Since we bought a diaper sprayer, poopy diapers have been a non-issue in our house. It is a convenience necessity we just don’t think about, and definitely can’t live without, much like the toilet to which it is attached.
When we go on vacation, using cloth diapers is the only choice for us. Vacations can be expensive enough as it is without the added cost of a couple of boxes of disposable diapers.
But what about the poop? What do you do with the poop when you’re on vacation and you don’t have a diaper sprayer at your disposal? It’s not like we live in Europe where bidets are commonly found in every dwelling place. As my husband put it, it’s one thing if your baby poops when you’re gone for a day. At least then, you can put the mess in your wet bag and deal with it properly when you get home. But when you’re away for a span of time, saving the poopy diapers until later is just not an option.
My husband, daughter and I have gone away three times already this summer (it’s not even July when I write this) and we still have a couple of trips left before the summer is out. This means, that we’ve had plenty of time to experiment with alternate ways of disposing of poop from our cloth diapers, and plenty of time to decide how we will be taking care of said poop in the future.
Here are the options we’ve discovered in our journey
Shake it off. Sometimes the poop really does just “shake off” the dirty diaper and into the toilet. I’ve found that this is true mostly with diapers that have microsuede, rather than microfleece, as an inner fabric; sometimes it works for my fleece-lined diapers too, depending upon the texture of the poop and whether or not the diaper was also wet.
Pry it off. When the poop won’t just fall out into the toilet, we’ve found that using wads of toilet paper to pry it off by hand also works. Yes, this is disgusting, I know, but when it’s all you can do, you’re willing to do it.
Dunk it off. While dunking your prized diaper in a public bathroom (or even the bathroom in a hotel or your host’s house) may not be ideal, it can effectively remove most of the offending poop. I grab both the top and the bottom of my diaper tightly and dunk it while flushing the water. The pull of the flush seems to remove a good amount of the poop. I generally need to do this at least twice. Be careful, though, to have a good hold on your diaper. I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be if I accidentally flushed one, or got it jammed. *shudders*
Spray it off. I don’t know why, but I always have a spray bottle with me when we travel for an extended period of time with cloth diapers. One particular day, when I was just tired of trying to extricate the poop on a soiled diaper using the methods listed above, I figured it couldn’t hurt to use my spray bottle. I adjusted the spray so that it came out forcefully rather than in a mist, and aimed it at some of the worst clumps. Granted, it was a lot of work getting the poop off just a little bit at a time, but with no other option, it worked.
Use a diaper liner. This, is by far, the best option. I promised myself I’d get some of these before we went on vacation after some of the poop experiences we’d had in our previous trips, but alas, I forgot! What a bummer! There are lots of different options of cloth diaper liners. All of them involve a thin barrier between the diaper and the mess.
You can get disposable disposable bioliners which just slough off into the toilet with the poop leaving your diaper washing machine ready. You can also get or make cloth diaper liners out of a bit of microfleece or microsuede and just deal with cleaning the mess of cleaning off a thin strip of fabric rather than the creases and folds of your diaper. Either way, these seem like the absolute best option for traveling with poop. If I can get my act together, I will remember to buy some of these before my next trip
We Only Travel with Cloth
Despite the challenges of traveling with cloth diapers, my husband and I still refuse to buy disposable diapers even if it is just for trips.
We’ve dealt with poop just about everywhere you can imagine – in the car, in gross gas station bathrooms, in nice gas station bathrooms, in Wal*mart, in fast food restaurants, in hotel rooms, and even in friend’s houses – and in none of those cases did we have our beloved diaper sprayer (one of our best cloth diapering investments, by the way!)
Overall, we find that the rewards or using cloth everywhere we go far outweigh the difficulties. We’ve discovered that with a little bit of problem-solving, even the difficulties of cloth diapering can become non-issues after practice.
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.
Bryana is the owner of 
Becca is a part-time Spanish Teacher and part-time Stay-At-Home-Mom. She's a cloth diaper expert who enjoys spending time with her family, crafting and selling her wares in her very own
Julie is a mom to three kids including a set of identical twins. Through cloth diapering her twins she developed a passion for the industry and is an avid cloth diaper advocate. You can also find her on her blog
Way to go! We will use sposies on our 2 airport days but cloth for the week of our vaca…
Great article and tips. I keep forgetting to buy liners, too. We got a lot of experience with the dunk it off option when my first daughter had poopy potty-training accidents. Her preschool teacher once flushed a beloved par of Dora undies down the school potty when the industrial-strength flush got hold of them. Thanks for the chuckle.
Good for you for sticking with the cloth despite some challenges! My husband always wants to wimp out when we travel, but I’m adamant!
When you are dunking try removing the insert first so you don’t end up with a 10lb diaper that you need to wring out. I didn’t think of it initially but it makes it more manageable.
I’d be interested to see the cost comparison of disposable diapers vs. extra baggage costs when flying. We are flying cross-country for a 12 day vacation next week and while I have no problem with using my cloth dipes on vacation, I’m a little reluctant to take up costly baggage space. Anyone have any insights?
Any tips on cruising for 7 days using Cloth diapers. If I don’t have accesses to laundry, I do not have enough diapers nor do I want my diapers staying dirty that long. I did buy Fip inserts, but I am worried about the nights.
I don’t know much about the extra baggage costs of flying cross country. Since I CD to save money more than anything, that alone might convince me to use disposables for a vacation, though I’d do it quite reluctantly.
Melanie, if you’re up to it, may I suggest soaking them in the tub? It is a bit more work, but if you’re dedicated to sticking with cloth, it’s worth it. I’ve done it a few times. Just make sure the guy who cleans your room knows not to touch them. I had some earrings tossed down the toilet on a cruise because I left them in a cup of water to clean them and failed to let my attendant know not to move the cup.
Some cruises have laundry services where they do the laundry for you, but I don’t know if I’d trust my CD laundry to someone else.
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Vacation Diaries: Poop on the Road
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