Hello Beauts! I’ve made it one more day without crying for the smiles of my Sophie! I have been doing all kinds of things that are really hard to do with an 11 month old. Today I’m sans car while it gets detailed, (from our road trip in July!) which I wouldn’t feel safe doing while having Sophie here. We (yes, WE) organized Sophie’s clothes for fall to determine what we needed to stock up on and I bought all her new fall (warm) clothes. I also re-organized her diaper bag which needed it desperately! Which brings me to:
I feel a bit ashamed to call myself a Girl Scout with the shape our diaper bag was in. We’re lucky to have not had any craziness happen while the bag has been in such disarray. First step: dump everything from the bag to determine what needs to stay and what needs to be put away.
Here’s the non-sense we had going on before I organized the diaper bag. Do we doubt Soph has enough toys? Can you imagine the rest of my home? Sigh. Some of the items in the bag: food with a spoon that she won’t use because it’s too small, a sanitizer holder sans the sanitizer, a belt for the grocery cart cover, a business card to a doctor she hasn’t seen in 10 months, 5 different teethers, 4 bath toys, the sunglasses that I’ve been looking for and an ill equipped changing pad. Not pictured: the lens cap to the DSLR we’ve been missing for weeks.
I wanted to open up the changing pad so you could see what it looked like. I also laid out the two size 1 diapers that were in the changing pad next to her current size 3 diaper to show how laughable it would have been if she’d needed a diaper change. Oh, but she DID! Jeffrey changed her diaper while we were out and she had to come home with no diaper because we only had a size 1. Luckiest poop-free drive we’ve ever had. To add to it, the changing pad was also without wipes. I highly recommend the Hop Skip changing pad as an easy way to carry in the compact station, other than the wipes case. There is a red wipes case that you can load with a decent amount of wipes and store in the top zippered section, however, the red bled onto my wipes and it doesn’t hold moisture in well enough, drying out the wipes in a couple of weeks. I just removed the red case and now carry the Huggies wipes clutch.
Once I re-loaded the changing pad with new diapers and wipes, I figured out what else we needed in the bag for Soph. I packed it with: ready-made formula as well as on-the-go packets of formula (in case we’re somewhere that has safe water), a bottle (that was not in there before?), a spoon that fits her mouth, cereal bar and food, change of clothes, bib, book, toys, medicine for Mom and Dad, teething medicine, sanitizer, extra diapers and a ziplock for the set of clothes she is sure to ruin.
I love our diaper bag for a lot of reasons, but the major reason is for it’s size and amount of pockets. I didn’t want a massive diaper bag but one that would hold everything we’d need. Our diaper bag easily holds our supplies for Soph with room to spare. All of the pockets have magnets to keep them closed and zippers for the others. The strap is very sturdy and has a comfortable padding for our shoulder. I have the strap long so we can wear it over our chest to make us less lopsided while carrying Soph. I like having her food easily accessible up front and her bib and spoon together in the zipped portion to keep them clean. Her outfit and toys are in the middle section with the medicine securely kept in pockets. The spare diapers are in the top zipper, with the large ziplock held in a large back pocket with no zipper (which I like because I only have one clean had to get it out.) The bottle is in a mesh holder on the side and we hang the sanitizer and changing pad on either side of the straps. The changing pad can be easily taken off if we’re just running into a store quickly and don’t need the excess bulk of the diaper bag.
We store the bag on a 3M hook on the back of Soph’s door so we can grab it on the way out after getting her ready. While the door is open, you don’t notice it’s even there which I love because I don’t like a ton of stuff on the floor or taking up space with our jackets/purses.
What was essential (besides the not so obvious, correct size diapers and wipes) for your diaper bag? I usually carry a small purse that has my stuff because I don’t like mixing my mess of lip chap, sunglasses (oops), and junk with her bag since Jeffrey uses it as well. Sophie comes back tomorrow! Maybe I’ll have to take her somewhere since her bag is all ready to go!
I had a backpack diaper bag with my first and that thing annoyed me more than anything because it wasn’t very practical. We had a messenger style diaper bag with our daughter and besides it being blue and having Winnie the Pooh on it, we still use it when we go to the beach. That tells you how practical and useful it was/is! I think the contents were pretty much the same as yours though!
Oh a backpack would be annoying because it’d get so disorganized and be hard to pull out the one thing your baby is crying for! That’s awesome that you still use your second diaper bag! We could easily use ours as well because it doesn’t really look like a diaper bag.
Good job reorganizing! I cannot believe you she had to go sans diaper once. Funny! I’ve packed wipes before in my purse but then forgot to pack diapers…. I was so happy to not have to carry around a diaper bag when it was only our son and he was potty trained. But it’s not so bad now because we don’t have to pack bottles anymore. We always have snacks, drawing pad for J, and sani wipes.
Not having bottles would be nice! If Soph is real tired, she doesn’t like to eat regular food which is why we have the bottle. I doubt we’ll need it much longer though! Sani wipes is a good idea, esp. for restaurants.