Confession: I don’t use a cloth diaper pail. I have been cloth diapering for over 3 years now, without pails. Why? Because pails take up too much space, and the diaper genie I used with my oldest baby (in disposables) scared me away from the very concept of pails entirely. Now I use Hanging pails! So how does a Hanging Cloth Diaper Pail work? I’m glad you asked…
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. Shopping with these links earns me a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Basic Anatomy of a Hanging Pail
Hanging pails are just large wet bags. They hold about 3 days worth of diapers, and you fill them up between laundry days. Smells are contained because they have zippers! (Or drawstrings, My AppleCheeks Storage Sac has drawstrings.) There is usually a method of attaching the hanging pail to a doorknob or some such thing. This is done by a simple strap, or by a loop of some kind. You can even put plastic hooks on your wall or change table, and voila! A spot to hang your pail!
The Funky Fluff Hanging Pail is double lined and is the best bang for your buck!
Not all hanging cloth diaper pails are created equal, though, and there is actually a Pail-to-Beat in the cloth diapering world: The Funky Fluff Hanging Pail. Why is it amazing? Because it has not one, but TWO layers of PUL (the water-resistant fabric) and TWO super sturdy, snappable straps. I attach mine to the towel bar in my bathroom. The colours and patterns are awesome and mine (“Katniss”, a print now sadly retired) matches my bathroom decor perfectly. The newer prints and colours are quite bright and unmistakably “Funky!”
Laundry Day
On Wednesdays and Saturdays, I grab my hanging pail from the Bathroom and head for the laundry room. Along the way, I collect my wetbags from the Nursery, the diaper bag, the living room and my kitchen. I toss everything in my hanging pail as I go and once I reach the laundry room, it’s super smooth sailing. Open the zipper, position the opening of the hanging pail in front of your washing machine, and push from the bottom of the bag.
Basically I dump the contents into my machine while pushing the bag inside out! Wetbags need to be washed inside out. I don’t need to touch a single diaper with this method! I begin my wash routine, and then once it’s done I put everything in the dryer. Once dry, I put the entire load back in the now clean hanging pail, replace the wetbags to their spots around the house and carry the hanging pail of clean diapers back to the nursery for folding and storing!
It is SO EASY!
The size 2 Storage Sac from Applecheeks makes a great hanging pail for the nursery’s closet door
Other favourite hanging pails
I mentioned my AppleCheeks Size 2 storage sac, which is another favourite of mine. It’s a drawstring sac that I love for travelling and especially camping. ApleCheeks makes loads of colours and prints, so you won’t have any There are a few other brands you can consider for a Hanging Cloth Diaper Pail as well, like Planetwise, and a new discover of mine: the Colibri XL wetbag.
Colibri makes gorgeous prints that satisfy a wide variety of home decor. They are a Canadian company and use high quality materials with excellent customer service.
What do you use?
Do you use a pail? A hanging pail? A pillowcase (lol)? Let me know your dirty diaper solutions in the comments below. Sharing your experience helps out other moms who are here looking for cloth diapering advise. We are all a collective of knowledge!
You can pick up your own Hanging Cloth Diaper Pail from any of my retailer affiliates: Calgary Cloth Diaper Depot, Lagoon Baby, Cloth Diaper Kids, The Baby Footprint, Diaper Junction (USA), and Cozybums.
I use an open plastic woven laundry hamper with a mesh/nylon laundry bag as a liner. All the air circulation means there is no stink! Yay! I do use travel wet bags for dirty diapers that need rinsing & for daycare, but I find containing them inside a closed wetbag does make them stinkier. Otherwise, I might like the hanging wetbag choice.
I have never used a hanging pail before, but it sounds great, so now I want to!
It’s good to re-read some of these blog posts. I like that the Funky Fluff bags have a double layer of PUL to help contain the smells. I might need to investigate trying one for daycare diapers. Since they don’t flush the poo the whole diaper bag ends up smelling in our cheapie bags.
I used Fuzzibunz wet bags with my oldest 2 kiddos. I wish they had 2 layers of PUL like the Funky Fluff wet bag… that would have been so helpful. This time i bought a Ubbi pail, which is amazing! It keeps the smell in, but I do wish it was a little bigger.