Wipes, solutions, and sprays, oh my!

We have been using cloth wipes for a while now—our middle child, who is now almost 7, was cloth diapered, and I found the wipes so useful that some of them were still in regular rotation when I found myself expecting baby #3. They wiped nasty noses, made a quick scrub for faces, and were in general like a washcloth with an attitude—and that was handy through the preschool years. My favorite wipes were two sided, one side soft and one side scrubby—I had some that were velour and sherpa that are still in use with Sam.

When Adam was a baby, I tried so many different things in regard to diapering—different styles of diapers, different inserts. And many, many wipes solutions. I used the baby bits-style drops , which I liked, but were kind of a pain to dissolve. I made my own solution with tea tree oil and lavender—okay, but a bit more than we needed most of the time. Sometimes I just used water, although for some reason I never got a system going for keeping damp wipes at the changing table. I got lots of samples of different wipes solutions—a popular freebie with fluff orders-- and tried them all! It was a bit crazy. One thing that was very useful was adding grapefruit seed extract to water when thrush was an issue—I used it for wipes and also to wash anything that was touching his mouth.

This time around, as with diapers, I resolved to simplify things as much as possible. After reading a bit I decided to try Kissaluvs diaper lotion potion, the concentrate form. I mixed this with witch hazel, using a little less concentrate than the bottle calls for, which works fine for Sam. So far, a year into things, we have used a combined system. We have a box with dry wipes on the changing table. I also keep about 10 wipes in an old disposable wipes box, damped with just water. That seems to be a good number -- they don’t sour before I can use them, and there is (usually) a damp wipe available when I need one quickly. If not, well, I am lucky to have big children around the house who can be dispatched to the sink. I keep a small bottle of witch hazel/ KDLP, which I spray directly on Sam. I always give him a quick spritz first thing in the morning, and then occasionally throughout the day. So far, so good in terms of diaper rash—Sam has only had an issue with this when he was on antibiotics and developed an unfortunate stomach ailment that I will not detail. One bottle of the concentrate has lasted me all this time and I still have a good bit left in the bottle. We’ve been happy with our solution this time around.

Anne-Marie is a mostly stay-at-home mama to three monkeys (9, 7, and *sniff* 1 ) in Northern New England. She blogs about their adventures in making sustainable(ish) changes in family life at http://greenishmonkeys.wordpress.com