Hi everyone! If you want to leave a little blurb about yourself, about the shape of your family, or welcome other newcomers to the site, blurb away!

So, I was trying to cut my child clutter in half lately and I realized that one of my biggest obstacles to simplified living space is purchasing special-purpose items where a multi-tasker would do. Multi-taskers that have earned their storage space include - olive oil as a cooking ingredient, diaper rash ointment, and sore breastfeeding nipple ointment - [WalMart $4 pop up laundry basket as a travel bassinet](https://ibb.co/PNfc2jK) which when the kid outgrows can be their laundry basket/hamper - child washcloths as nursing/breast pads, washcloths to wash the child with, and cloth wipes (also incredibly tiny spit up cloths) - a microwave which can heat a bowl of water which intern heats the bottle Single-use clutter that I regret includes wipes warmers, bottle warmers, bottle sterilizers, special fridge milk pitcher things, and more. What are some of your breakthrough multi-tasking purchases or worst single-use traps?

I use predominantly prefolds and flats and usually use a Snappi. I made an order from Green Mountain Diapers (they are currently having a sale on muslin flats with 20% off using coupon code MUSLIN) and got a free set of diaper pins from them. I cannot for the life of me get the diaper pins to penetrate the fabric. I've poked them into a bar of soap. That hasn't helped much. I am an older sibling in a cloth diapering family and when my kid brother was in cloth diapers (prefolds) there were only diaper pins. I would change his diapers sometimes. I cannot remember having trouble getting any diaper pins to penetrate the fabric. If seven year old me could pin a diaper, this strikes me that something is amiss with the current generation of pins, maybe just this set of pins, or the current generation of flats and prefolds. Does anyone have any insight as to which it could be?

I know that prefolds shrink down from the brand new square that one purchases, but do they continue to shrink forever and just slowly. While I haven't measured my prefolds, they seem to be smaller than even the shrunken-"washed" size in the size chart from their point of origin, and where the cover has not shrunk, they seem now to be tinier by comparison ... almost unusably so. I'm wondering if this is a natural aspect of the prefold or if this is abnormal and points to them being mistreated by me somehow. Does anyone know?

Does anyone know what baby-related paraphernalia flies free? I am taking a Low Cost Carrier flight in January and for the purposes of our budget have to fly personal item only. However, due to the nature of the trip we will have our 6 month old lap child with us and I will need to bring a breast pump, frozen breast milk, and pumping supplies as well, which eats into the personal item's space. And we need to bring a car seat (baby bucket). Does any of this fly free per FAA rules so that it won't be counted against my one bag allotment?

These simple and small items will allow a onesie to fit over a cloth diaper as well as allow the onesie to be used longer on a child who grows taller before they grow bulkier. The first R is reduce. This allows a reduction in clothing needs.