View Full Version : Cloth diapering, & travel...
My thread topic (SL Day... fictitious and for fun), posted in the Open Forum, got me to thinking about travelling with little ones... specifically, little ones in diapers, and if any SL'rs have braved a trip, vacation, voyage, or long-trek, using cloth, over disposable?
We're homebodies (through and through), however, whenever we made trips/voyages to the Coast/Island, to visit family (when the kids were little), I carried on with cloth. Usually/often, the people who we were staying with had little ones in cloth, so that helped brace my decision to go the course with washable/reusable (on-the-go) easier/convenient.
Past/present cloth-users, what's your experience with such?
The first time I traveled by airplane with DD, she was about 3 months old.
I packed cloth diapers and saw that it would require a much larger or extra suitcase to do this. I was traveling alone with her.
Instead, I called my SIL and asked her to buy a package of disposables. It was a matter of practicality. (And now, in retrospect, I can just imagine SIL's horror at a bucket of diapers waiting to be washed... she did disposables all the way through 2 kids.)
Miss Cellane
5-28-12, 6:29pm
Back in 1968, the Army sent my family from the East Coast to Japan. We had to fly from Washington, DC, where we were living, to Seattle, to Japan. My youngest siblings were 6 months and 20 months old and still in diapers.
Mom bought some of the very first disposable diapers for that trip. Unfortunately, we had a 10 hour layover in Seattle, followed by a 12 hour delay at the airport. Mom went through all the disposables she bought, and Dad had to get them to get a suitcase off the plane so Mom could get to the cloth diapers. Fortunately, she was used to traveling with infants in diapers (she had to cross the Atlantic when I was 6 months old and disposables hadn't been invented). So she had plastic bags and washcloths and diaper pins all ready to go in the suitcase. Someone tried to take the suitcase away when we finally boarded the plane, but Dad put on his drill sergeant voice and convinced them that it would not be a good thing to cross the Pacific with no spare diapers at the ready.
I still remember the long car trips my parents loved to take, with plastic bags full of clean and dirty diapers for the current baby, a wet washcloth in another plastic bag and a changing pad rolled up somewhere. And the bulging diaper bag.
Honestly, I wouldn't blame anyone for going with disposables while traveling. Travel with small children is challenging enough, but if you are adding in plane travel, cloth diapers become more of an issue. If you are in your own car for the whole trip, cloth diapers are easier to deal with.
Friends who've done cloth have nearly ALL gone to disposables for trips, whether by car or plane. Older relatives (the kids' grandparents, etc.) didn't want to have to deal with cloth diapers when helping with the kids, even though they'd done cloth with their own kids.
Makes me think, what in the world did the pioneer woman do while crossing the country in covered wagons? Old cloth, no washing machines, only rivers or ponds to wash and rinse in the diapers in, no diaper rash ointment. They dealt with what they had. We have it so easy!
Back in the dark ages when I was raising my 5, I always used cloth diapers, and saved the ragged ones to use as disposables on our annual 2 day trip to Cape Cod.
They had diaper rash ointment. it was just home made. :) herbalism was popular back then.
I have travelled with the boy as an infant when he was in diapers as his EC back up. We used a combination of cloth and disposable. I carried disposable in case I ran out of cloth, and I usually carried 3-4 cloth, which was often more than I needed.
my process was rather simple. I had a wet bag, in which I could put the wipes (cloth) and diapers (cloth) if they were wet. If DS went in a diaper (which did happen on occasion), I would change him, then rinse the diaper in the sink (usually after handing him off to his dad and/or wrapping him back to me), and then put that diaper in the wet bag.
I had a dry bag that had 3-4 extra cloth diapers, 2 extra covers, 3 disposable diapers, and 2 simple changes of clothes (cotton t-shirt/pants/socks).
All of these were old cosmetics bags, so I do fold things up tight. and then put into the bag that I carried that held: the wrap when folded up, DS's wet and dry bags, an extra blanket, and my book, notebook, and pens. It was a pretty large bag, but fashionable nonetheless. :)
When we travelled to NZ, we had one carry on that was DH's -- which had all of our clothing. And, we had my big bag as a second carry on, and then a smaller bag with snacks, books, and other goodies.
I like to travel light.
Rosemary. I agree, plane trips definitely seem "out" for such a thing, and you're right, unless the people you are staying with are cloth-friendly, it could make for an uncomfortable visit/stay.
