How to Pack the Essentials in Your Diaper Bag

After months of researching, you finally found THE diaper bag.  You know, the one that is fashionable, is cost-effective, AND doesn’t quite look like a diaper bag. But now you’re faced with the dilemma of WHAT to put in the bag and HOW to fit it all in there, am I right? Let’s go over the diaper bag essentials and how to pack your bag so that it makes sense and is as efficient as possible! I mean, who wants to rummage around in a bag, looking for wipes, when you have a blowout on your hands (literally)? (Side note: we’ve never had a blowout with our cloth diapers!).

Bottom’s Up

Even though our diaper bag is a backpack style, there’s no need to fear packing things waaaay in the bottom! We love the “secret” opening that allows us to reach all the things we pack first: cloth diapers and a change of clothes. We also keep the disposable placemats in a nice zipper pocket so that they are easily accessible and can be pulled out one at a time without making a mess.

The number of cloth diapers we pack varies with what we plan on doing that day, but at least three diapers! We also have at least 2 changes of clothes. You never know what’s going to happen and a onesie doesn’t take up too much room or add that much weight.

Within Arm’s Reach

The top layer is an important one to pack as these are things that you want within arm’s reach at a moment’s notice. I usually pack the wetbag, a nursing cover, and a container of snacks.

The multiple pockets in our diaper bag also helps keep things organized and easy for you to see what is needed. We have the following pockets:

Diaper Care: We have our cloth wipes and a squeezable Peri-bottle in this pocket. We keep about 5-6 cloth wipes on hand and try to keep the Peri-bottle full of just plain water. This pocket is vital to keep organized to make diaper changes on the run go smoothly!

Food Care: We have two pockets dedicated to food care: bibs for one and a smock for the other. We could probably squeeze everything into one pocket, but there are so many pockets that we needed stuff to fill them up! We keep about 3 normal bibs and 1 smock at all times. The smock is great if we spontaneously go out to dinner where they have messy items on the menu, such as pasta or tacos. Read more about why we love this smock here!

Skin Care/Misc: This pocket holds all of our skin care items, such as Aquaphor, antibacterial gel, CJ’s BUTTer Cream, etc. It’s great to keep all of these tubes together without getting them tangled and lost in bibs, clothes, or diapers.  This is also our miscellaneous pocket, where we keep chapstick, pens, sunglasses, and other goodies!

Side Pockets: There are two pockets on the side of our diaper bag. One has a slit for easy access to baby wipes. However, since we use cloth wipes, we only use this pocket for water bottles. Keys would not be good for this pocket as they can slide out easily and be lost! The other side pocket has no slit, so it’s great for keys and phones.

Ice, Ice Baby

The last thing we pack before we head out the door is the insulated pocket. Whether it’s cold water or cold milk, we like to take along a sippy cup with an ice pack to keep nice and cold throughout the day! There are three pockets for bottles, but our sippy cups don’t really fit in there since they are too tall. But they were useful when Remy was younger and had little bottles of milk. 🙂

Once we get home from a day out, we swap out dirty clothes/diapers with clean versions and restock anything that needs it, such wipes or disposable placemats. This way, the diaper bag is ready to go for the next time we need to go out without scrambling for things last minute!

How do you pack your diaper bag? Is it more pack and go or is there a system in place? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!