How to Diaper 2 in Cloth: One Mama’s System

{guest post by Claire Bellington}

Like many moms, I have two children in diapers at once. If you cloth diaper like me, you might wonder how you would even manage cloth diapering 2 kids at once.

But let me tell you, YOU CAN DO IT! Really, it’s not that bad.  You are already washing diapers, it’s just a few more in the load.  Even if you have a tight budget it is totally possible and doable.

I’m going to share with you my system for diapering 2 children at once. Keep in mind that there are many ways to do this, and this is just the easiest system that works for our family.

These are all the cloth diapers I currently use to diaper both girls, a 2 month old and a 2 year old. “WHOA!” you may be thinking, but this amount gets me through washing every other day with some diapers left over. So not quite enough to last me 2 days worth, but almost. A minimalist stash of diapers, just enough for what I need. You don’t have to have this many, but it all depends on how often you want to wash the diapers.

“How often do you wash?”

I wash every other day, and that is doable for me. I usually start the load first thing in the morning and go about my day. I am usually done washing them around lunch time and then I hang the shells out to dry on the clothesline outside and dry the inserts in the dryer.

“Do you have a diaper sprayer, or do you have to dunk them in the toilet?”

I do have a diaper sprayer in our bathroom that I can use to spray poopy diapers with. I don’t find I have to do that very often, because my 2 month old is exclusively breastfed. And that means her poopy diapers don’t have to be sprayed since her poop is water soluble. So I save that step, which saves me time. Yipee!

“Do they share diapers?”

Although most of my diapers are one size, meaning they fit from around 8lbs-36lbs, my girls do not share the diapers.  With the exception of the Bum Genius 4.0’s and the do share those.  This is just my own preference, as it would be totally possible to share a stash of one-size diapers between 2 children if that is what you have to work with.  My opinion of the easiest to share are some sort of snap down rise like the Bum Genius 4.0 because you can easily adjust from small to large in a jiffy.

Now a breakdown of who wears what!

Here are my 2 month old’s diapers.

(Side Note: When she was a newborn, I borrowed a stash of newborn cloth diapers since most babies don’t fit into one-size diapers until they are a few weeks old.  She began fitting into the Charlie Banana diapers around 3 weeks.  The newborn diapers are not pictured here.)

I change her diaper about 7-8 times a day.  She rarely wears the Bum Genius unless I am running low, but I have them pictured here anyways.  Plenty of diapers for her and soon she will be fitting into the medium Ragababes which are my favorite diapers : )  See I get excited about that kind of thing! I can just hear my sister calling me a dork right now….

My 2 year old wears these and some of the other Bum Genius 4.0s if I am running low for her.   I change her diaper about 5 times a day, and she is about to be potty trained, although she doesn’t know it yet : )

“Well how do you store all the diapers?”

The 2 month old’s diapers are stored in plastic drawers in her room.  See nothing fancy, or out of a Pottery Barn magazine, but the drawers were something we already had around the house.  So get thrifty and reuse what you already have!

Also pictured are cloth wipes in the Huggies wipes container, and I just wet those with water at the bathroom sink when I need them.