Miss Cellane. I envy your younger years so much! As kids, we wanted to go/see places (vacations/trips, etc) so bad, but money was always at a premium in our home, so no vacations/trips to mention.
LOL, Re: your dad, and his authoritative take on the matter! I agree with disposables for travelling, even though I never went that course with my kids. So hopelessly stubborn I am/was Re: certain things, plus, we always travelled by car, so that, too, for surely made all the difference in the world.
Tradd. My mom and MIL, were polar-opposites when it came to using cloth. I was warned (well in advance) by my mom, "use disposables, don't expect me to sit." LOL! Not hard to tell which side of the fence my mom is on, DH's mom... no different.
SiouzQ. Yes, it makes me think, too. My mom went without the addition of rubber pants (short time only), when my oldest sister was born (1958), but even as short a time that it was, mom said it was awful, and to think some moms complain over having disposables at their disposal...
Tweety. I'm so hopelessly simple/frugal, throwing away even old ragged diapers, would have kept me up at night! LOL! Nonetheless, nifty thinking!
Zoebird. I copied Miss Cellane's, mom's method, with my first two, bagging wet/dirties as we went, then I found a small diaper pail at the thrift store. I still bagged to keep the inside of the pail clean, but no longer worried about leaks/smell, and the pail kept the unsightly bundle hidden. Sounds like you had a good-handle on your packing-method, I didn't. I over-packed faithfully!
One of our old family photos that I always find fascinating is of my grandmother and her cousin on board a ship to go to Europe around 1935. Cousin has a 1-year old with her, clearly in diapers. What did you do with dirty cloth diapers on a ship? And how did you go about getting clean cloth diapers everywhere you went on a long international trip in those days? None of my relatives know the answer to this, including the one who was the baby at the time!
I cloth diapered my two kids, and know I used to travel with them and their diapers. It just became second nature to ensure one had a heavy duty plastic bag to store the used diapers in... rinsing a diaper was necessary, since you could not just drop it into a bag and allow it to percolate unrinsed. Many hotels have an on-site laundry so while the little ones are sleeping, mommy can run down the hall and toss in a load of diapers while daddy keeps an eye on the kiddos. A small jar with a screw on lid was part of my luggage, and it held the laundry detergent. When traveling, I often would use bleach on the diapers, to ensure any germs were killed. As a general rule, one does not use bleach as it's damaging to the fabric. But, in the case of a few days of not soaking a batch of diapers, I would want to make sure there was no "cooties""' to get on my little one's hineys.
Mrs M - I, too, have been known to throw away a diaper instead of dealing with it. I remember a time when we were out of town and dd had an upset tummy - I threw away a few diapers and just went to the local discount store and bought a pack of new ones. Much more frugal over the lifespan of a cloth diaper, as opposed to a one time use disposable.
As for the cruise - I guess the diapers were rinsed / washed in the sink by hand and air dried.
Rosemary. Until you mentioned it, I can't say I ever gave any thought to such, but it definitely creates a "scratch your head" reaction, doesn't it... I'm so bad when it comes to romanticizing about past eras, but your post reminds me how blessed we really are living in the era we do. I'm going to run this by my mom and see what sort of insight she has Re:
Imerullo. You have my utmost respect. Anything (other than vehicle travel) would have for surely sent me scrambling for disposables. Even as it was, travelling in the car and ending up at the homes of relatives/family (who were cloth-friendly), had a way of testing/trying my patience, as did driving down the highway (hour-after-hour) with a volleyball-sized wad of wet/dirties rolled-up under the front of my seat.
ships had laundries back then, just as they do now.
we do the laundry when we travel. we stay mostly in hostels, and they have full laundries for a person to use. they even provide the soap, so it's really just stuff your clothes in and wash them.
now, when I rinse, I rinse thoroughly. no visible pee/poop on the trainer/diaper, and then basically just popped slightly wet into the bag. Then, washed with the wash on the second or third day. No smell really to speak of, and then cleaned and dried as we went.
because we EC'd whenever DS was on the plane, we always caught the poo. So that was good. if the diaper had pee in it, then we would give it a quick rinse in the rink, ring it out, and pop it into the wet bag. it was easy enough. :)
I never thought of this as any sort of issue. doing our laundry is part of our trips -- usually once a week, but with DS, every 3rd day (because of trainers). So, no big deal there, since we would do it at the hostel, sitting in the lounge while DS played and having a good time.
I suppose it might be noted that, on average, we would have one or two wet/dirty diapers a day, and usually we just changed his diaper every 24 hrs like undies -- it was dry/clean the whole time.
