Traveling with Cloth Diapers

My family and I recently went on a trip to Northern Michigan. This is an annual tradition, one that I’ve been doing since I was a year old!

We drove from Philly to Traverse City. This can take anywhere from 13-20 hours. We have split the trip into two days for the last few years to make it easier on everyone. We stay overnight in a hotel or motel in Ohio.

As I packed for the trip, both my husband and I decided we would do disposable diapers. At the last minute, as I was doing the diaper wash, we decided to do cloth.

Our youngest is 22 months old. He is still in diapers part time, and doing elimination communication part time.

Playing with his I-Spy bottle while the girls play.

The biggest considerations in packing were our two day drive to Michigan, and the proximity to laundry facilities while there.

For the travel days, we packed enough diapers for the two days of travel, a small wet bag, and disposable wipes. We used a Nifty Nappy™ Woolie Wrap with prefolds and fitted diapers.

As our son is potty learning, I knew that we wouldn’t need a ton of diapers. I allowed for 3-4 diapers per day, and we used one disposable at night. (This is something we have done for a while now, which I will address in a later blog post). These diapers were right under the passenger seat. In the roof box, we kept a pail liner full of clean diapers, and a trash bag for dirty diapers. (I only have one pail liner, or I would have used two).

When we stopped to eat or potty, my older girls would go with me. My husband would take our son to the bathroom. He peed on the potty a couple of  times, but was still wet at each stop. We stored the wet diapers in the wet bag and continued on. For the second day of driving, we followed suit. My husband put the first days’ dirty diapers in the roof top box so we wouldn’t have to smell them.

The clothesline: vital for travel with cloth diapers

While in Michigan, we had access to a laundromat and a clothesline. I brought some A Happy Green Life unscented detergent and we washed twice (soft water) with 1/2 scoop. The diapers were line dried and we had a great time!

We brought our mini-potty in the car for all of the kids’ convenience. It came in handy while we were in our cabin, as we were able to reinforce his habits of diaper-free time and peeing on the potty.

My biggest complaint would be storing the dirty diapers. It was summer, and the roof box got hot.

Do you have any crazy travel-with-cloth stories or advice?