Homemade Baby Bottom Wash – Safe for Baby’s Bottom, Safe for Cloth Diapers, Environmentally Conscious
You might have already heard about all the junk that gets put into disposable baby wipes. Pthlalates, parabens, phenoxyethanol. In general some pretty harsh stuff that’s been linked to bad stuff happening with our bodies. I had heard horror stories of babies who got terrible rashes and sores around their mouths because their parents had used baby wipes to wipe off their faces. If the skin on the face reacted so badly, imagine what those wipes were doing to delicate baby bottoms too! (Yes, I realize these are extreme cases. But still.)
I had determined that I was going to make my own disposable baby wipes using quality baby products from the Arbonne Baby Care line and a recipe that was passed down to me from one of my Arbonne friends. Then, when we made the decision to try cloth diapering our baby, it seemed logical to also use cloth wipes for him too.
You can use this solution on paper towels to make disposable wipes or you can use the solution with your own cloth wipes.
- 2 cups distilled water, warmed
- 1 tablespoon Arbonne ABC Body Lotion
- 1 tablespoon Arbonne ABC Hair & Body Wash
- 1 teaspoon Arbonne FC5 Skin Conditioning Oil
- Whisk together and pour into a spray or squirt bottle. Shake bottle before each use.
A bit about the products being used:
Arbonne Baby Care (ABC)
In September 2014 Arbonne launched a reformulated and repackaged Arbonne Baby Care (ABC) line. This new product line not only looked different in branding and packaging, it was greatly improved. The old ABC line included an entirely separate baby oil product. This baby oil was used in the original recipe where in this new recipe we use the FC5 Skin Conditioning Oil. The reason Arbonne did away with the separate baby oil was because the new Body Lotion formulation was enhanced to include the same properties of the baby oil, in one convenient product. If you didn’t want to use the FC5 Skin Conditioning Oil then you could add another teaspoon of the Body Lotion.
Distilled Water
Distilled water is considered absolutely pure water. Distillation has taken out impurities and additives that may have made it’s way into your regular tap water. (Read more from Wikipedia) These impurities may be harsh on baby’s bottom and may also contaminate the solution causing it to not have as long of a shelf life as it would with distilled water. If your tap water isn’t safe for drinking then you absolutely wouldn’t want to use it for this solution. If your tap water is safe for drinking, I still think it’s a good idea to spend the extra couple bucks and get a jug of distilled water. You won’t need to use the whole jug, but it will keep and can be used for future batches of Baby Bottom Solution.
I suppose you could distill tap water on your own, but honestly it’s so inexpensive and readily available everywhere that it’s probably just better to go buy a jug. You can find distilled water in the pharmacy section of most major grocery stores. Keep in mind that distilled water is not the same as ‘purified drinking water’ that you’d buy in the beverage aisle of the grocery store.
Some folks take the homemade baby wipe solution and pre-wet their baby wipes. Some even use a wipes warmer to keep their cloth wipes nice and toasty for baby. Personally, I have no desire to have a wipes warmer plugged in and sitting in baby’s room and I am also not sold on the idea of having my cloths sitting in warm, moist conditions for days at a time. It seems like a breeding ground for bacteria to me. I might be wrong, but that’s just my own opinion on the matter.
What we decided to do instead was make the solution, pour it into a sterile squirt bottle (you know, the same kind they send home from the hospital with after having your baby) and use it as needed at diaper changes. You could put this solution into a spray bottle and spray your little one’s bottom and wipe. We don’t. Mostly because I think if we did that we’d be begging to get peed on at every diaper change. It’s already something that happens often enough. I don’t need the extra encouragement.
Just wet the wash cloth with warm water until damp but not drenched, shake the bottle of solution, squirt the cloth a few times and use to clean the baby’s bottom. Do you have to wet the cloth first? Well no. But, wetting the cloth first means you don’t have to use as much of the solution on the cloth. I don’t always wet the cloth first and usually end up squirting on a lot more solution to moisten the cloth enough to wipe well.
The used wash cloth can be rinsed and wrung out, tossed into the diaper pail with your soiled diapers to be washed on diaper wash day. (And technically if it’s just EBF (exclusively breastfed) poop then you don’t even have to rinse it out.) It’s really very easy. I like easy. I would wager a guess that Levi likes easy even more than me. I think we change our fair share of diapers pretty evenly between us so it’s safe to say that this method passes our ‘easy test’.
Curious about the cloth wipes? We literally just use regular inexpensive baby wash cloths. They’re the perfect size, thickness and softness for this purpose. We do keep the diaper wash cloths separate from the baby wash cloths we use for washing his face and for bath time, though I’m perfectly confident that regardless of what we use them for they come out sparkling clean in every wash.
What about in public? I take cloth wipes and a small bottle of the Baby Bottom Solution with me. I use it wherever I can. However, it’s not always possible and when access to warm running water is not readily available we do use disposable wipes. Gasp! Don’t worry there are a couple brands that are available with less chemicals and junk. We buy disposable baby wipes from Honest Company. They are biodegradable and compostable, use only plant-based ingredients, and are gentle on baby’s skin. They are obviously going to cost more than the normal disposable wipes though, and that’s why we only use them for diaper changes when we are out and about.
Looking for safer disposable baby wipes? Check out this informative post from Safe Mama.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and includes products that I sell as part of my Arbonne business.
Yes and yes to distilled water! It’s great not only for baby care or baby formulas but for 20 more things. I actually found 21 in total uses of distilled water.
Great content piece!