DIY Organizer for Cloth Diaper Storage (Free Pattern)

Do you need a storage idea for your little one’s cloth diapers? Don’t hide those cute designs away – display them in this adorable and trendy cloth diaper DIY organizer! Hang it on the wall, then use it as a multi-purpose shelf once your little one is potty trained. So great for small spaces!

If you’re a cloth diapering Mama, then no doubt you’ve looked for cloth diaper storage solutions. As great as cloth diapers are, they take up so much space! That’s why I was thrilled when I saw this DIY organizer in a Facebook group a couple of years ago. It was THE perfect solution for us! (Plus, I love a great DIY project!)

Not only does it fit our style and nursery decor, but it provides hanging wall storage, which is a great solution for our small space! My dad, the magician carpenter who can build anything, put this together one weekend with my husband while I ~~drank coffee and supervised~~ helped. I finished it off with a quick coat of stain, sealed it with polycrylic, and it was ready to go!

Wall Mounted

We’ve been using this DIY organizer for about a year and a half, and I can’t imagine a better cloth diaper storage solution. When your diapering days are over, it can store your diapers out of the way until your next baby arrives, or it can be used for other storage. And as fast as you go through baby items, you’ll surely love having something to repurpose! If not, this cloth diaper storage shelf would be a great resell item if you want to go that route.

DIY Organizer – Free Pattern

Thanks to my generous Mama friend, she’s given me permission to share the pattern for this DIY organizer with you!

// Get the plans as a free, printable PDF!

A few notes:

Somehow we ended up with an extra row of storage than hers. Some of our boards are spaced out at 5.75″ and some at 6″. This worked perfectly for us and for how many diapers we have. You can adjust your number of shelves and the height of the vertical boards depending on your needs.
If you need more cloth diaper storage, you can build two shelf units. My mama friend did this and stored one hanging the other way (upside down) on the opposite side of her changing table. It looks super cute!
We have mostly Bumgenius pocket diapers, but we also stored Bumgenius Flips and disposable diapers (and wipes!). We stored the Flips in one of the cubbies, as shown below.
Your diapers will stick out about an inch or so on the largest snap setting, which I like for making them easier to grab.
Built to these specifications, this cloth diaper storage shelf will hold approximately 48 pocket diapers, with 4-5 in each cubby space.

Dirty Cloth Diaper Storage

If you’re looking for ways to store your clean diapers, then you may also be wondering what to do with a soiled cloth diaper. Our two biggest questions before we started using cloth diapers were: 1) Where do we keep the dirty ones, and 2) How do we wash them? Thankfully, I had a couple of friends who paved the way and shared their tips with me. Based on their advice and our needs, this is the system I came up with:

We use the Dekor Plus Hands-Free Diaper Pail lined with the Dekor Cloth Diaper Liner. This cloth diaper pail is great, because it doesn’t allow odors to stink up the room, even when putting a new diaper inside. It’s also attractive and can double as a trash can when your diaper journey is over. The liners fit perfectly, and I love having two so that I have one available in the rotation. These large wet bags will be great to have when kids get older for dirty clothes on a trip, beach days, or anything else that life with kids will throw your way! Just so you know, these liners do not trap odors. We used our cloth diapers on one road trip and stored the dirty ones in the liner, only to smell them every time we opened the trunk. Let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant.

Diapers that were only peed in go straight into the pail. Breastmilk-only poop diapers can also go straight in without rinsing, but if your baby is eating solids, then you need to get that poop off first (I’ll tell you how we do that below). I wash the liners (wet bags) in the same load as the diapers, then hang to dry.

I have a few small wet bags (like these) that I purchased secondhand and from eBay. If I need extra dirty diaper storage, I use these. They’re also the bags that got sent to daycare and that get used away from the house. Just like the Dekor bags, they wash well and will be so handy when we’re done with diapers! I have a third large wet bag that came as a bonus to some diapers I purchased, and I have found it helpful to have this extra bag since it fits in the pail.

We typically wash diapers twice a week, and this dirty diaper storage system works for us. We usually do have an overflow of diapers from the pail in the extra wet bags, so if you wash more often, the cloth diaper pail alone may be enough for you.

How to Wash Cloth Diapers

Now for the fun part – ha!

Really though, it’s not that bad.

We were pleasantly surprised to find out how easy it is to wash cloth diapers. Once I figured out my machine’s settings and we established a rhythm, it became a normal part of our laundry routine. (And once you have all the extra laundry to do after having kids, what’s two more loads?!)

I use a top-loading washing machine and original Tide powder detergent. Make sure you find out the settings for your washing machine, the recommended detergent, and if you need to add anything based on your water profile. It’s a little bit of work in the beginning to figure this out, but I promise it’s not too bad. I love love love Fluff Love University for their index on how to wash cloth diapers.

For drying, I throw all the inserts into the dryer, and I hang the pockets, covers, and wet bags on this nifty hanging drying rack. My parents had one of these when I was growing up, and it’s useful for hanging so many other clothes to dry.

How to Clean Cloth Diapers with Poop

Cleaning poopy cloth diapers has to be the main thing that draws people away from using cloth, don’t you think?

Don’t let it scare you! It’s not terrible.

