As a cloth diapering parent at some point you’ll be faced with the dilemma of how to store both outgrown cloth diapers and diapers that your child still needs to grow into. Rest assured that storing and organizing extra diapers only takes a few minutes.
It’s important to keep cloth diapers that are no longer in your weekly rotation separated from the diapers in use. This reduces confusion and streamlines your cloth diaper stash so that you always have clean, ready diapers on hand. When baby’s got a major poo bomb, the last thing I want to do is rummage through a haphazard mountain of laundered diapering supplies.
Supplies
I use transparent vinyl zippered bags to store outgrown and oversized cloth diapers. You can buy the bags here, or reuse the bags that bedding is packaged in. The transparency makes it easy to spot which bag you’ll need within a packed closet and you can easily label each cloth diaper storage bag with masking tape or dry erase markers. Since I use only two sizes of prefolds, my baby’s extras fit in two of these bags. Almost all of our pocket diapers are Bumgenius 4.0 one-size pocket diapers that can be used from newborn through potty training stages, so I never need to store them.
Clean diapers should be laundered until they smell fresh- like nothing at all. If it requires an extra hot water wash, do it. There’s nothing worse than busting out the fluff stash when baby #2 arrives to be met by the smell of year-old urine. Trust me, I’ve been there. Before storing prefolds, I even add a teaspoon of bleach to the wash cycle to be sure all germs are killed, since we have cold water pipes and sun the diapers to dry. Don’t do this unless you need to, as it is rough on the fabric.
Store Cloth Diapers
Fold your clean diapers and pack them away in the vinyl zippered storage bags. Label each bag by contents or diaper size. It’s helpful to include the number of diapers, covers, or inserts contained in the bag. I sometimes insert an unscented dryer sheet into the bags to keep away bugs, but it isn’t necessary. Living in Costa Rica, bugs are everywhere.
So, there you have it- a simple, quick way to store cloth diapers that aren’t in use. If you’ve already got bedding bags on hand, you won’t even need to spend a dime!
If you’re curious about cloth diapering or need some guidance, score more cloth diapering basics in the following posts and feel free to email me with any questions you might have.
I’m seriously considering using only cloth diapers when we have our third. Just better for the environment and baby.
They’re so much easier than you might think. Even my husband is an ambassador for cloth now. Hope you find time to look into it. If you’re not familiar with it yet, definitely check out The Cloth Diaper Whisperer for tons of info. The site has helped me immensely, even when I was just first pregnant and considering cloth.
We started using cloth diapers with my second daughter and love them. I wish I would have used them with my first. We use one size all in ones so haven’t had to store them yet but these tips will be helpful soon.
Thanks for sharing with the Mixer this week 🙂
I didn’t use cloth diapers for my oldest; I didn’t know they still existed. However, I used them for the next 4 seven years later, and loved them. Now that we’re out of cloth diapers, I passed along the ones still in good condition and saved the rest for rags. They make great rags!
You bet they make great rags! I’ve got a bunch of diapers that I bought that were always too big to use, so those are perfect for spills and even mopping the floor. I’ve actually got a draft of a post in the works about what to do with the diapers once you’re finished with them-of course including the two things you mentioned. Happy to hear you had a great experience with CDs too! Thank you for stopping by this weekend, Barb.
Oh this is so organised, I love it. thanks so much for sharing with the Monday Pin it Party. I have pinned and shared.
I wish I had been able to do cloth diapers. If we are blessed to have another it will definitely be a priority!
Branson, you’d be amazed at the cost savings even if you’re only using them for one child. We recommend them to all our friends and once they see how it works in person, most are impressed at the simplicity of cloth diapers. Thank you so much for stopping by to say hello. Have a fantastic weekend.