Life After Diapers: The Wetbag Story

Before I begin, I need to disclose that my kid is still in diapers, so this technically isn’t life AFTER diapers for us, but rather, life in addition to diapers; the wetbag story. But that title was a bit too cumbersome.

Since I had a few wetbags in the house for our cloth diapering, I found myself reaching for them for a few other needs as well. Let’s take a gander through our last week and see how they have been used beyond dirty diaper storage.

Medications
We went on a road trip for vacation and as I was packing, I looked at our medicines and the various allergy and pain medications were all liquids. And I had that sudden flash of fear as I imagined the Children’s Zyrtec spilled all over the clothes as we reached our vacation destination and almost broke out in tears at the thought of having to do laundry on the first day of vacation in a hotel. As I stood there in a moment of despair, I glanced around and spotted my bag that had a spare diaper and a small PlanetWise wetbag in it. I went to retrieve the bag and held it up to the medicine bottle and lo and behold, it fit. So, all of the medications went in. On vacation, then my husband called over to know where they were, I was able to easily just say “the bag with monkeys on it” and no further explanation necessary.

The Pool/Beach
Previously, whenever we wanted to head to a pool or beach, it was a good hour-long search in our house to find the toddler’s swimsuit and a swim diaper, the preschooler’s swim suit, sunscreen, mom and dad’s swimsuits, the water shoes, and any needed sun hats. By the time it was all located, I had no energy or desire to actually GO to aforementioned pool or beach. And then one day, brilliance hit me. I ordered a Medium Wetbag and gathered all the supplies needed for an outing at a body of water. I then put all swimsuits, water shoes, sunscreen and hats into the bag and zipped ‘er up. I placed it on a shelf in the linen closet on top of the beach towels. Now, when we are looking to head out and cool off, I simply grab the pile of towels and the bag and I know that everything is set to go. And I have the bag all ready to put the wet suits in when we are finished. But now, my kids have figured this out and bring ME the bag whenever THEY want to head to the pool. Not finding the suits is no longer a valid excuse. *wink*

Makeup
I work full time out of the house, commute 3 hours a day and have two young kids. Needless to say, my beauty routine is fairly simple. However, the lack of sleep and the need to look not only presentable on a daily basis, but also professional needs me to actually put on business clothes and do my makeup and hair daily. All while simultaneously yearning to just put on the yoga pants that are hanging on the back of my closet door. But I digress.

In order to make my morning routine expedient, I store all my makeup in a zippered small wetbag. It’s easily stashed in my vanity drawer and I can pull it out, dump out the contents, quickly put it on and throw it all right into the bag and back into the drawer quickly. If a mishap happens, such as this morning when my near-the-end-blush-but-I’ll-squeak-out-a-few-more-applications blush bites the dust and breaks all over, my entire drawer isn’t covered in dusty mauve, but instead, it is contained in the confines of the bag that is very easily able to be tossed into the wash. Or, as I did, entered a state of denial and shoved everything back into the bag to deal with at another time since I was running late and about to miss my train.

Wrap it up
In reality, the uses for wetbags really are endless and only limited by your imagination. A good rule of thumb is that you can use a reusable wetbag for anything you would normally use a plastic bag for, and then some. Since adding wetbags into our house, my use of plastic zip top bags and plastic grocery bags has diminished considerably. (I also am hooked on reusable snack bags, too, so check those out.) As with the rest of parenting my philosophy is as follows: there is no right or wrong, simply what works for you and your family. So, try it out. See what works. And report back to us. We’d love to know what you use wetbags for outside of cloth diapers.

Bio: Joann is a cloth diapering working professional mom who passes the time on her long commute playing addicting iPhone games. When not working, commuting or washing diapers, she is busy playing with her 1 year old and 4 year old boys. In addition to what you learned about her here, she loves strollers, cooking and DIY with power tools.


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