I can’t count the number of times I had to change my sheets in the middle of the night after my first son was born.

During pregnancy, as I performed the tedious task of deciding what baby gear I needed, I made the ill-fated decisions that a changing table was something I could afford to do without. As punishment, my baby showered my bed with pee numerous times during late-night diaper changes.

Throughout his diaper days, I had multiple packages of diapers and wipes – and later, when I switched to cloth, laundry baskets – scattered throughout the house. Most often, he got changed on the floor. It worked out OK, most of the time.

But, when I knew Baby Boy No. 2 was on the way, and that I’d be cloth diapering him from the start, a changing table was at the top of my want list. Why? Mainly because using cloth does involve more… stuff. I desired a central location to keep all the necessities a little more neat during this, my second round, with diapering. I’m not typically very organized, to say the least, so anything to force me to keep it together more helps. Grabbing a pocket and an insert out of a laundry basket is simple enough, but pulling a ready-to-wear diaper out of the drawer just sounded more appealing.

Thankfully, a wonderful friend offered to hand down her little-used table to me. I drove my pregnant self right over in the summer heat and helped load it into my car practically immediately, and not long after started setting up shop in the nursery.

The top drawer now holds pocket diapers and back-up disposables. A few cloth drawers from the dollar store turned the shelf below into a home for cloth wipes, inserts and covers. On the top of the table I keep a spray bottle, to wet wipes during changes, and a pump bottle of baby oil and a bottle of baby soap at hand – I use a squirt of each and then fill the bottle with water for my wipe solution.

The bottom of the table stores a few other nursery items, like toys, and I snap two wet bags to the side of the table for easy access. When one bag is full, I can wash it with the diapers and still have a clean one to start the process over again.

Having my son that much closer to eye level during diaper changes – and let’s face it, there are a lot of them – has made it one of his favorite places to stretch out, smile and babble with me or my husband.

The only downside to my system is that I have to bring the baby to the table instead of bringing the diaper to the baby like I did with my first son. Keeping my bedsheets dry makes it well worth it.

Jessica Wiant is now a stay-at-home mom of two who was once a working mom with a (cloth diapered!) son in daycare.