Ideas on How to Organize Your Diaper Changing Station

Life with baby is full of incredibly banal decisions that you still have to make and for which you have no real preparation, like

How do I arrange my diaper changing station?!?!

To which the real answer is "whatever, you'll figure it out after two or three weeks of changing 12 diapers a day. Take a deep breath". But let's try to do a little better than that.

The main thing to think about when considering changing station layout is "how do I make things as quick and easy as possible at 2:30am?" We did this by putting everything that we could possibly use on a regular or semi-regular basis within arm's reach. There's no real right or wrong way to do this. Whether the area to the left of the changing pad holds Purell, Snappis, or wet wipes is up to you. Just make sure that everything close to your arms will be used frequently.

If you must know, the items seen around the changing dresser, going clockwise from the bottom left, are: diaper pail from Baby Diaper Service; step can for used wipes; window sill for extra cloth wipes orphaned clothes that need to find a match in the next load of laundry (single socks, onesies without matching pants, etc.); top dresser drawer stores baby clothes; to the left of the chaning pad are Purell, cloth wipes, coconut oil, and diaper rash cream; changing pad; on the raised platform are snappis, covers, prefolds, and wet wipes; the wet bag is hanging from a drawer that stores the spare pad cover, other rash creams, and emergency disposables; and finally a laundry basket for everything other than covers and really soiled clothing.

We found our dresser/changing area on Craigslist, and it's great for having lots of stuff accessible during diaper changes. It's similar to the Davinci Kalani combo dresser, but you can find others that have the same raised storage section on Amazon, Babies 'R Us, other baby/child furniture stores, and possibly even regular furniture stores.

Keen-eyed readers may notice that in the bottom right-hand corner is a clear plastic tub holding some loose disposable diapers, and a couple of rash creams. The tub will be going to West Side Baby, which collects diapers to give to low-income households. Because diapers aren't food, the two main social support programs for poor children, WIC Nutrition Service and SNAP (aka food stamps) can't be used to pay for diapers. This borders on the criminal. If you have leftover bags of diapers, consider giving them to a food bank or other non-profit that will accept them. Even better, turn your kids' first birthday party into a diaper drive.