Oh a recent fifteen day trip, I packed every kind of diaper we had – cloth, hybrids, disposables, and swim. And I used each and every kind! Our trip included 18 hours of driving, five days at the in-laws, twelve hours of driving, two days at friends, seven hours of driving, five days in a hotel for a mission trip, and finally about a two and a half hour drive home.Disposables:
My daughter is a heavy wetter. Since we were traveling on roads with few good places to stop, I had to have something that would last 4-5 hours (since of course both kids would have just fallen asleep when we reached a good place to stop 2-3 hours in). I did try hybrids the first, day, but they leaked on her. I also ended up using disposables on my son at night the last few days. He was waking every 2 hours or so at night to nurse due to teething, and again a hybrid diaper was leaking before morning.
Hybrids:
These were my go-to diaper. The last five days we were very busy and staying in a hotel. So, doing diaper laundry just wasn’t an option. I found both kids could go almost four hours in a hybrid diaper, assuming my daughter wasn’t chugging her drinks of course.
We also used hybrids at our friends. Although I could wash, there just wasn’t a good place to store the dirty diapers. But using hybrids gave them a glimpse of cloth diapering, allowing me to talk them more about it (hopefully I convinced them to switch!).
Cloth:I used these at the in-laws. I had very easy access to laundry and room to dry my covers (and pre-folds), so it was a no-brainer. I also used a cloth diaper as an extra soaker layer under my daughter in the car to prevent a wet car seat when she decided to chug her drinks in the car.
Overall, it worked great! I used just over 50 GroBaby bio-soakers and less than 20 disposables the whole trip. The bio-soakers are a lot smaller than a traditional disposable, and since I can use them for both kids, it makes packing a lot easier. Next time we travel, my daughter might be potty trained. If so, I might be brave enough to only pack a few bio-soakers and do almost all cloth since we don’t have plans for an extended hotel stay until next summer!
12 comments:
Just last night i was trying to figure out how you (well, me) would use cloth diapers while travelling. My son is only four months old and i haven't started CDing yet (my husband isn't completely convinced) but i want to take a trip in a couple months and didn't want to give him another excuse not to invest in CDs.
Thanks for posting
Thank you for posting this and showing that sometimes a disposable diaper is needed. I try to only use them when I NEED to but it's nice to know they are there.
I just did a very similar trip with my 2 under 2. Tennesse-florida-louisiana-texas-arkansas-Tennessee My couldnt get hybrid liners before the trip so we opted for disposables. I will never do that again! Both my kids got a rash, had blow outs, and the smell gave me headaches. Next trip i'll find a laundry mat.
So after being in the car for a couple of hours, do you think a pocket diaper or AIO would have worked just as good as a disposable? I think we may be driving here in a few months and I really don't want to buy any disposies. And with the biosoakers, did you have a mess problem on the cover when they were wet?
thanks for posting! we go on a lot of short trips and since we just started cd'ing a month ago, I've been wondering how to make traveling and cloth go well together.
By the way, I'm jealous of your stash of biosoakers! :)
I just did my first trip with all cloth! It was just a 4 day visit to my mom's... so not a huge risk... but I was a little nervous since she was a little skeptical about cloth when I mentioned it. But once I showed them to her she LOVED them and thought they were SO cute and SUCH a great idea. I didn't bring any disposables. I had access to laundry so I decided to risk it and I was glad I did, I survived! :)
I think traveling with cloth is a great way to spread the word. My cousin got me on board using cloth when she brought hers to a family reunion.
At this trip I also saw a few old friends who heard I was using cloth and asked some questions.
Great info to know about the hybrids. They're a newer option that I haven't explored yet.
Tammy - Hi from the post author!
My daughter is a VERY heavy wetter. She can soak through a good prefold in an hour sometimes. Even the best overnight diapers some times only last 2-3 hours on her because she can hold it and then floods. So, I don't know if an AIO or pocket would have been better than a disposable or not. My son on the other hand would have been fine in clth the whole trip if I could have done more laundry. As for the soakers, they only get the cover wet if they were totally soaked - and normally then it was about to leak. They have a plasticy back on them so they don't just soak right to the cover. I did hand wash them every few days in the sink just to get the lingering urine smell out, but it was never too strong.
Thanks for posting. As a new cloth diaper mom, it's great to read the lessons learned by those more experienced. We are planning a trip to Georgia at the beginning of the new year (over 1000 mile drive for us), and I was wondering if I could make CDing work during our travels. I'm excited to give it a try. Now, I have an excuse to buy some more prefolds and hemp inserts :o)
Out of all the disposable inserts I prefer the GroVia BioSoakers. The gussetts do a great job at containing the messiest of diapers and they're pretty absorbant for their size.
I have noticed that I usually have to use 2 sposie soakers to last overnights.
Thanks Stephanie! My daughter is two and half and she is potty training, but also will hold it until the flood breaks the dam, lol. I had read some reviews about the biosoakers not working very well, so I am glad to hear that they aren't that bad. Thanks again for this post!
We've only taken two overnight trips since my baby was born. We did a weekend out of state when she was almost eight weeks, and for that I used disposables. We had two blowouts.
Then I decided I'd do our cloth for a weekend up north about a month ago when she was five months. It worked out great. I ended up bringing way too much, but better too much than not enough!
I much prefer the cloth, but I'm still open to disposables for trips where I wouldn't have access to laundry facilities, not a lot of room in the car, or on a plane where we have to pay for baggage.
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