Behold! the power of EC! LOL
honestly, the main thing is that you have to pull over a lot. Our first trip -- a 6 hr drive to pittsburgh when DS was about 3 months old -- was great. Before we left, I'd potted DS and dressed him in a warm little outfit (it being winter), and then nursed him and popped him into the car seat just about to drop off to sleep. As soon as we got about a mile down the road, he was out! About 3 hours into the trip, we had to make a pit-stop because DS had started to stir, and so we pulled over. I popped him out and pottied him in the restroom, then popped the dry diaper back onto him, and then DH and I had a tea/coffee while DS had a nice nurse, and then as he fell asleep, we hopped back into the car (so this break was probably an hour long -- as the trip is normally a 5 hr drive), and got to our friend's place just before he woke. He woke as we started to bring in our bags, and I took him into the toilet and pottied him, then he wanted another nurse, but had some quiet, playful alert time rather than falling asleep. And then we pottied him again several more times.
It certainly made travel easier in a lot of ways.
The worst experience was flying from philadelphia to san fran on our trip to come here. We went through security, and in that area, there was a toilet. DS was about 15 months old, and he was solidly signaling that he needed to poop. He'd learned how to take off his own training paints, and so he kept trying to pull them down and poop. I was asking the security if we could go out of security (back into the main area) to let him go to the toilet, or use the toilet int he security area, and they were adamant that we absolutely could not, that we would have to wait.
But I kept pointing out that he isn't going to wait, and at that age, he would get *very* upset about going in his pants, and these were his *new* training pants and he was very proud of them. He would get quiet excited about not going potty in them! :)
So I was beseeching, and he was trying to pull his pants off and the one security guy was getting really frustrated with us, and DS finally grabbed one of those containers that you put your shoes and stuff in, and got his trainer mostly down and pooped right there in security. LOL yeah, they were not happy with us.
After they finally let us through, DS had poop on his pants socks, training pants, and shirt -- and I'd only packed his sleeping outfit (and this was only the first leg) for the night-time trip, and the rest was in checked luggage. I wasn't thinking. But, I was able to put on a clean trainer and the clean sleeper and clean socks, and then basically spent a good hour waiting to get on the flight rinsing out clothes, socks, and training pants in the sink using that pink soap, and then putting it in the wet bag.
le sigh.
it's because no one things kiddos his age -- particularly boys -- would have any sense of using potty. but he kept going "potty! POTTY!" and so on. . . but yeah. :) poor security guys.
(to me, this was a comedy of errors, a minor frustration, and ultimately truly hilarious.)
I give you a lot of credit, Zoebird. I love the way you seem to be able to adapt to whatever situations/conditions you happen to be dealing with at the time, avoiding any/all stresses associated with such.
LOL, Re: your airport security experience! My guess is the security officer was childless... P.S. Re: EC, I'm going to practice EC, in my next-life, if that's how things work... :)
Re: cotton training pants, I made it clear (with all my kids) from the very start, "you have big girl/big boy pants on now, so you can't dirty them". Surprisingly, they were all diligent about living up to the training pants rule.
i don't know exactly how I do it, because DH is the opposite. The *tiniest* thing can set him off on a whining rampage!
his description of that experience would be totally different.
i think that's how we ended up together. he is the living embodiment of stress/anxiety, and i'm like "just accept the circumstance, do your best with it, and move on."
I have much to learn from you, Zoebird! :)
heh. seriously, it's ok to just roll with things. I don't always manage it, but sometimes I do.
the method is observation. it starts with just observing the most basic reaction to things. It's why I like yoga. You put yourself in an uncomfortable position with yoga. It's super uncomfortable. And then you just breathe. You observe your emotional reaction to being uncomfortable. The mind races, and sometimes the hormones follow right down the rabbit hole. but you stay, and you learn to be with it.
And you find that, in whatever is coming your way, you can just observe. Instead of getting reactive, you can just go "ok, this is what is." and then "how to best respond?" this is action instead of "reaction" as "reaction" is when you are re-acting something of the past. Instead of acting based on the present, and what you observe, you are re-acting based on what you experienced in the past, and how you acted and re-acted in the past (the rabbit hole!).
So, then it applies everywhere.
On the positive side of things, I have made leaps-and-bounds in the department, but I'd like to improve my standing and try to do even better. Baby-steps, work good with me.
Having children. especially young children, I have learned to control my emotions (for their sake) even during times when I'm seething at the gums!
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