Cloth 101: How to store your dirty diapers

Once you decide you are ready to start cloth diapering, another major decision is how you will store those diapers once they are dirty. There are two main types of dirty cloth diaper storage a wetbag or a pail.

Diaper pails designed for cloth diapering are a little different than those designed for disposable diapers. Most disposable diaper pails are designed to keep air (and smells) out. When thinking about storing dirty cloth diapers, one of the key things is to make sure you have air flow. This air flow helps to prevent mold from growing on your damp dirty diapers. Many pails designed for cloth diapers have a filter to prevent any smells from filling the room. The second thing to consider when choosing your diaper pail is size. We recommend washing every other day, so your diaper pail will need to hold those diapers for you until laundry time. If you have more than one little one in cloth diapers, you may need a larger diaper pail. You may also choose to line your diaper pail with a washable fabric liner, to make clean up a little easier.

Wetbags are another option for storing dirty diapers. These bags are also made to allow air flow; they are available in a variety of fabric types, colors and prints and usually have either a drawstring or zipper closure. Wetbags come in a variety of sizes also. Large wetbags can be kept at home instead of a diaper pail; smaller wetbags are designed to fit in your diaper bag to hold just a few dirty cloth diapers for a short outing.

How you choose to store your diapers is a personal decision for your family.

Things to consider when choosing your storage:

• Where you will change your little one's diapers
• How much space you have in your home
• How many children are currently wearing cloth diapers in your home
• How far you have to carry the dirty diapers from the changing area to the laundry room

The key to dirty diaper storage is to make sure your dirty diapers are not completely sealed up; so air can flow around your diapers to help prevent mold. How do you store your dirty diapers until it's time to wash them? Do you prefer a diaper pail or wetbag? What is your favorite brand of pail or wetbag?

This Just In: New Piggy Paint colors and JJ Cole Swag bag!

We have some great new products this week to fit any budget. In fact, these items would make great baby shower gifts for any mom-to-be!

First up, two great new products from Piggy Paint. Piggy Paint is pleased to introduce a line of polishes with sophisticated colors called Piggy Paint Refined. These are great colors for moms and are safe to use during pregnancy!

Why do we love Piggy Paint? Piggy Paint is specially formulated from natural ingredients and dries to a hard, durable finish. There are no toxic chemicals; it’s free of formaldehyde, toluene, phthalates, Bisphenol A, ethyl acetate and acetone.

Piggy Paint also has some great new additions to their other two great product lines. Sweet Pea is a new sparkly, light pink color and Sea-quin is a new pastel turquoise addition to the traditional Piggy Paint Nail Polish line. The Project Earth line has a new purple color called Groovy Grape. Also new to Cotton Babies is the Piggy Paint Topcoat. The Piggy Paint Glossy Topcoat is a revolutionary water-based formula that adds scratch resistance and shine, and works perfect to seal Piggy Paint 3-D Nail Art.

We're also pleased to introduce a new style of our popular JJ Cole bag, the Swag Bag. Now you can enjoy a bag that is both stylish and functional. This stylish bag comes in either Silver Drop or Bronze Drop color combinations.

The adjustable strap allows it to be worn either messenger style or like a purse. Or forgo the carrying all together with the stroller attachments.

Organize your life with style with the Swag's stylish exterior and practical construction. It includes a coordinating wallet and changing pad. The water resistant finish is easily wiped clean. Safe for you and your family, the JJ Cole Swag Bag is PVC and phthalate free.

Find the JJ Cole Swag Bag, new Piggy Paint products and more great new items on our What's New page.

Back to the Bag

I've had a nice break this summer - from the constant presence of the diaper bag anyway, if not from anything else.

Lily went to full time panties in June and I carried around a bag for a couple weeks after that.  As she became more reliable I left a change of clothes in the car and resurrected my long forgotten purse.  It was great!  I felt like I had lost about 20 pounds!  I only brought the diaper bag with me if we were going to be stuck in one place for very long, like a waiting room, to carry some extra activities.  But even that became less and less after I realized that our mini magna-doodle fit in my purse.

