How To Make Homemade Baby Wipes

In keeping up with the natural baby solution on our last post, we have a post today from Megan, who shares how to make homemade baby wipes!

Homemade baby wipes save so much money and are so much better on babies sensitive skin. I made around 4 dozen of them during my insomnia of late pregnancy and it has been more than enough. I throw them into the diaper pail with the cloth diapers and wash them together every few days and have never even come close to running out. Plus I use them for just about everything else.

I wet a few and throw them in a baggie to wipe up hands and faces after a picnic at the park, use them to wipe up all the drool of a teething baby, they are the perfect size for washcloths (and do a better job cleaning than normal washcloths and are much softer) and now that the baby doesn’t use as many wipes, they have become my cleaning rags.

I bought a yard of both cotton terry cloth and snuggle flannel, but you could use old t-shirts, old blankets, leftover flannel fabric…But I liked having two different kinds of fabric. The flannel is great when you don’t need to do a lot of cleaning and the terry cloth for the messy times.

How To Make:

-Cut an equal number of 4 1/2″ by 7″ rectangles out of fabric (you can adjust this to fit the container you have-I just use a shoe box and wet them when I need them) A rotary cutter and self healing mat make this go really fast

-Place two rectangles right sides facing, one of each fabric, and zig zag or straight stitch around the edges leaving a two inch gap on one side to turn it out.

-Turn fabric right side out and edge stitch sewing very close where you turned the fabric right side out so you don’t have to hand stitch it

-That’s it! All done! And they last. Mine have been used for 9 months and hundreds of washes and they still look new

My favorite wipe solution:

-1c water

-T olive oil

-T baby soap or T of concentrated formulas (i.e. Johnson’s & Johnson’s or Dr. Bronner’s)

-1 drop tea tree oil (to prevent diaper rash)

-optional: 1 drop lavender oil(makes the whole thing smell better)

Mix in a small bowl and pour into a couple small spray bottles( $1 store always has these)

I keep one in the diaper bag with a bottle of water and one next to my sink. When I need to change a diaper, I wet the wipe in the sink and spray it a couple times with the spray and voila! No diaper rash EVER and this solution lasted me 6 months! And you don’t even need to use the spray every time. Sometimes just a wet wipe does the trick :)

Extra things to think about:

– If you use fleece, you can just zig zag around the edge and that’s it since it doesn’t ravel

– Two dozen would be sufficient for a newborn and 1 dozen would be fine for an older baby but keep in mind if you have it all out and a couple hours of time, its worth it to make extra since they truly are multi purpose

– I also keep a couple washable bags in my diaper bag for when I’m out and about so I don’t waste a plastic grocery bag or ziploc. I got mine from my friends mom’s etsy site. Check it out-they are great for a number of things! www.sewlongziploc.etsy.com or on facebook search for Sew Long Ziploc

Today’s post is brought to us by Megan. She lives in Northern California with her husband and their two little ones; Audrey and Owen. Up until a year ago, she was a pre-school teacher and has a degree in Early Childhood Education. Now a (lucky) full-time mom, she enjoys spending her days teaching the kids through play, cooking, yoga and creating. In her very spare time she is an artist and has her own line of little girls skirts.

www.inbetweendreams.etsy.com or In Between Dreams on facebook