Breastmilk-only poop is easy peasy. You don’t have to do anything special to the diapers, and they can be washed as-is. Yay!

Once your baby starts eating solids, the waste has to be removed from the diapers to keep from ruining your washing machine. One of my friends suggested a diaper sprayer and Spray Pal, which has been our preferred method. (I bought these both resale off a Facebook group to save a little cash!)

Here’s how we do it:

We keep the Spray Pal in the toilet of our guest room since we don’t use it on a regular basis. Then, when baby has a dirty diaper, we take it to the Spray Pal and spray all the poop off. The Spray Pal is great because it keeps everything contained and your bathroom dry. Try to clean the poop off as soon as you can. When our son was in daycare, we would spray them all off at the end of the day and it was fine, but it’s more work the longer it sits there. Throw the wet diaper into your diaper pail until it’s time to wash! See, it’s really not so bad!

Tip: Keep a pair of long dishwashing/cleaning gloves draped over the Spray Pal to use if you want this process to be more sanitary. I felt more comfortable with it this way.

How Many Cloth Diapers Do You Need?

It took us a little while to get our diaper system in place. I first started with disposables until the meconium stage passed and my diapers fit well (about 1-2 months in). When our son was really little, I used prefolds or folded flour sack towels with a waterproof diaper cover (like a BumGenius Flip cover). When we were going to daycare, we switched entirely to pocket diapers. Those are the only ones they allowed, and they turned out to be our favorite. Some people don’t like the hassle of stuffing diapers, but we had a “stuffing party” twice a week while we watch TV! I’m lucky that his daycare allowed cloth and that my husband was so bought in. (The cost savings of about $1,500 wasn’t a hard sell!)

For us, 40-45 pocket cloth diapers work. That’s enough to let us wash twice a week and to always have a few available in diaper bags, the car, etc. You can figure up how many you need based on how many times your baby needs a change (newborns go through more diapers, and disposables don’t have to be changed as often), how often you want to wash, and how many you want for an emergency supply.

Do Cloth Diapers Really Save Money?

We decided to use cloth diapers to save money and to help the environment. I hate the idea of adding thousands of diapers to a landfill, especially since they take about 500 years to decompose (that’s insane!). Also, if you’ve never priced diapers, they’re expensive!

While cloth diapers do cost more up front, it’s estimated that about 2-3 years of using cloth will save approximately $1,500 (vs disposables). If you have two kids, that’s a savings of about $3,000! There’s so many more fun things I could do with that money than (literally) throwing it all away.

I spent probably $500-$700 on all of our cloth diapers and supplies. Besides a few cloth diaper inserts that were given to me as a shower gift, I bought all of my diapers secondhand. There are so many Facebook groups with buying options you can check out! Run the proper bleach cycle, and your diapers are perfectly clean and safe.

Can You Use Cloth Diapers While Traveling?

I used cloth diapers on one trip and one trip alone. That was enough of an experience to teach me that I would rather just use disposables when we’re away from home! Without access to a diaper sprayer and with the extra items to pack and the stench coming home, I found it much easier – and enjoyable – to just buy a small pack of disposables and bring them along. However, it is totally doable if you want to do it.

When We Use Disposables

There are a few main times that we use disposable diapers:

Overnight: We didn’t use cloth diapers at night for long. With all the snaps to get right, they were more of a hassle to change in the middle of the night when we were half awake. Also, as our son started sleeping for longer stretches, he would wake up wet. Our cloth diapering friend said she used a disposable diaper overnight, so we just made the switch. One disposable per day wasn’t too bad when it guaranteed a dry full night’s sleep!
Traveling: As mentioned above, it is just way easier for us to travel without cloth. Less stress and less mess. As infrequently as we travel with a baby, the trade-off is worth it.
Some caregivers: We’re super lucky our daycare allowed cloth diapers. For some grandparents and some occasions, it was just easier to use a disposable. Not that teaching cloth is difficult, but some people are more comfortable with the traditional method.
Swimming: Our pool requires a certain plastic diaper cover over a swim diaper, but I would think you can use a waterproof cloth diaper cover if your pool allows. Just keep in mind that the chlorine and chemicals may break it down, so you may want to choose a more well-loved cloth diaper that you won’t mind getting ruined.
When we forget to wash! Sometimes my lack of laundering sneaks up on me, and I find myself without a cloth diaper available. That’s why having a small stash of disposables is always handy! I keep a few at home, 1-2 in the diaper bag, and a few in the car just in case. Since they take up a lot less room, they’re easy to store in small spaces for emergencies.

Do We Think Cloth Diapers Are Worth It?

For us, yes. Our two main objectives of saving money and helping the environment are accomplished by using cloth diapers instead of disposables. While there is a tiny bit more work involved, it’s not enough to bother us. We’ll see if baby #2 changes that up, but I highly doubt it!

So, what do you think?! Would this cloth diaper DIY organizer be the perfect solution for you? How else can you imagine using the shelf once your little one is no longer in diapers?

I would love to hear your ideas and to see your creations! Be sure to tag me and show me your finished product!

Passionately,
Alyssa

// Want to make this cloth diaper storage shelf? Save it for later on your favorite Pinterest board!