Tutorial: Make your own Baby Wipes

*This is the first in a series of DIY Baby tutorials that we will post over the next few months - since Kate is getting ready to meet her sixth baby, and needs to make all this stuff again, anyway.*

With my first child, I never even considered making my own baby wipes.  Store-bought wipes worked just fine and besides, isn't making your own wipes something that only "granola" moms do?

Then along came my second baby.  He was nearly constantly on antibiotics, which gave him the most awful diaper rashes.  Regular wipes made him scream.  It wasn't too long before I was looking for another option besides store-bought wipes.  I was skeptical to say the least.  I thought they wouldn't work as well, or would be really complicated or time-consuming to make. Wrong, and wrong.  Now making baby wipes has become one of my favorite baby-related money-saving tips.  It is easy, it is cheap (cheap like you're going to save 50 to 70%!!), they're gentle on that sensitive baby skin, and I secretly love that I have a really good excuse to sit and watch a movie if I make them using the pre-fold method.  I have since used these wipes on each of my children.  

The "recipe" I use is approximately the same as almost every one I have ever seen online.  The wipes work better than any store-bought wipe I have tried,  and they're ridiculously simple to make.

The supplies you need are: 

• Plastic containers with lids (Rubbermaid or Tupperware-style, although brand isn't important here- size is.  You need to make sure your container will hold the amount of wipes you want to make.)
• Paper towels - you have to get the "good" ones.  I have always used Bounty, but some people say Diva works as well - the key is to get a good, strong towel that won't break down in the moisture after a day or two
• Baby wash - any brand, any scent
• Baby oil - again, any brand, any scent

Take a good bread knife (if I had an electric knife I'd use it) and cut your roll in half cross-wise, so that you
have two rolls that are half as long as they were originally.

 In a four-cup measuring cup, combine:
3 Tb baby wash
3 Tb baby oil

Add warm water to the 3 cup line.

Place a half-roll of paper towels into a plastic container, and pour your wipe solution over it.  After a couple of minutes, you should be able to pull the cardboard tube out from the center.  Put the lid on, and let your wipes sit overnight. The first time you start using your wipes, start pulling from the center.

 Do you love my pregnant belly here?  My daughter was taking the photos...

If you want to have a container of wipes that you don't need two hands for, there's another option.  It takes more time, but that's where the movie-watching comes in.

If you bought a "select-a-size" roll of paper towels, just tear them all apart and start folding them.  If your roll is the regular full-size towels, you still need to cut the roll in half as shown above.  I always fold in a sort of "Z" shape, so that the edge is in the middle of the stack and is easy to grab while wrestling a wriggly baby down.  Stack all of your folded wipes and place them into a rectangular-shaped plastic container.  Make the solution and pour over as directed above, only don't flip the stack over - the solution will spread adequately anyway.

This photo (attempts to) show the steps in folding the paper towels.  Really, just do it however you want, just make sure they fit into your container.

For travel, you can just grab a section of your wipes and put them in a smaller container that fits in your diaper bag.  Or you can stuff them into a ziploc bag, which is what I always do.

Either way you do it, give these a try - they're easy, they're cheap, and they're just so much gentler on your baby's sweet little bum.

Kate