When Lucy was born in June of 2014, Emilio was 3 years old and still in cloth diapers. Although still in cloth, I knew it wouldn’t be long until he would be potty learning and using cloth trainers soon. I had no idea how I was going to go about cloth diapering two children at once. There was some trial and error at the beginning, but after I figured out a routine, it became much easier.
First of all, I’ll tell you my biggest mistake when having two in cloth. I was washing their diapers in two SEPARATE loads of laundry. Looking back on that now, I have no idea what I was thinking! Lucy was exclusively breastfed. And if you did not know or plan to breastfeed and cloth diaper, when infants are exclusively breastfed and they are having no solid foods, the poop is water soluble and dirty diapers can be thrown right in the wash without rinsing out the poop. Now my three-year-old was not breastfeeding and had full solid toddler poop. So I would dunk and swish those dirty diapers before I threw them in the wash. Pause for a second, because poop talk will become completely normal and second nature when you have kids, and when you use cloth diapers. So here I was washing E’s cloth in one load, and Lucy’s in a different load. It was time-consuming and I felt that I was never done with cloth diaper laundry. There had to be an easier way! I began to think… newborn pee/poop, toddler pee/poop, it was all dirty no matter what. And one day I just thought, why don’t I just wash all the cloth together? What was I afraid of? I’m not sure really, but I know that once I started washing all their cloth in one load, having two in cloth became SO MUCH easier! Plus no diapers were harmed or ruined after beginning to wash them all together.
Cloth diaper laundry routine for two solved. So now I had one child in one size diapers and a few trainers, and one child in newborn cloth diapers as well as one size in months to come. Where was I going to keep a two size stash organized and put away? One of the greatest investments I’ve made are the (affiliate link) Sterilite drawers.
I have about half a dozen of these drawers in different sizes and they are great for storing diapers. I was easily able to store anywhere from 12-20 diapers in one drawer. Stacking the drawers for easy access in any room helped too. These drawers are easily available at most stores, Family Dollar, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. I was lucky enough to find most of my drawers at the Salvation Army. (I love thrifting!) I was washing their diapers all in one load, and storing their diapers separately and easily. Having two in cloth was becoming a breeze.
As time went by, Emilio started using cloth less and less. Towards the end of his cloth diaper journey, we mostly used cloth trainers and cloth diaper covers with prefolds. This combination was used for nighttime potty learning, and it worked great! Even though he was around 4 years old when he did fully start using the potty, it happened in about three days and I am proud to say that he has never had any nighttime accidents or accidents in public. I truly believe that potty learning was super easy for him because of cloth.
I did not have two in cloth for long, but long enough to learn a trick or two. I LOVED having two in cloth diapers, I cherished every moment of it. Fast forward to current day, and I am almost in the same position regarding two in cloth. Lucy is 3 years old and mostly using the potty during the day. Uses the same cloth combination (and same diapers her brother did!) at night. Baby number 3 will be here towards the end of the year and I know exactly what I’ll be doing to make having two in cloth diapers, easy peasy and stress free.
Do you have any tips for having two (or more) in cloth diapers? I would love to hear them!
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
