Cloth Wipes

If you read our blog, you will know that for the last few years Mike and I have tried to live as green and as organically as possible. We recycle, we use cloth bags at the grocery store instead of plastic, we use cloth napkins instead of paper towels, all of our cleaning products are non-toxic and environmentally safe, and even our toiletry products are organic.

Once I found out I was pregnant I knew that I wanted to try to do the same thing with our little one. We researched and picked a Pediatrician that would support our lifestyle, I chose to breastfeed instead of using formula, and I wanted to use cloth diapers. You can see my post on cloth diapers here.

There is a myriad of reasons we decided to go cloth: Environmentally friendly, cost effective, better for baby. Once I made the decision to use cloth diapers, it never occurred to me to think about what I wanted to use for wipes. I just figured that I was doing great just by using cloth diapers, so throwing away a few wipes each day wasn't a big deal.

When Baby McKinley finally arrived we had to use disposable diapers the first few weeks of her life. It hated watching Mike take a bag of trash out every other day, especially when we are used to setting one bag of trash out each week. Finally the day came when we could start using the cloth diapers. Even though I wasn't necessarily looking forward to doing a little extra laundry, I was just glad that we weren't filling up a trashcan and making emergency runs to the store to get disposable diapers. Besides the cloth diapers a just too cute:)

Thankfully, the cloth diaper routine was easy. After a couple weeks of cloth diapering I started doing research on cloth wipes. It didn't take me long to decide to ditch the disposables. I realized that by using cloth wipes, it wasn't going to add anymore to my work load and it was just one more way to live cleaner & greener for both baby & the environment.

While online I found several sites with instructions on making your own cloth wipes. Most of the cloth wipes are made from fleece and I just happened to have a ton of fleece fabric left over from a sewing project. In an effort to save some money I decided to make our own wipes. I already had the material, now I just needed the time:)

The finished products:

Once I finished sewing the wipes I needed a wipes solution. I found tons of homemade solution recipes online, but I ended up ordering a pre-made solution from Lusa Organics. It is called Baby Wipe Juice and I absolutely LOVE it! It smells so good and it is super concentrated so a little goes a long way. It will take me several months to use up the bottle of solution. I am so impressed with their Baby Wipe Juice, I can't wait to try some of their other products.

Also, the company that I order my cloth diapers from, Jack Be Natural, posted this video that shows how to fold your cloth wipes so when you pull one wipe out of a wipe warmer or bin, the next wipe pops out the top ready to go. It makes the diaper change so much easier.

Diapers

So I technically have 9 weeks left until this little one makes an appearance. I had no idea that for someone who doesn't work and has no children that my life could be so busy. I feel like this pregnancy has gone by really quick. The first trimester was a little slow and I didn't help much that I was sick all the time, but I think the new excitement is what got me through those first 3 months. The 2nd trimester flew by since it happened over the Thanksgiving & Christmas Holidays. Now I am in the 3rd trimester and my schedule is completely full with childbirth classes, doctors appointments, baby showers, and consignment sales:) I am finally realizing that these last 9 weeks will be gone before I know it so it is time to get on the ball and finalize some things.

First thing on my list is to make a decision about what type of diaper we would be using in our house. I have always wanted to use cloth diapers. I feel that it is better for the earth & also cheaper especially if you have more than one child. But here lately I have been wavering on if I can really commit to the whole cloth diaper thing. I have spent the last few days doing extensive research on this subject and have finally come up with a decision!

Thanks to many conversations with friends and family and the huge amount of information on the internet it has been decided that the Organ household will be using cloth diapers. I am really excited about this decision. Even though dealing with dirty diapers & extra laundry doesn't sound like fun, I think this will be a decision that fits who our family is and what type of family we strive to be.

I am being brave and going with a newer brand of cloth diapers, Kawaii Diapers. It is a brand that none of my friends use, but has gotten great reviews and (depending on which style of diaper) is about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of most other cloth diapers (which is really exciting!).

I tried to be as thorough as possible in doing the financial research for cloth vs. disposable and what I found (on the internet) is that most families spend about $40/month on disposable diapers. That is roughly $500/year. For the Kawaii diapers I will be spending a little less than $300 for everything I need, and that is if I buy the most expensive Kawaii diapers.

I know that is a lot of numbers, but it boils down to this. Lets say (for numbers sake) it typically takes a child 3 years to potty train:

Disposable diapers for 3 years: $1500

Kawaii Cloth diapers for 3 years: $300

And the best part about all this is that when we have our second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. child we hypothetically won't have to spend another penny.

I know I haven't figured in electricity & water costs for washing and caring for the cloth diapers. That information was hard to come by, so to be fair cloth diapering will cost us a little more than $300 total. But I still think the savings in the long run is worth it.

I have nothing against disposable diapers, over the last month or two I honestly thought I didn't want to mess with cloth and I would be using disposable diapers, but after the last couple days I have finally made up my mind and I just hope I don't regret it after a week of cloth diapering:)