I frequently take the kids out of the house without mom. We just had another baby last fall so we are firmly back in the bottles, diapers, wipes, extra clothes phase again. I don’t mind carrying the big diaper bag around if we are going to be gone most of the day but for anything shorter than that it is slightly awkward for me.

When the twins were babies, I started looking for good options for quick day trip diaper bags and never really found anything that worked quite the way I wanted. I ended up realizing that backpacks are a great secondary diaper bag alternative

One nice perk of a secondary diaper bag for me is that since I’m not the one that normally backs the big diaper bag it makes it easy for me to know what is in the secondary bag since I have to pack it that day and I don’t mess up my wife’s system when I just want to go to the park for a couple hours.

I also like having the double shoulder straps that put the bag squarely on my back because it makes it easy to do things with the kids without dropping the bag. Plus, most diaper bags have some pretty feminine prints on them. My backpack is black and looks exactly like a normal backpack.

One of my biggest concerns was worrying about what is going to happen with the wet/dirty clothes? Modern diaper bags normally have special sections or special insert bags for handling such situations. I solve the problem by just using old grocery bags or those really small garbage can bags.

I’ve been using backpacks as diaper bags for over 5 years now and since I started have never had any interest in switching to a more formal diaper bag.