Now I find myself waddling about, preparing for the new baby's arrival, and contemplating adding the extra baggage back in.

I know some people cloth diaper and manage to travel lightly.  I'm not one of those people.  If I bring with me everything I could possibly need (and then some) on an outing, I won't need to touch any of it, or at least very little.  But if I bring the very basics, then baby will spit up, have an explosive diaper, and decide that now is the time we must have that extra blanket.  It just seems to be one of those Murphy's Laws of Parenting.

Older babies are a little more dependable than newborns as to what they need in a diaper bag.  So I do tend to downsize later on. But in a few weeks here I will be traveling along with a newborn and two year old almost everywhere I go.  (Adding in the older children many other times too.)  So I need to start with well prepared and work down from there.

So I sat down with my bag this morning and started to pack it and realized - I'm a little out of practice here.

I started with:

• Diapers - generally 3 in the bag, more to be added for a long outing
• Extra cover
• Wipes/squirt bottle - need to get a new squirt bottle, my 4 year old absconded with the old one
• Receiving blanket - big enough to swaddle in (or mop up a giant spit up)
• Wet bag - better not forget that!
• Outfit - onesie and feeties
• Nursing pads - I always have extras since I seem to be distantly related to Old Faithful.
• Mommy stuff - wallet, phone, and lip gloss

So what am I forgetting?  What do you mommies pack in your newborn diaper bag?

I am not a Bag Lady!

I don't even like purses. In high school I would find the smallest one that would still hold the bare minimum of things I needed to carry around. It was basically just a wallet with straps. So you can understand how I hate carrying a diaper bag.

I am picky about my diapers bags. If I have to carry around a ball and chain, then it should do its job and make my job easier. But I have never, until now, found a bag that truly does that.

For Christmas this past year my mom got me the Skip Hop Duo and I fell pretty instantly in love. This is a bag that had to be designed by a mom. It has the absolute right amount of pockets for a bag hater like me.

This one has a nice large main pocket for baby things that has elastic pockets inside it to organize diapers. The inside is so well organized that I can reach into it without looking and find just what I need. Because when you are changing a diaper on a precarious public restroom changing table, you can't really dig with both hands.

There are two zipper pockets along the top edge of the bag. One is big enough for my stuff, and I use one to hold a change of pants for my potty training child. You see, I refuse to carry a purse AND a diaper bag. So any diaper bag has to have a pocket big enough for me to carry my purse items in: wallet, lip gloss, some paper and a pen, and of course my cell phone.

There is a water bottle/sippy holder on one side and a cell phone pocket on the other, and two pockets along the front of the bag that I use for quick access items like keys and my planner. There is a big flat pocket across the back for the changing pad - no trying to shove that down inside the main bag. The main pocket and front two pockets are closed by strong magnets, which means my arms aren't getting scratched up by velcro and it is silent to open and close.

A lovely surprise for me was the introduction to stroller clips; specially designed clips on either side of the bag that allow you to attach the bag to your stroller without having to take off the main strap. That means no digging around in the under-stroller basket to drag out the one item you need. It is all right there at your fingertips!

After spending a few months with this bag I had the opportunity to carry a certain high end diaper bag and realized that I may have been spoiled for life, I hated the other bag. The Skip Hop reads my mind. It works with what I have in it and makes it all easy to access. (Have you ever had one of those big bottomless bags that you stop even using anything in it because stuff is too hard to find? This is NOT one of those.)

I really hate to gush over a mere diaper bag like this. But this bag is so far above anything that I have ever used, I just can't help myself.

But I Wanted a Smaller Diaper Bag!

Taking the whole cloth diapering show on the road can feel like a challenge.

First of all because it does become a show. Cloth diapering is still a novel idea to most people. Even Grandmothers who never used a single disposable will be astonished that you use cloth diapers. They seem to think that it is ludicrous to use the old fashioned stuff when the ease of disposables is to be had for just a few dollars. Every time I change a diaper when we are out and about, someone pokes their head over my shoulder to ask, "Is that a CLOTH diaper?"

