Wipes troubles conquered!

So I haven't blogged much, been busily pinning things on pinterest, facebooking and getting everything settled around the house :) I've been rather productive in my hunt for the perfect partner to my MCNs tho;

I've got cloth wipes sorted and down to a fine art! Yes, thats right, I've discovered the most brilliant way to work with reuseable wipes. I'm so proud of it that I'm going to dedicate a whole blog to it :)

Wipes:
It was suggested I try out chux type cloths as reuseable wipes and my mum had recently given me some she found when sorting through all her crap, I mean stuff :) I had no idea what I was going to do with them, she'd thought they would make good washable nappy liners but I kinda thought whats the point? If I've got to somehow get the mess off them to wash them or can just flush the other ones I've got. But as washable wipes they would be perfect. So I used the rotary cutter (I think thats what they are called, those wheel knife things quilters etc use?) to cut them all in half leaving me with HEAPS of washable wipes. Awesome thing is they dont need hemming and don't fray when you wash them. They are cheap to replace if they get too shabby after frequent washing and when they are damp they stick to each other (You would think thats a bad thing but read on and let me explain)!! The bad thing is they do tear from time to time but as I can replace them its not that big of a deal. I also use some cheap washers from kmart. Wipes sorted :)

Solution:
So I've got a 1L glass bottle for storing my nappy solution in now. Works better than the old plastic water bottle that I used last time. I stuck with the same recipe as last time too;

• 1T alpha kerri water dispersible oil, 
• 1T johnsons bedtime oil, 
• 1T johnsons wash,
• few drops of teatree oil and
• fill the bottle with water

 Ta Da :) EXCEPT... next time Ill put the bath wash in AFTER the water as I had an over flow of bubbles til I put the few drops of teatree oil in which seemed to kill some of the bubbles. Atleast they killed them until I tried to put the rest of the water in and it bubbled up all over again haha. But basically you can put whatever you want in your wipes solution, I've found recipes using aloe vera gel and water, others using 2T oil 2T wash, there are heaps out there. I found these ones smell nice enough but not too smelly and wipe things off really well. I decorated my glass bottle with coloured sharpies (picked them up reduced to clear at office works for 50c each, bargain) to make it all pretty (we'll just call that what it is, procrastinating!) before filling it. But sadly my artwork washed away when the nappy solution overflowed down the side of the bottle so it was a bit of a waste of time unfortunately. (Please excuse the mess in the background, I was halfway through unpacking my dining room!)

Container:
So with the perfect wipes and solution my final battle was the container to store them in. I wanted something convenient that would be easy to use one handed. While I was searching I've been using an old lunch box and let me tell you, not making life too easy! I'd open it, get out a wipe, put the lid back on, get to nappy changing and discover Pie had done a sneaky poop!! (Ofcourse!) So then I'd have to hold her legs (to make sure she wouldn't put them in it) then struggle to open the container with my one free hand, usually resulting in me flipping it over on its side and Pie watching me struggle while trying to wrestle her way out of my grip so she could kick her feet around. So anyway, I've been umming and arrggghhhinnng over the huggies ones. They are big enough, have the press button to open them, which would be perfect, but I dont like the little opening with all the rubbery bits - too hard to get the wipes if they don't all come through in a row, which lets face it is pretty possible with cloth wipes. So, out shopping a few days ago at my local IGA I was doing the search of the wipes section (which I do in every supermarket, kmart, Big W and baby focused store I enter at the moment!) and found an IGA brand hard wipes container, like a huggies one with a big oval opening and no huggies written on it. Cost about the same price, $5 something, so I bought it, got it home and have been using it ever since and I'm in LOVE :)

Putting it all into action:Now my next trick is I put all my cloths in the container, slightly dampen them with solution and then i take them back out and put them on the lid. Now, I put them in individually and when I put the next wipe in, I press it against the edge of the previous one. So when I pull them out through the little hole, the next one follows :) When I've got all the wipes I need I press the last one onto the little lip of the opening then close the lid. Wipes stay wet and easy to reach when we next visit the nappy change station. Even my gorgeous husband is finding it as easy, or even easier (as we never had a hard plastic wipes container, just used the refills with the sticky cover u peel up each time) wiping solution :)

Boring maybe but I thought you'd all like to hear my tips and if not, well don't read my blog :)