Dirty Diaper Storing...

How we store our dirty diapers between washings does seem to go against logic, but that's because most diaper pails are designed in such a way that they lock in the odors and don't let them escape.  It turns out, with cloth diapers anyway, if you leave them in an open pail exposed to the air they smell far less.  Some could argue you can't smell our pail at all (unless of course you put your nose physically on the diaper I'd imagine).

I was skeptical at first.  When we had the diaper service we were incredibly lazy with our diapers.  It mortified my mother to hear that we wouldn't even shake out the poo before putting it in the pail.  We have a Graco Touch Free diaper pail which appears to be unavailable today...  The concept was you could wave your hand near the pail and the lid would open and you'd put the diaper in and the lid would close.  The design of the depository area was such that it didn't allow much air to escape from the bag where the diapers ended up.  It was magical in theory, but didn't really work well for cloth.  The diapers just fit in the depository and the lid didn't always automatically lift as expected.  We started to just lift manually, which worked OK anyway.  Since a cloth diaper took up more space in the pail, we were changing the bag more often then one would if they were using disposables.  I will say the odor protection seemed to work fabulously however.  I just feel awful for the service delivery guy who had to pick up our stinky bags every week, ewe!

When we moved to home laundering our habits had to change and we had to shake and rinse off poop because we weren't washing every day and the dirty diapers were to be stored inside (we did keep them in the garage for a bit, but that was such a pain).

The solution I found was actually this rolling pet food container from The Container Store.  I excluded the lid, but kept it around in case this open air theory didn't pan out and I wanted to keep in the smells (the lid is now thrown away).  I thought having the wheels would make it easier to transport outside or to move the pail out of the way in the laundry room if needed.  Then I got a Planet Wise pail liner.  Theoretically you could use this liner even if you used disposables.  It helps cut down on the use of plastic trash bags.  This bag was the right size for the container I had chosen, and I liked that it came in a large variety of colors.  I chose purple because at the time if was the first color my son could say, and it seemed to be his favorite.  The volume of the container and the liner are plenty for the 3 day wash cycle we use.  There's plenty of room, even when we start to diaper two kids.

I wash the pail liner with the diapers every other wash or so.  It hang dries while the diapers dry.  If I feel like the pail could smell a little fresher between washes, I sprinkle some Clean B pail refresher on top of the diapers.  This is completely unnecessary, but I got the powder at the same time I bought the wipe solution because it sounded like a fun thing to try.  I can honestly say, if you make sure there's no actual poop on the diapers in the pail, there is no odor when you use this method.