Cloth Diaper Organization

Welcoming a new little baby into the world is full of excitement! Its so fun to prepare the nursery and get everything just so. Nesting is in full swing and you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of your sweet baby. 

Its even “funner” if your baby is going to have a fluff bum…aka wear cloth diapers. Cloth diapers come in so many lovely prints and colors -you can’t help but to get excited picturing your tiny new baby wearing them. 

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Why Cloth Diaper?

We decided to cloth diaper for several reasons. Mostly for the triad of better for your baby, better for the environment and better for your budget. I’m working on a new blog post with more details on why we choose to cloth diaper. So stay tuned for that.

I will warn you though, cloth diapering can be quite addicting. There are so many adorable prints and brands and options. Its easy to want to try them all! Some people can build up quite the collection. We have tried to stay fairly minimal with our cloth diapering though.

How to Organize

Once you have your lovely stash of cloth diapers and all the necessary accessories – you have to decide how to organize it all. Its helpful to think about the flow of the diapering process.

It’s also helpful to see pictures of how others have organized diapers to give you some ideas and options that might work for your situation. This is why I am sharing our cloth diaper organization. 

Changing Table

We opted for a traditional changing table, mostly because it was an heirloom piece. My parents refinished and gifted us the changing table that was used for me when I was a baby. It has a new contoured changing pad and cover. It doesn’t have much room on the top for additional accessories like many do these days, so we added a small table to the side to hold hand sanitizer and the cloth wipes container.

The changing table has 3 drawers, but we only need one to hold all of our cloth diapering supplies. Keeping everything in the top drawer makes the most sense and is the most convenient. 

Here is a picture of our cloth diaper organization with everything that is kept in our top drawer. 

Prefold Diapers and Covers

I like to have the covers already stuffed with the prefold and cloth diaper liner, so it makes diaper changes quick and easy. I have everything assembled and stuffed and ready to grab.

I also keep more prefolds with cloth diaper liners stacked to the right side of the drawer. This makes diaper changes easier when you are re-using the cover. I can just grab an assembled prefold with a liner on top and pop it in the cover. (You can reuse the PUL covers for more than one diaper change if its just a pee diaper. Just wipe it clean and add a new prefold and liner.)

By the way, cloth diaper liners are a life saver!! They are easy to DIY and I have a free printable to make it even easier for you. Click here to see the post.

Our favorite covers are from the Nicki’s Diapers line. We also use the size small Clotheez Organic Cotton Prefolds. We are not an affiliate for Nicki’s Diapers or Green Mountain Diapers, but they are our favorites!

Overnight Diapers

There are various solutions for cloth diapering overnight. You need something that will hold a lot of pee if your little one is sleeping through the night! This might change throughout your cloth diapering journey – I know ours has. 

Lately we have been using a pocket diaper stuffed with a cotton pre-fold doubled up with a hemp insert for extra absorbency. It doesn’t leak, but is pretty saturated in the morning. I keep a few night time pocket diapers stuffed and ready to go so I’m not stuffing them while wrangling a naked baby after bath time. 

We also rotate in some bamboo fitted diapers with a cover sometimes for overnight diapers. But my preference is the pocket diaper because its a little less bulky and fits us better right now.

Pocket Diapers

I also like to keep a few pocket diapers stuffed with a single cotton prefold for daytime…just in case daddy gets crazy and decides to change a diaper. Haha. Or in case someone else ended up needing to change the babe. Pocket diapers are a little bit easier for novice cloth diaper donners and most closely resemble a disposable.

I love Nicki’s Diapers (both covers and pocket diapers) but we have several Alva Baby and Baby Goal pocket diapers also.

Extra Inserts

Your baby may go through phases where he/she needs some extra absorbency. Our little one started out as a very heavy wetter and we had to add bamboo or hemp inserts for extra absorbency. Now, we mostly use these in overnight diapers or if we had to take a trip and sit in a carseat for longer than usual. I still keep them in a bin in the drawer, even though we rarely use them outside of overnight diapers these days. 

Cloth Wipes

If you are going to cloth diaper, it just makes sense to use cloth wipes too. Think about it. If you use disposable wipes, you would need a separate trash can or some place to put the used wipes separate of the cloth diaper pail. (Because you don’t want to wash disposable wipes with your cloth diapers!) If you use cloth wipes, they simply go in the diaper pail with the diapers and all get washed together. EASY!! 

There are lots of options for cloth wipe storage. I have found I like to keep pre-moistened wipes in a warmer. I don’t fold them any fancy way and use only water to moisten them. I have tried several methods and this is the easiest and most effective way for me. I just place clean wipes in the warmer and add a cup of warm water. When I need to use one, I like being able to squeeze the excess water from it and have a good wet wipe. It seems to work better than a slightly moistened wipe. 

Some other options are to accordion fold the wipes so they can pulled through the top of a dispenser. I loved this idea and tried it for awhile. But I found that the wipes dried out a bit and weren’t as wet as I like for easy wiping. Some people like to store wipes dry and use a spray bottle to wet the wipes. Again, not as wet as I like, so this didn’t work for me either.

These are the wipes that we use and love. They are soft and durable and get the job done!

Changing Station Set Up

Another thing to think about with your cloth diaper organization is your hand dominance. It may seem silly, but it might be easier to set up wipes and diaper pail to the right of your changing station if you are right handed. This didn’t work for us with the given space of the nursery, but I realize the possible benefit of that. It was a little awkward reaching over to the left at first, but now I’m used to it.

With cloth diapers, you don’t have to worry much about diaper rash, so there’s no need to have easy access to diaper creams. You really only need the basics – diapers and wipes!

Let me know if you find this cloth diaper organization helpful or want to talk cloth diapers! I LOVE fluff bums!