Cloth Diaper Changing Station

Whether you use cloth diapers or disposable diapers, you will be changing your baby's diapers many times throughout the day.  You can streamline this task by setting up a diaper changing station.  Here is a system that works well for cloth diapers.

First, you need a comfortable surface to lay your baby down.  A changing table is specially designed for that purpose, but anything about the height of a kitchen counter will work well.  You can even convert a rolling kitchen counter (these look like a kitchen island on casters) into a changing table. The top of a dresser works well too, and may have enough drawers to keep baby's clothes as well as diapering items.  The changing table should have some shelves or drawers for storing supplies underneath the table.  Mount a small shelf about eighteen inches above the changing table.  On that shelf, set up a regular bottle warmer, fill it with clean water, and turn it on.  Next to it, have a bottle of water to replace water from the warmer as you use it or it evaporates.  The purpose of the warmer is to have a ready supply of warm water to moisten cloths you'll be using as baby wipes.  You can use old washcloths or sherpa cloths as baby wipes.  Have a pile on the shelf near the bottle warmer.

On the shelves underneath the changing table, keep your diapers, covers, liners and other supplies you might need.  You can also keep diaper rash ointment and pins or snappi diaper fasteners in a drawer or basket.  If you are inclined to try elimination communication, also keep a small potty on hand.  Finally, you can also store extra accessories like swim diapers, extra bags for dirty diapers, and waterproof liners for the changing table.

The main thing is to have one place to keep everything you will need to change your baby's diapers and to keep it stocked.  When you wash your diapers, try to get them folded and put back as soon as possible, even if all your other laundry is piling up, or you'll spend a lot of time making trips to your drier or laundry basket in search of just one diaper.  If you can position your diaper changing station next to a water source, that's a real plus.  However, it often takes a long time to get the water to turn warm, so even with a nearby faucet, it's a good idea to always have some warm water on hand, and a bottle warmer works really well for that purpose.  You do need to clean it once a week.  On the other hand, a baby can survive getting his bottom wiped with a cold washcloth once or twice!

If you have other children, or even when your baby is old enough to get into things, keeping the changing station orderly can be a real challenge as most of the storage space is at child level.  However, it's important to maintain order there or you'll lose a lot of time searching for items, and otherwise prolonging the diaper changing process.  To make it easier, keep it simple.  Store only the items you really need, and remove any other baby items to another location.  You can also child-proof it to discourage those little hands from getting in and rearranging your items.   Certainly keep ointments and diaper pins or other potentially dangerous products out of your baby's reach.