Back before cloth diapers, when we had our first baby (Michael), I was very particular about my diaper changing accessories. I posted before about the kind of diapers I used, so I won't repeat myself here. Besides the diapers though, on the go I had a backpack that had to have a portable changing mat, disposable wipes, and if possible, some Kleenexes. I was really big about having Kleenexes around because they were a good way to dry after the wipes and also have a chance to do one last "cleanup" before changing to a new diaper.

When Gabriel was born, I started using the cloth diapers but I didn't necessarily give up the Kleenexes and disposable wipes. I hadn't used cloth wipes at all and was not really sure about them. I am a changed man now and I have moved to the cloth wipes camp. Let me tell you why.

The reason is very practical. If you use disposable stuff and cloth stuff at the same time then you will need two bins or receptacles. One receptacle or bin will be for your cloth diapers and the other receptacle will be for your disposable wipes or Kleenexes. I told my wife that the second receptacle could be a diaper genie, which was still hanging around on our garage, I think, but I got a hard no from my wife on that one. Instead, we used to have a small container for those and we would need to move the trash to our bathroom's bin every so often.

Cloth wipes are a much more convenient option for cloth diaper setups. Pictured is what we have for us*. Basically, we keep dry wipes around and then we have a receptacle where we put some wipes and add some water on them from time to time. The wet ones fulfill the same roll as the disposable wipes and the dry ones can work in the same way as Kleenexes did for me. The best of all? They all go into the same bin! (*I should mention that our customers have a much more convenient setup with pre-folded wipes in a cloth wipe dispenser and a special mix applied to them so that they can be stored safely).

I recently came up with a new "innovation" as well for my ultimate cloth diaper setup. You already saw it on the first picture in this post but I'll put it here again so you don't have to scroll:

If you read my previous posts about the setup, you'll recognize most of the components. If you haven't and you are reading this post without that context (if so, hello!! thank you for dropping by!), I'll fill you in: I like to use a mat on the floor as the baby cannot fall from the changing mat into the floor. It now has three main components:

1. Flat diaper pillow for ultimate baby comfort
2. Flat diaper pad to catch those messes and keep the mat (and your other diaper cover) clean if you are taking care of #2
3. Cloth wipe pee catcher (innovation)

I must confess that the cloth diaper pee catcher has not seen action yet (so I'm still testing it). I did start having problems with the flat diaper on that role because at 5 months the baby can already grab things and the flat diaper pee catcher was ending up in weird places:

The cloth wipe pee catcher is more out of his reach although he will still grab it if I'm not quick on the change. Again, this is a work in progress so I'll post later whether the cloth wipe pee catcher was able to shine on the moment of truth or whether I will be coming up with a new innovation towards my ultimate, "mess-free", cloth-diaper-mat setup of the ages. See you then!