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Thursday, December 1, 2011

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Storing Cloth Diapers

With more than 50 cloth diapers in my stash, a mom needs a place to put all these! Twenty of the diapers are newborn size so right now they’re waiting in a dresser where they’ll get plenty of use in a few months. The other 30+ are a mix of prefolds, covers, pockets, all-in-ones, and all-in-twos that are constantly in rotation.

First off, I’m lucky enough to have two changing tables – a more traditional changing table with open storage on the first floor, and in the nursery upstairs a dresser with changing table topper. With sub-par knees we thought it’d be a good idea to have to go up and down stairs less often and were able to pick up our first floor changing table for relatively cheap. But I know plenty of moms who keep a changing pad on the first floor with a plastic storage bin of clean diapers and a wet bag.

I occasionally sun the diapers, but I typically do diaper laundry in the evening and throw everything (minus covers) in the dryer for half a cycle to partially dry and soften the diapers, then hang dry the rest overnight. In the morning, I’m left with lots of clean diapers to put away. I take a few rare minutes to sit on the couch and stuff the pockets, then I divide the stash in half so that half stays downstairs and half goes up. This way my prefold-inept husband always has a pocket or all-in-one to use whether he’s upstairs or downstairs. The nighttime and naptime approved diapers all go upstairs. Downstairs the diapers are all exposed on the shelf (luckily my toddler no longer has an interest in pulling everything off) and upstairs they go in the dresser drawers. Wipes get stored either in a bucket on the shelf or the diaper caddy hanging from the changing table.

When I was pregnant, I spent hours watching videos online of how to use cloth diapers. One of the videos gave me the idea to attach Velcro to the changing table (or caddy) in order to hang Velcro covers. I suppose the same can be done with snaps, it would just require more planning to get the appropriate sized snaps for your covers. This way, in between prefold or flat usage, the covers have a chance to air out.

As for the dirty diapers, I keep a medium size Planet Wise wet bag downstairs, and when it is full I empty it upstairs in the big diaper pail or straight into the washing machine depending on the next scheduled diaper laundry. This is what works for us in our house!

Ann J. is a cloth diaper fanatic and mom to a 21-month-old girl with the cutest cloth diaper butt on the block!

4 comments:

Jill said...

what kind of caddy is this that hangs on the side and where do you get it? I have a changing table with bars on each end, but something should hang off of it. if the author could email me? jill dot shoemaker at gmail dot com

His Warrior Princess said...

Ack! I saw that same changing table (corner one) at a consignment sale and it didn't occur to me I could have used that!! Although now we are just laying a receiving blanket on the living room floor and changing him on that =) I am itching to change things up a bit....

His Warrior Princess said...

Ack! I saw that same changing table (corner one) at a local consignment sale and now I wish I had gotten it! Course, we just throw a receiving blanket on the floor to change our LO on =) Hmmm I *am* itching to rearrange our living room LOL

Margaret Harmon said...

I have a cloth diaper bag I sewed in the living room with my cloth wipes, cloth wipe spray, and enough AI2s for the day. In my son's dresser is the rest of the AI2s along with his nighttime pocket diapers. I have the diaper pail in the bathroom. Our house is 1 floor and kinda small so I don't need more than one place to put the dirty diapers. On wash day, I have a drying rack I put in my kitchen where I clothespin the soakers and shells to dry. I wash every other day so by the time I need those diapers the shells are dry and the soakers are dry or almost dry so I toss them in the dryer for a few mins to soften or finish drying them. Pretty easy routine for me.