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Mum and Dad

10 uses for burp cloths, other than cleaning baby spit-up

by

Michelle Stein

posted in Parenting

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was so grateful for all of the baby gear and adorable clothing we received at our baby shower. I was most excited about the big-ticket items — like the breast pump from my baby registry my father gifted me, the car seat/stroller travel system and glider-rocker from my mom, and the crib with a matching dresser from my in-laws.

But burp cloths? Not so much.

As it turned out, I’m glad someone at my shower thought to gift us so many of these. Because my baby turned out to be spit-up machine (and an epically drooly boy, to boot.)

One expecting mama in the BabyCenter Community seems to share my pre-baby “meh” attitude about these essential spit-up catchers.

“At previous showers I’ve been to, everyone gave lots of baby clothes. At my shower, everyone decided not to be like everyone else, so they gave me practical things like diapers and wipes — and burp cloths!!!” she wrote on a thread in the BabyCenter Community. “Don’t get me wrong — I actually got a ton of useful stuff and I am very thankful. Plus there are several different sizes of diapers, and you can never have too many wipes. It just makes me laugh when I think of my 15 burp cloths.”

As seasoned parents in this thread pointed out, 15 burp cloths probably isn’t a ridiculous amount after all. That’s because — other than the obvious one of soaking up spit-up — there are a plethora of uses for them, such as :

1) Changing pad: “They can serve as a makeshift changing pad once your past the tiny infant stage and peeing all the time.”

2) Cleaning around the house: “Dust rags once they aren’t used for baby anymore.”

3) In the event of a poo-tastrophe: “I’ve used them as large washcloths for poosplosions.”

4) For a gentle touch on a raw bum: “When baby has diaper rash, the wipes sting so you need to either rinse them out thoroughly or use just a cloth wet with water.”

5) On-the-go: “Spill in the car/on the go? Burp cloth.”

6) Baby slobber: “Sudden stream of drool? Forget the bibs, burp cloth.”

7) A lovey: “Fussy baby needs something to grasp and you don’t have her blankie? Burp cloth.”

8) Diapers: “Most of mine were actually even pre-fold cloth diapers so — run out of diapers on a bad day out? Burp cloth.”

9) To wipe tiny, sensitive noses: “I just bought more of my favorite type of burp cloths! When my daughter was older, like 18 months or so, and had a runny nose, we got back out the burp cloths and had her use them to wipe her own nose!”

10) For furniture polishing: “We use our old ones for furniture polishing and cleaning rags. Love them!”

With all three of my babies, I used cloth diapers — Gerber pre-fold cloth diapers, to be exact. Once we made it past the spitting-up phase, my oldest still loved using them as blankies at nighttime. I think we must have had at least 20 of them in our arsenal — which meant we would always have a clean blanky whenever he needed one.

As one commenter in the original BabyCenter Community thread put it, burp cloths are like “the Swiss army knife of baby items.” I couldn’t agree more.

What do you use burp cloths for? Did you receive too much of a certain item from your baby shower?

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