Hit the Road Jack (and Jill)!

When planning our vacation to Florida, the most difficult decision for me was whether or not to cloth diaper our 8 month old twins during the trip. We would be flying with two car seats, a booster seat, a play yard, and a double stroller in addition to our suitcases. Would we have enough room to pack cloth diapers, too?

I decided to try it, but we would have to do a couple things differently. I knew we would have access to a washer and dryer, but not a diaper sprayer; so I bought disposable wipes and flushable liners. I wanted to make cleanup easy since we were on vacation. We packed our suitcases minimally with the intention of doing clothing laundry once during the trip. Diaper laundry would have to be done twice with the stash I was bringing. We had hybrid diapers for daytime use and pocket diapers for nighttime. I had some samples of diaper detergent that were the perfect size for traveling. I was able to fit everything for the four of us into two standard sized suitcases.

My husband and I each packed a diaper bag in case we were seated apart on the plane. Each contained a changing pad, wipes, a wet bag, and three cloth diapers with liners: one for when we arrived at the airport, one in case we needed it during the flight, and one for when we arrived. We made sure to pack plenty of snacks and toys for the flight, plus my daughter’s tag blanket (she naps much, much easier when she has it). I read somewhere that babies are prone to having blowouts during flights, so we packed a spare outfit for each kid – turns out we didn’t need them because cloth diapers don’t have blowouts.

Now that the trip is over and we are home safe and sound, I can tell you that I made the right decision. Cloth diapering was super easy to do on vacation. It turned out that there was a clothing line, so we were able to line dry our diapers and wet bags. When we went to the beach and the pool, we used diaper covers without inserts instead of buying swim diapers. I’m very pleased with how the flushable liners worked, and I will use them again for future trips. There were only a couple of times that the liner didn’t catch it all, and I had to use wipes to clean off the diaper.

We are already planning our next family adventure, which will be a weekend of camping. I plan to cloth diaper the kids during this trip, too. Since I know there will be no washer available, I’m off to research ideas on how to wash diapers by hand at the campsite.

Happy traveling!

Christine Duffy - When she’s not busy being a mom to her twins, Michael and Malia, Christine enjoys experimenting with making things from scratch. So far, she has successfully made wine, beer, cheese, deodorant, detergent, and other cleaning supplies.