Cloth Diapering How-To

How to Travel with Cloth Diapers

By Becca ⋅ February 4, 2010 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Traveling with an infant is difficult without even considering the cloth diapering issue. It’s amazing the amount of space a tiny little person can take up in your car, in your hotel room, at your friend’s house, in a church nursery, in your grocery cart…little people need an amazing amount of stuff! So of course, as daunting as traveling can seem, traveling with cloth diapers can seem even more impossible. I’m here to tell you it is not.

When we first decided to use cloth diapers, Dave and I said, “yeah, we’ll do cloth at home and disposables when we leave the house.” When our stash was only six diapers deep, that’s what we did. We kept a stash of disposables in the diaper bag and that was that.

Now, my husband is a youth pastor so we spend a lot of evenings at the church for different youth events and meetings. When our daughter was 2-3 weeks old, I knew that the youth at church missed me and really wanted to meet the newest addition, so I started packing her bag and was ready to do without the cloth diapers again when I thought, “How hard could it be? I’m only going to make a short appearance and come right back home.”

I stuffed a few cloth diapers in the bag and toted my precious bundle to see her new church friends. Ironically, she chose those few hours to make a poop bomb in her diaper. Despite having to carry the poop bomb home in a plastic bag, the evening was a success and I decided to do it more often.

Since that day, we’ve traveled with cloth diapers for trips as short as the grocery store to almost a full week away from home over the holidays. Each time we go out with our cloth diapers and we rarely ever open the few “emergency” disposables we keep on hand. Each time we’re away I learn new things I can do to make traveling with cloth diapers easier on us.

Before going on our trip…

Before going on our trip, we have to know what we’re up against. We need to know how long we will be there, where we will stay if it’s an overnight trip, and what kind of facilities the place has for washing our cloth diapers.

Based upon that information, there are certain things we pack from our “at-home” cloth diaper stash.

(Traveling with cloth diapers means knowing you can’t pack your entire “at home” stash to go!)

The following are some packing guidelines that work best for me and my husband:

For short trips lasting no more than a couple of hours, we bring:

• 2-3 pocket diapers (I still haven’t mastered the art of prefold diapers, but I’m told they’re easier to travel with because you can re-use the cover)
• 4-6 cloth baby wipes (I made my own out of flannel, but you can buy them if you’re not crafty)
• 1 mini spray bottle with baby wipe solution (you can either buy this pre-made, or make your own, it doesn’t have to be expensive)
• A small wet bag
• A changing pad
• A small can of Lysol in case I have to change her somewhere gross

For longer day trips I bring:

• 5-8 pocket diapers (better safe than sorry!)
• 8+ cloth wipes
• 1 mini spray bottle with wipe solution
• A medium sized wet bag
• A changing pad
• Disinfectant is optional depending upon your destination.

(Pictured above are cloth baby wipes and a mini spray bottle of wipe solution.)

For overnight trips I bring:

• 12+ pocket diapers for one night & 24+ pocket diapers for more than one night
• A duffel bag for my clean cloth diapers
• 30+ cloth baby wipes
• A large container for my cloth wipes (a gallon sized Ziplock bag will do)
• A larger spray bottle with wipe solution.
• Two medium-large sized wet bags (one in use and one in the wash at all times)
• A changing pad
• Laundry detergent or dish soap (depending upon whether I’ll be machine washing or hand washing)
• Hemp inserts for overnight and long car rides. (the Knickernappies Loopy Do insert, made of hemp and microterry, works wonders for heavy wetters)

Washing and Drying Cloth Diapers When Traveling

When it comes to washing and drying your cloth diapers while away from home for an extended period of time, there are few options:

1. Most hotels have washing machines and dryers available for you to use for a small fee. If you use these, you can simply use your cloth diaper detergent. When staying with family or friends, simply ask ahead of time if they’re machines will be available for you to use.

2. If there are no washing machines available, bring some dish soap and wash the diapers in the bathroom sink. It really isn’t as bad as it sounds because you can get your diapers washed and stripped at the same time when using dish soap!

I fill the sink with warm water and a squirt of dish soap, put as many diapers as I can fit in there, and agitate the water myself. I let them soak for a bit before draining the water, and refilling the sink. Then I repeat the process until there are no more bubbles in the water.

I hand wring the diapers and find places such as hangers, curtain rods, towel bars, and even luggage holders to lay the diapers to dry.

They take longer to dry when they’ve been hand wrung, so keep that in mind. Such repeated washing will do a number on your hands so make sure to bring lots of hand lotion!!!

3. When I’m at home, I use the dryer to dry only my inserts and I line dry my diapers. I prefer to do it this way because I feel it will give the elastics a longer life-span.

However, when I’m away from home and a dryer is available, I sometimes prefer to dry everything in the dryer simply because it’s time efficient and the place I’m staying might not be amenable to having my diapers laying everywhere to line dry. As long as you don’t try to stuff them while they are still hot, this shouldn’t do any damage to the elastics.

After a couple of tries, we’ve found that cloth diapering while traveling works for us. We simply love to use cloth everywhere we go!

Maybe it’s because we know we have the cutest diapers around and people who don’t know anything about the leaps and bounds cloth diapering has made are delightfully surprised. Maybe it’s because we know that our daughter isn’t going to sit around all day in the toxic chemicals that comprise a disposable diaper. Maybe because it almost always presents the opportunity of teaching others about cloth diapers.

In any case, I never leave home without my cloth diapers and I think a lot more moms would do the same if they realized that it’s not much different cloth diapering away from home as it is within the comfort of your home.

GUEST BLOGGER

Becca is a part time Spanish Teacher, a part time Stay-at-home-mom, and the wife of the best husband imaginable. Becca’s absolute favorite thing to do is to spend time with her little family. She also enjoys doing anything crafty – from making jewelry, to writing, to sewing, to photography.

You can read more about Becca at her blog, Becca’s Cloth Diaper Blog.

Tags: baby wipe solution, baby wipes, changing pad, cloth diaper stash, cloth diapering when traveling, cloth diapers, disposables, travel with cloth diapers, Wet Bag

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