The Magical Diaper Bag
A couple of months ago, we were packing to take our (then) one month old daughter on her first plane ride, a trip to visit her grandparents in Nova Scotia. During this packing process, I was truly amazed at the amount of paraphernalia that we had to take for one 8 pound person. Vast piles of onesies, blankets, diapers, bottles. More. Plenty. When I whined to a friend of mine about the packing nightmare, she said, hah! You new moms. I just throw diapers and wipes in my purse!
Really?
There are people who can do that?
Does she have a magical child, a mythical child that simply smiles and eats and poops normal poops and doesn't do anything else?
Because that is not my child. My child requires an entire emergency kit for any possible purpose. The diaper bag is the tickle trunk, the mom nirvana. I am prepared for any situation. At all.
Inside my diaper bag, my magic bag of tricks, you will find:
Diapers. Except, we use cloth at home, and we had always used disposables when we go out but honestly, once you're used to using the nice fluffy absorbent cloth ones, disposables suck in comparison. Blowouts and leaks and I just don't trust them anymore. So I've started to take the cloth diapers with me when I'm out because they're just better, but the downside is that two of them take up roughly three times the space the same number of disposables would.
So, with the cloth, there's the heavy duty ziploc bag to take the dirty diapers home.
The wipes container then gets filled with some cloth wipes, because why would I use disposable wipes if I'm using cloth diapers?
Next, toss in the change pad because god knows what kind of surfaces I'm going to have to put her down on to change her.
Then there's the bib, an extra bib, or maybe three, because my child wears a bib at all times due to her amazing spit up ability, I have no idea how she's getting as chunky as she is because it seems more comes out than goes in.
And of course, because a bib doesn't cover everything, there's a change of clothes for her in in the event of a complete puke hurricane, and if that occurs (not as rare as I'd like to think) it's also wise to carry a spare t-shirt for me. Just in case the burp cloths I've also packed don't cut it.
Next, there's the extra bottle of milk because as we've discussed before the kid thinks eating from the boob is roughly the same as eating dirt, and every time we go out she's miraculously starving, so a bottle gets stuffed into a nice little insulated bag for later.
Don't forget the sling. If the kid is having a meltdown, I can jam her in the sling and poof! she's instantly asleep. Plus, it's a lot easier to carry her in the sling than it is to just carry her in my arms. So, roll that puppy up and jam it in there too.
And of course, because I'm a new mom, there's the camera, and the flip camera, and the toy in case she ever decides she's interested in toys.
Then there's a teeny bit of room left for my stuff, like my wallet so that I can go spend ridiculous amounts of money on Che Guevara onesies, and my clinique lip balm so that I can at least pretend I'm still a grownup who wears makeup , and my datebook because I'm a new mom and I can't remember shit anymore so I have to write it all down in order to keep from completely failing to live in the real world.
Then, on occasion, there's a requirement to bring the breast pump if I'm going to be gone for too long, which means the pump and bottles and those medieval torture devices that attach to the boobs.
Which all results in a diaper bag roughly the size of Alexei Kovalev's equipment bag.
Diapers. Except, we use cloth at home, and we had always used disposables when we go out but honestly, once you're used to using the nice fluffy absorbent cloth ones, disposables suck in comparison. Blowouts and leaks and I just don't trust them anymore. So I've started to take the cloth diapers with me when I'm out because they're just better, but the downside is that two of them take up roughly three times the space the same number of disposables would.
So, with the cloth, there's the heavy duty ziploc bag to take the dirty diapers home.
The wipes container then gets filled with some cloth wipes, because why would I use disposable wipes if I'm using cloth diapers?
Next, toss in the change pad because god knows what kind of surfaces I'm going to have to put her down on to change her.
Then there's the bib, an extra bib, or maybe three, because my child wears a bib at all times due to her amazing spit up ability, I have no idea how she's getting as chunky as she is because it seems more comes out than goes in.
And of course, because a bib doesn't cover everything, there's a change of clothes for her in in the event of a complete puke hurricane, and if that occurs (not as rare as I'd like to think) it's also wise to carry a spare t-shirt for me. Just in case the burp cloths I've also packed don't cut it.
Next, there's the extra bottle of milk because as we've discussed before the kid thinks eating from the boob is roughly the same as eating dirt, and every time we go out she's miraculously starving, so a bottle gets stuffed into a nice little insulated bag for later.
Don't forget the sling. If the kid is having a meltdown, I can jam her in the sling and poof! she's instantly asleep. Plus, it's a lot easier to carry her in the sling than it is to just carry her in my arms. So, roll that puppy up and jam it in there too.
And of course, because I'm a new mom, there's the camera, and the flip camera, and the toy in case she ever decides she's interested in toys.
Then there's a teeny bit of room left for my stuff, like my wallet so that I can go spend ridiculous amounts of money on Che Guevara onesies, and my clinique lip balm so that I can at least pretend I'm still a grownup who wears makeup , and my datebook because I'm a new mom and I can't remember shit anymore so I have to write it all down in order to keep from completely failing to live in the real world.
Then, on occasion, there's a requirement to bring the breast pump if I'm going to be gone for too long, which means the pump and bottles and those medieval torture devices that attach to the boobs.
Which all results in a diaper bag roughly the size of Alexei Kovalev's equipment bag.
Am I the only crazy one? I don't think I see other moms walking around with these enormous bags that weigh more than the baby. Maybe I'm a packrat, maybe I'm overprepared. Not sure.
Still, I will at least be able to walk around with a clean shirt... most of the time.
This is an original post to Canada Moms Blog. Shannon spends the time she isn't packing diaper bags writing at ThreeSeven.ca and saving the world at ecochick.ca.
