspoon of Coconut Oil into 2 cups of hot water. The pour the liquid solution into the center of the paper towels within the container.

Put the cover tightly on the container and flip upside down. Keep it upside down until the wipes are completely soaked.

Open the container and removed the cardboard center. Pull the end up through the center and enjoy your cheap, cloth diaper friendly homemade wipes.

Figuring out a wash routine

I know we all have our own routines, but I thought it might be helpful to anyone new to cloth to see the routines that we have found work the best for us.  So here you go!

TOP LOADER (Dee & Ashley)
1. Separate soaker from shell (cover & insert/prefold - whatever type you are using) and throw in machine.
2. Rinse Diapers. (if you are exclusively breastfeeding you can skip this step)
2. Do a full cycle with cold water and 1/2 the amount of detergent you would normally use.
3. When this cycle finishes, run a cycle with HOT WATER and your regular amount of detergent.
4. When this cycle finishes, run a cold rinse to be sure they are rinsed completely.
5. Dry your diapers! I dry my soakers/inserts in the dryer and hang my covers/shells.

IMPORTANT TIP: Do not stuff the machine full.  If there is too much in one load then there isn't enough water to rinse the yuckies out - thus you will be left with ammonia smelling diapers - NO FUN.

FRONT LOADER (Jessica)
Front loaders can be extremely tricky and definitely take some getting used to. I did at least 5-6 loads before finding a routine that really worked well. Try my routine to start and it may just save you some headaches :)
1. Separate the soaker/insert from the shell (I like to do this as I throw them in the pail)
2. Load diapers into machine.
3. Set your washer to do a full rinse cycle on cold.
4. Once this cycle finishes do another rinse cycle on cold but this time set it to NO SPIN. (This causes the diapers to be soaked and heavy which will trick the washing into using more water on the actual wash cycle, HE washers use less water and it is determined by the weight of the clothes)
5. Now do your full wash cycle with detergent on hot with an extra rinse (you can use the 'whitest white's or 'sanitize' settings, but I heard 'sanitize' is too hot to use every time)
6. Dry your diapers! You can dry anything that does not contain PUL in the dryer, or you can hang dry it all.

What is YOUR wash routine? Feel free to leave a comment with any tips and tricks you'd like to share!