I Was Going To Be a One-Bag Parent

Before I had kids, I had opinions about people who overpacked.

I was going to be a one-bag parent. A light, easy, spontaneous parent. The kind who could leave the house in under five minutes. The kind who said yes to things.

And then I had a baby, and I became someone who packs for a trip to the park like she is preparing for a moderately serious natural disaster.

I am not exaggerating.

Diapers — obviously. Wipes. Changing pad. Extra outfit (two, actually, because we've been burned). Snacks. The backup snacks. Bottles. The small stuffy that will cause an absolute scene if left behind. Sunscreen. Hand sanitizer. A light jacket because you never know.

The bag is full before I've thought about myself at all.

Which is, now that I think about it, a pretty good summary of how the diaper bag was designed.

There's a thing that happens in the two minutes after my husband gets the kids buckled in the car and I'm still in the house.

Those two minutes are mine.

I fill my water bottle — the big one, the 32-ouncer, because I am a person who needs hydration. I grab a small bag of almonds because I know that if I don't, I will spend the entire morning eating Goldfish crackers and pretending I don't mind. I throw in a sweatshirt because we live in Colorado and the weather here is a personality disorder. Sunglasses. Lip balm. Maybe a snack bar if I'm feeling optimistic about having both hands free at some point.

For two minutes, I remember I exist.

And then I walk out the door carrying all of it separately, because the bag — the actual bag, the one that was supposed to solve this — was already at capacity before I packed a single thing for myself.

Most diaper bags have a bottle pocket.

It fits a baby bottle perfectly. It does not fit my 32-ounce water bottle, which is doing a lot of important work in my life and deserves to be included.

This is a small thing. But it's also the whole thing.

The diaper bag was designed to make the baby's needs as accessible as possible. That's not a criticism — it's genuinely useful. But somewhere in the design process, the person doing the carrying got left out. Her water bottle. His wallet. The snacks that aren't shaped like fish.

The bag accounts for the baby completely and for the parent almost not at all.

So we carry two. Diaper bag on the back, purse on the shoulder, water bottle in hand, jacket over the stroller because there was nowhere else to put it.

Every parent I know does some version of this. We all just figured it was how it worked.

Before I had kids, I had a bag I loved. It went everywhere with me. It held exactly what I needed and nothing I didn't.

I haven't carried it in three years.

It lives on a shelf in my closet, next to the person I was before I started packing for park trips like a highly organized member of a wilderness survival team.

I don't actually mind carrying a lot. I mind that the system wasn't designed to carry me, too.

Aviarie is being built for that. More soon.

FAQ

Why do parents end up carrying two bags? Most diaper bags are designed around the baby's needs — diapers, wipes, bottles, changing supplies — without leaving meaningful room for the parent's essentials. A wallet, a water bottle, snacks, a phone: these end up in a second bag or stuffed into whatever space is left. It's not a packing problem. It's a design problem.

Is there a diaper bag that works for the parent too? Most diaper bags optimize for baby gear and treat the parent's needs as secondary — if they're addressed at all. A bag designed to carry both the baby's essentials and the parent's everyday items, without forcing a choice between the two, isn't widely available in the mainstream market yet.

Why doesn't my diaper bag have room for my water bottle? Standard diaper bag bottle pockets are sized for baby bottles, not adult water bottles. It's a small detail that reflects a bigger pattern: the bag was designed for the baby's convenience, not the parent's. A 32-ounce water bottle — or anything else the parent might need for a full day out — often doesn't fit.

Do dads have the same problem with diaper bags? Yes, and often more so. Beyond the space issue, most diaper bags are designed with aesthetics that don't account for the parent who's actually carrying the bag. A dad who is the primary carrier for the day is working with a bag that wasn't designed with him in mind — not in size, not in organization, and often not in appearance.

What should a family bag actually carry? A bag that works for the whole family needs to carry the baby's essentials and the parent's everyday items without one category crowding out the other. That means room for adult-sized water bottles, a wallet, keys, and a phone alongside diapers, wipes, snacks, and a change of clothes — organized so you can find things quickly, not just store them.