Secondly it is a puzzle to figure out what to pack to bring along. Maybe I overthink things, but when you have a few different types of diapers in your stash there is the potential to find yourself with a baby needing a change and a diaper that doesn't work well with the particular cover you have packed or vice versa. It's enough to make a mommy want to stay in the house some days!

Allow me to point out that using pockets or AIOs completely solves this problem. No matter what your baby is wearing, you can have a pocket diaper in the diaper bag and be fully ready for a change. But I digress.

While I was pregnant with Lily, I saw a lovely small diaper bag. I had gotten used to just being able to carry a purse around for a while and a small diaper bag seemed like it was a nice compromise. (I kept a diaper and wipes in the car for my toddler son.) But once I tried to pack that tiny diaper bag with all of the stuff needed for a newborn - a spitty one at that - I was toting around a diaper bag with stuff flowing out of it onto the ground. It wasn't specifically a problem of cloth diapering, but that did contribute. That really wasn't any more convenient than dragging around my large diaper bag.

I pouted. I wanted this to be easier. (Stop laughing!) I packed my cloth diapers away and swore to use just disposables. But I didn't really like that solution much either. I needed to get a plan for what I needed to have on hand and stick with it.

There are as many ways to pack a diaper bag as there are moms and dads, but there are some things that just never change: diapers and wipes. That is where to start. Then with cloth diapers you need a wet bag, it is just as important as the diapers themselves. Most of the time you also carry a change of clothes for baby as well. There you have it, that tiny diaper bag is already overflowing! Then you might also add a light blanket, a toy or two, hand sanitizer, pacifier, diaper cream... the list can be endless!

I don't like to carry two bags around; purse and diaper bag, so I always like to have one pocket in the diaper bag that is mine-all-mine. It holds my wallet, cell phone, calendar, and lip gloss; things I can't live without! This Christmas I discovered that the reason my cheapo diaper bags weren't cutting it was that they were cheap, if they had pockets on the inside, there weren't enough of them. I want to reaching to my diaper bag without looking and be able to find what I need. I also discovered the joys of stroller clips! Those attach your bag to the handle of your stroller instead of just having to put the strap of the bag over it and then try to hold it in place.

There is no one solution I can suggest to fix the classic diaper bag dilemma, at different baby ages, you have different needs for what you bring along. Different places you go will also require different things. A trip to the zoo will required different things in your bag than a trip to church for example.

The only advice I can offer is to invest in a really well made, well thought out diaper bag, then start with only the basics and imagine a few emergencies you might encounter. Out of the house emergencies include, but are not limited too:

Realizing that you have chapped lips
Changing baby only to have him pee all over his clothes
Being stuck in a waiting room much longer than you anticipated
Having to run an extra errand
And so many more things!

So what do YOU pack?

For fun, here is a little Diaper Bag Bingo - see how you do!

Diaper Bag Bingo: Check your diaper bag; see how many spaces you get!
C	L	O	T	H
Wet Bag	Cloth wipes	Lip gloss or chapstick for mom	Extra breast pads	Pad of paper or calendar of some sort
Pen, Pencil, or crayon	Wet Bag WITH a wet diaper in it	Extra set of clothes	Other pocket diaper (not bumGenius!)	Bottle or sippy
bumGenius!	Cell phone	Dry Diaper (Free Space)	Baby blanket or burp cloth	Crackers or cereal
Your wallet and/or sunglasses	Diaper cover	Disposable diaper	More than one type or size of diaper	Disposable wipes
Pacifier	Jar of baby food, home prepared baby food	Baby toys	Something that is a complete surprise, that you didn’t put in your bag	Diaper cream and/or butt spray for your cloth wipes

0-4: Short trips only!
5-9: Well Packed
10-14: Ready for anything
15+: How do you carry all that around?

(For the record, I got 18, not counting the Free Space, and I got BINGO down the "O" column!)