When Tilly was in cloth nappies I tried to use cloth wipes as well. I say tried because I found it a bit of a pain. I couldn’t figure out a convenient way to take them out with us and so we used disposable wipes outside of the house and the containers I had at home weren’t quite the right shape nor did they keep the wipes fresh for long. It didn’t take long before we were using disposable wipes all the time and the cloth wipes were consigned to the cupboard.
With Eli, I wanted to use cloth wipes again (to save money on buying wipes if nothing else) and knew I needed a better solution and then I found Cheeky Wipes. Basically, a Cheeky Wipes set comes with two wipe containers, one for clean wipes and one for dirty, 25 wipes (cotton terry as standard), two bottles of essential oils, again one for clean wipes and one for the dirty wipes box and two waterproof bags for carrying your clean and dirty wipes when you’re out of the house. You can get a mini-kit for cloth nappy users that excludes all the dirty wipes bits (box, essential oil, waterproof bag) as you can just pop the wipes in the nappy and into the nappy bucket. We have the full kit because we started using the wipes before we switched to cloth full-time – Cheeky Wipes are brilliant even if you’re using disposable nappies! We’ve also now bought a second mini-kit set with coloured wipes that we use for cleaning Eli up after eating – we’ve saved a fortune not using disposable wipes.
Pros
- they are much better than disposable wipes at cleaning up poo – one Cheeky Wipe can take the place of three (or more!) disposables
- long-term they are much cheaper than disposables
- they are easy to take out-and-about – I just pop the bag of clean wipes in with the clean nappies and off we go
- they don’t have any chemicals in them that irritate Eli’s skin
- they smell great (even though I’m not a massive fan of lavender usually) – I especially love the rose and geranium and use it for the hands and faces wipes
- they work just as well on faces and hands as they do on bums
- easy to wash with the nappies
- the boxes are great and the latest versions are watertight which helps when an inquisitive baby is using them as a drum and moving them around the lounge
- they are much nicer than the cheap cloth wipes I used to have – they are very unlikely to fray around the edges and the cotton terry is much higher quality
Cons
- sometimes get a bit stained (but a bit of sun can bleach that out)
- getting the dirty wipes from the mucky wipes box into the machine can be gross (if you just put the wipes in the nappy bucket that’s not a problem though)
- can seem a bit expensive initially (but they will save you money if you use them) – definitely look out for sales though, none of our kits/wipes were full price
The vital statistics for our Cheeky Wipes:
How many do we have?
- 50 white cotton terry wipes
- 5 bamboo terry wipes (came free with our original kit)
- 25 pink cotton terry wipes
- 25 blue cotton terry wipes
How long do they last?
I’ve found that 25 wipes will often last me for 4 or more days and I haven’t had any issues with the wipes smelling stale at all.
How easy are the wipes to wash?
We wash our bum wipes with the nappies and the hands and face wipes with an ordinary coloured load of clothes.
How long do they take to dry?
Not long in the tumble drier or if air-dried – they don’t need to be dried after washing if you are going to put them straight into the clean wipes container.
Never Knowingly Undercommitted 