Keeping Baby's Butt Soft--an alternative to disposable diaper wipes

As I've mentioned before, we use cloth diapers.  It saves literally thousands of dollars, especially considering I got the diapers from someone on Freecycle, so I paid nothing for them.  I also don't use disposable wipes.  I'm not sure how much that saves me, since it's been so long since I've bought some, but I'm sure it is significant, and it sure is nice that I don't ever have to worry about running out!

My diaper wipes are super simple to make.  All I did was take a few stained up receiving blankets that I got for free and cut them into 16 pieces.  I used an iron to make creases to help me keep the lines pretty straight, but that's it.  I figured they didn't need to be anything fancy, since all they were for was to wipe someone's butt!  If I was handy with a sewing machine, I might have made the edges nicer by serging them, but I'm not so I didn't and they still work fine.

I was buying some soap stuff to put on the wipes, but I've even got away from that.  It's not that the stuff I was using was expensive, after all, my "baby" is almost 2 and I only used 2 bags of the stuff for a total of $12 ever.  It, again, is that it is so nice not to have to worry about running out.  If I need more, it just takes a second to mix up some new wipe solution.  Just take a tsp of castile soap and a tsp of oil like olive or safflower oil and mix it with about a cup of water in a squirt bottle.  I used the bottle they gave me at the hospital for post-partum care and it works perfectly!  To use, shake it up, then squirt a little on the wipes.  There is no need to keep the whole box of wipes wet, since that provides a great breeding ground for mold and bacteria and it just wastes the solution.  This way, you are only using as much as you need, thereby saving even more money!  If baby's bottom is too moist after wiping, just use one of the dry wipes to wipe off the excess moisture.