Yes, you can keep cloth diapering simple, but when there are so many great cloth diapering accessories out there…why?
I think accessories are big part of what makes cloth diapering so much fun. Everything from diaper sprayers, to the Snappi, to diaper liners, cloth wipes and wool dryer balls, someone has seriously thought of everything and come up with a cool solution (you mamas never cease to amaze me!). I was thinking today about which accessory is my favorite, which truly makes my life easier, and which one I couldn’t live without.
And I settled on …drumroll please… my hanging diaper pail (and various other wet bags)!
What an ingenious solution: a bag that holds the dirties, blocks odors, serves as a transportation mechanism and hangs up off the floor on a hook or doorknob.
We have ours hanging on the back of the doorknob in my daughter’s room. The door is right next to the changing table, so it works to put dirties in there immediately after changing them. Knock on wood, I have never had a problem with smell from the hanging bag. So little smell that sometimes I start to take them out to wash and am surprised by the smell from some of the diapers. It’s amazing that her room never smells like dirties – all credit goes to the diaper pail.
The FuzziBunz diaper pail has a cool feature that allows you to unzip the bottom to just let the diapers fall into your top-loading washer. Pretty convenient, however I have a front-loader, so I end up taking them out one by one and putting them in the machine (truth is, I like to separate the insert from the outer shell on each diaper and have been pre-rinsing all my inserts anyway, so I would probably do it this way even if I had a traditional washer).
The really great thing is that even though I wash the diaper pail every time I do diapers, there is not one sign of wear or tear on this thing. I think it would probably hold up through several more cloth diapered kids (the bag could handle more kids, not sure mama can!!).
I also have a couple of smaller, zippered wet bags that I take with us when we travel (clean diapers zipped inside on the trip there, then I use it to store dirties while on vacation). When I chose wet bags as my favorite accessory, these little gems were definitely included. A friend recently told me that when she cloth diapered her first daughter, she didn’t have any wet bags, so they just used disposables whenever they went out because carting the dirties home was too much hassle. I don’t even have to ask her to know that wet bags are now on her favorite list too – what a difference they have made now that she’s cloth diapering her second baby!
The best part is that I figure all of these bags have a gazillion other uses once we’re out of diapers – a snack or lunch bag, for bringing wet swimsuits home from the pool, to send to school for potty training accidents (my son’s were sent home in plastic grocery bags, ick), lingerie/socks packing bags or to carry dirty clothes home.
So I’ve made my decision… wet bags make my cloth diapering life easier and more fun.
What’s your favorite cloth diapering accessory?
