A crib and a changing table. The two main things that make up a baby’s new room, right? They’re probably listed on almost every baby registry. I remember when I was pregnant with Ryan, many people told me they never used their changing table and that I shouldn’t even bother getting one. They just changed their kid wherever and whenever because it was easiest. But it’s one of those new baby things… I had to have one!
And I’m glad we did–we really do use it ALL the time. I suppose if we lived in a two-story or the table wasn’t as accessible, we may not use it as often. But we live in a ranch and Ryan’s room is just down the hall… we walk down to the table for pretty much every single diaper change.
I think it also helps that we have more of a baby changing station, not just a table. And our setup is perfect for cloth diapers…
Our baby changing station is more like a dresser. There’s space on the top for the changing pad AND a little basket that we fill with our cloth wipes and wipe solution container.
We use the top drawer of the table for our stash of cloth diapers. So when it’s time for a diaper change, we just put Ryan on top, get our wipes wet, and grab a diaper from the drawer. We have our wet bag hanging from a hook on the wall right next to the station so the dirty diaper (and wipes) just get dropped right in there.
The second drawer has extra inserts and doublers, some lesser used cloth diapers, and Ryan’s socks. The bottom drawer is filled with his pajamas and the cabinet space on the right is for extra sheets and blankets. Such a handy station!
So what’d we end up with for Rebecca? At first I wanted something simple and feminine like the table in the picture above. But I had to tell myself that for our needs, it just wasn’t practical. Yes, it could be done, but when you’re a mom (especially of 2+), everything needs to be efficient and fast. Dealing with cloth wipes on this table didn’t seem easy enough.
So we again went dresser-style. It’s actually my old dresser from when I was a little girl! So I bought a simple changing table top to sit on the top of the dresser (found it at a consignment sale!) and then we use the top drawer for wipes/solution and some cloth diapers and the second drawer for more cloth diapers (it’s a smaller baby changing station compared to Ryan’s).
Do you have a changing table and do you use it all the time? If you use cloth wipes and/or cloth diapers, how do you have it set up? I’m always open to creative ideas on improving our current setup and making things as efficient as possible!
We use the Ikea fold down changing table. It doesn’t seem to be on the ikea website anymore, even though we just bought it two months ago! You can see it here, though:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ikea-antilop-wall-mount-changi-117732
We tried to do without a changing table at first, but it was a huge pain. Our dog wouldn’t stay away as we were trying to change diapers, and we wanted to have everything in one place. However, we live in a one-bedroom apartment! We just couldn’t figure out where a changing table would go. So the changing table is now over our laundry baskets, and we just have a narrow walkway between the edge of it and the bed. We keep it open on a day to day basis, but we close it to get the laundry bags out or to just have a little more floor space. It’s not that easy to open, but it works for us. We store our covers, cloth wipes, extra snappis, and rash stuff in the little pockets. We store prefolds, pockets, and inserts in the top drawer of the dresser right next to the changing table area.
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We still use our changing table with our 2-year-old, who’s in cloth diapers. It keeps him contained. The pad is in the middle, a basket of cloth wipes/ water spray bottle is on the immediate right and a basket of about 10 cloths diapers is to the right of that (it’s a long midcentury dresser). The diaper bin is on the floor to right of the dresser. Spare diapers are in the closet and we add them as the basket gets low.
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We too use our changing table ALL THE TIME. It is rare to change the baby anywhere else. I don’t know how people survive without them!
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Question – when you get an extra poop-y cloth diaper, don’t you take it to the bathroom to spray down before throwing it in your cloth diaper pail? My dilemma here is what to do with baby when you have an extra dirty diaper that needs rinsing before it goes in the pail. Do you have something to set it aside in while you make the fresh diaper change, set the baby in the crib (or wherever) and then tackle the dirty diaper. Does that make sense? Trying to see what I can put next to the dresser/changing area to make this an easy process.
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babydickey Reply:
June 5th, 2012 at 8:20 am
Great question! If we have extra poopy diapers that don’t just shake off into the toilet, we soak them in the toilet… like, we hang it over the edge (stuck under the seat) so the entire thing isn’t in the toilet. Other people use a sprayer attached to their toilet, but we have just never set ours up. DURING the change, I just set the poopy diaper aside until babe is in a new clean diaper and I can go deal with the dirty one. We use cloth wipes that we dip in a container of water…that container has a cover on it, so that’s where I usually rest the dirty diaper in the middle of a change. Hope that helps!
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