Saturday, August 24, 2013

Short-term Travel with Cloth Diapers

Last weekend we went back to my hometown to baptise my youngest.  My husband and I were married in my home town and my older daughter was also baptised there so it was important to us to also baptise her there.  We were only gone for 2 days and one night but I figured I would share some of the things I learned about traveling with cloth diapers. 


 
1.  I packed way more than I needed, but I was glad that I did.  I find that I think my girls go through more diapers than they actually do each day.  I could have consolidated my packing by selecting more of my AI2s and therefore I wouldn't have had to bring as many shells. 
2.  I thought it would have been hard or bulky to bring my cloth wipes so we ended up using disposable wipes.  In the end I think it would have been easier to just use my cloth wipes.  For short day trips I just bring dry wipes and wet them using a peri bottle that I keep full of water in my diaper bag.  I have some single ply wipes that would be great for travel so I should have brought those.  Instead we ended up using disposable wipes and then either had to figure out where to put them or stuck them in the diaper and they ended up going through the wash.  Not a big deal but it definitely would have been easier to just bring my cloth wipes.
3.  I have two kids in diapers so I think it would have also been easier to bring one size diapers that can fit them both.  That way in the end I could have brought less diapers because instead of bring extra diapers for both girls I could have just brought a few extra ones that fit them both.
4.  Our trip was only 2 hours, so I just changed the girls before we left and they were good to go for the drive.  For a longer drive, I would recommend staying away from Microfiber as it is prone to compression leaks while in a car seat.  It would probably be beneficial to double up any inserts to avoid a wet car seat as well.  But more than anything I would just recommend stopping every few hours to stretch your legs and change your baby's diaper, no one wants to sit in a wet diaper for very long no matter how much absorbency you have added!
5.  At home I have a diaper sprayer that my husband made (maybe a future post?!?!) and I can't imagine my life without it!!  The only bad thing about my diaper sprayer is that it is not portable.  For short day trips I just bring everything back and deal with it when I get home, but I didn't want any messes sitting around for 36 hours during this trip so I had to deal with any messes as we went.  I ended up using the aforementioned peri bottle as a makeshift sprayer while we were gone, and that worked alright.  I think in the future though I will bring some of my disposable liners and just use that.  The peri bottle can be a royal pain in the rear, so using liners instead seems much easier!
6. At home I have a plastic trash can and a pail liner that I keep my soiled diapers in.  I couldn't think of anything easier, so we just brought this along.  It contains the smell well and since we had the room in the car, it was nice to have it along.
7.  We were visiting family, so if we had been there longer it would have been easy to do my diaper laundry while there.  If we weren't visiting family, laundry would definitely pose a problem.  Some good options for longer travel with no washer/dryer would be to hand wash in the bathtub (flats and covers are suppose to be easiest for this), use a Laundromat or just use disposables.

All in all, I think it was a good trip and that everything went well.  My sister-in-laws wedding is coming up in 2 months and we will be gone 4-5 days, so I will be able to update for longer travel then!

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2 comments:

  1. Hi! Just found you through Mommy Mondays...I love all your cloth diapering posts. We love our cloth diapers - Fuzzibunz, BumGenius 4.0 and I recently got a Grovia AIO and an AppleCheeks. You're brave to travel with cloth, we haven't tried it yet. The peri bottle is genius in place of a sprayer for travel! Your post gives me some hope that it can be done! :) I look forward to following and reading more from you. All the best to you and family
    Nancy @ My Little Criatura (http://mylittlecriatura.blogspot.ca/)

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    1. Thanks for visiting!!! Travel with cloth ended up being much easier than I expected. We have a longer trip coming up in October that I will bring my cloth again and provide an update :)

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