Having babies is expensive — more than when I was a young mother back in the Dark Ages. (If I was a young mother back in the Dark Ages, that means I am OLD. But, that means my children were alive back then, too. Which means THEY are old! Heh heh . . . I’ll have to share that idea with them . . .)

Now, where was I?  Oh yes, the expense of having babies.

I don’t know of one single young mother that uses cloth diapers.  I’m sure there are ‘green’ mothers somewhere out in the world who use them for the sake of saving the planet.  Which is all good and well.  I just don’t happen to know any.  Disposable diapers are great — and expensive.

And, I must say that I am totally impressed by the quality of disposable diapers of today.  Totally.  They are so much better than the ones that were available back in my day that shredded into soggy pieces of cotton when they were full.  And the marvelous tabs on today’s diapers that hold the diaper on.  You can actually ‘undo’ them without wrecking the diaper and the tab will still ‘stick’ afterwards. It almost makes me wish I had a baby.  Wait!  Who am I kidding?  I don’t want a baby at this stage of my life.  I am very happy with being a grandmother and loving the babies that my daughter and daughters-in-law have.

Okay.  Let’s move on to the topic at hand.  Homemade wet wipes.

I read a young mother’s blog yesterday where she shared the ‘recipe’ for homemade wet wipes.  It seems that her delightful son seems to have lots of blowouts lately and that she has been going through tons and tons of wet wipes.  (Is wet wipes a registered trademark for a specific product?  Probably.  I ought to use a different phrase here . . . but I’m too lazy to come up with a generic phrase.  I’ll probably get sued for using this name without it’s registered trademark symbol. . . )

Back to making a homemade product that you can use to clean a baby’s bottom.  (Saying ‘wet wipes’ is more succinct.  Less words.  Aren’t we all about conservation?  Word conservation is good.  You know, I’ve just realized my words are forever getting off track here.  Sheesh!)

Here’s the ‘recipe’ to make those wipes.

Baby Wipes

1 #6 Rubbermaid container (or any container that won’t leak and can hold half a roll of paper towels)

In container mix:
2 cups of water
3 tbs baby oil
1 tbs baby shampoo

Take one BIG roll of Bounty paper towels and cut in half with your electric knife or a knife with a serrated edge.  (So when I’m carving the Thanksgiving turkey, I need to be sure there aren’t any chunks of paper towel still clinging to the knife.)

Leave in the cardboard tube. It will be easier to take out after wipes are made.

After you have your mixture made and your paper towels are cut, put the paper towels in the container and put the lid on. Tight.  You don’t want anything leaking out here.  Then put the container upside down for about 4 hours so paper towels will get entirely soaked. After it’s soaked, remove the cardboard tube.

Voila!  You now have cheaper baby bum wipes.

The mother who shared the recipe says that only Bounty paper towels will work for this.  She also said that her husband didn’t like the fact that they were so ‘wet.’  So, she reduced the amount of water to 1 1/2 cups.  You might want to keep this in mind.

So, there you have it. A great recipe to have tucked in your recipe file box between the Rollo Cookies and the sinfully rich chocolate dessert recipes.

You might want to make up some wipes and see how this all works.  Then, share this with your daughters and daughters-in-law.  This is a great way to help them save a little money.  And that’s something that all of us like to do in this rough economy.