How To Keep Washable Cloth Wipes Fresh During Warm Weather

Apologies for the radio silence last week, between the NEC and Sydney baby shows, things were a bit hectic as you can imagine. The good news is that I seem to have brought the sunshine back from Oz with me which is great, it had felt like we were in November rather than May!

When the weather does warm up, it's often a good idea to tweak your Cheeky Wipes soaking routine a little bit, to stop your wipes going 'off' too quickly and starting to smell stale and musty.

The first thing I always advise is to make sure your wipes aren't left in direct sunlight - mine spent a few hours in the garden yesterday and all my fresh wipes needed to be washed last night. Should know better!

There are a couple of ways that you can tweak your routine - see which one works best for you:

Only soak as many 'fresh' wipes as you'll use in a day Very simple. Have a rough guess how many wipes you'll use in a day (for one baby that would be roughly 10 - 12, I soak about 20 for one baby in nappies and 3 others who can't eat breakfast without getting weetabix in their eyebrows!), and soak that many each morning in the water and lavender / chamomile solution.

Dry any remaining wipes and then soak them the next day. You can still soak them all together in the mucky tub and wash every other day but it's important to dry them in between (preferably out on the line as sunlight is great at bleaching your wipes).

Increase the volume of water / fresh wipes oil slightly Another alternative is to make your wipes slightly wetter and add a few more drops of oil (5 - 6), which should also work for a couple of days as you'll have a higher concentration of the oil to water which will again keep your wipes fresher for longer.

Drying them in immediately after washing will help also. If you've left your wipes in the container or your wet bag for too long and they are smelling musty then you can usually remove the musty smell by washing with white vinegar and then popping out on the washing line.

If you've left your wipes too long and they're musty already, we've got a blog post dedicated to 'Help my Washable Wipes Smell Musty.

You might also be interested in these articles:

What's the best size for washable wipes

What to do about nappy rash

About the author: Cheeky Wipes were created in 2008 by Helen Rankin a Mum of 4, who was on a mission to prove to parents that they could ditch disposable wipes and save money and the planet by switching to reusable wipes. Since then the company have introduced a range of 'Simple Reusables' including period pants and cloth sanitary pads which lead to them being awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise in sustainable development in 2021. The Cheeky Customer Services Team all use the products themselves and love nothing more than to chat pee, poo and periods!