An Over the River and Through the Woods Cloth Diaper Success!

In 2010, my husband, 10 month old son and I traveled from Loveland, Colorado to Odessa, Texas to celebrate Christmas with my husband’s grandma. I went back and forth on whether to use our cloth diapers or not. I finally decided to use a hybrid system and it was a total cloth diaper disaster (which you can read about here). This year we decided to drive to Phoenix at Thanksgiving to visit my Grandmother. Things were a little different this year since we welcomed our second addition to our family in early October, a baby girl. But thanks to my earlier experience, it was a cloth diaper success!

I was really excited to use cloth on this trip, even if it meant things would be a little more complicated. We now had two in cloth and were staying in three different places over a one week period.

My husband and I are lucky to have 1 hanging Planet Wise wet bag, 2 large GroVia wet bags and 2 medium size Planet Wise wet bags. While we were driving, we used one of the GroVia wet bags to store the clean diapers. Each diaper bag had one medium size wet bag. And when the travel size bag would get full, we would empty them into the hanging wet bag. We used the second GroVia wet bag to store dirty clothing which made staying to 3 different places in one week a lot more manageable.

Here are some suggestions if you plan to travel while using cloth.

1. Remember to pack your tried and true cloth diaper friendly detergent.
2. Pack only the diapers you know you will use.
3. Remember to have a trash bag somewhere accessible in your car for any big messes.
4. Pack more than one travel/small size wet bag if you can. That way, if you run out of room in one, you will have another one to use.
5. Have a change of clothing for each child in an easy to reach place.
6. Expect that most of the gas stations/restaurants you stop at will NOT have a changing table. Be prepared to change either on the floor or in your car.
7. Pack two diaper bags so each parent can change a child at the same time.

Happy traveling!

Mindy Hill is a stay at home mommy to two beautiful children. An amazingly spirited 21 month old and an almost 3 month old baby girl.