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Cloth Diapers and International Travel
October 13, 2008 1:08 pm | by


Last month my 8 month old daughter, Marguerite and I traveled to Europe and Africa together. Ordinarily we use cloth diapers for financial and environmental reasons and I had a hard time deciding whether to use cloth diapers or disposable during our travels. I went back and forth for weeks before our trip. There were so many things to consider…it just wasn’t and easy decision for me.

I wanted to use cloth because my daughter was exclusively breastfed at the time, which meant that her stools were watery and she was almost guaranteed to have a “blow out” if she had a bowel movement in a disposable diaper–yuck. The bumGenius! cloth diapers that we use are SO good at keeping poop from escaping and I was really nervous about traveling without the security of our bG’s:) I seriously had nightmares where visions of poop explosions in airports danced in my head. Let’s face it, there just isn’t time to deal with changing baby’s diaper and clothes and mom’s clothes when rushing from one plane to another.

BUT, we do not own 10 days worth of cloth diapers and I was doubtful about finding access to laundry facilities during our trip. So you can see my dilemma here. How does one use cloth diapers when traveling if there is no way to wash the diapers?

I did finally come up with a solution. I used a combination of cloth and disposables. I put a disposable on Marguerite with an unstuffed bumGenius! One-Size cloth diaper over the top like a cover. The disposables saved me from the diaper laundry dilemma and the bG! saved us from the dreaded “blow out”.

I know you’re wondering if putting the bG! over the top of the disposable really did any good:) Well, after the first couple of near blowouts (poop made it’s way out of the disposable diaper but was stopped by the bG! on top) I started keeping tally. In the end, the bumGenius! proved to be a Super Hero… saving mom and baby from poo-poo doom on *10* separate occasions!

About the Author

Bekah works from her home as a designer. She has six amazing children. Five of her children have worn or are wearing cloth diapers.

Comments

7 Comments

  • Amanda said...
    March 9, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    we used cloth on our 5 day trip to Cancun when our DD was 8 months. We were able to start doing some EC at the same time. I didn’t bring 5 days worth but I hand washed a few light pees and the sun definitely helped disenfect to the point I would at home in the regular wash/dry.

    Then at 11 months we traveled to India and used mostly prefolds while we were there since no drier was available. We only used a pack of disposables while gone fro 22 days. When we travelled via train and didn’t have one set place for 6 days we used sposies and boy did I feel bad but I couldn’t lug a week’s worth of dirty diapers with us since we were nomadic and no drier. Overall, international travel CAN be done, and I figure those few days in disposables over her life isn’t as bad as 2-3-4 years of it 🙂

  • Anita said...
    October 30, 2008 at 2:35 am

    We’re about to make the long trek from australia to europe for the christmas holidays and we’re planning on relying on Eenee cloth nappies (G Diaper in the USA). With the Eenees, the absorbent material ‘clips’ into the nappy and can be changed independently of the outer pants. We found we can get away with 6 nappies plus 18 liners for full time use. Because the liner is only a cloth nappy square, cleanup should be doable in most places. Much smaller to carry around too…

  • lolasmom said...
    October 19, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    That is genius! (No pun intended!)

    I’ve been surprised with how easy it is for me to travel with the cloth diapers. But I’ve never attempted anything more than a day let alone a trip abroad!

  • mama2reese said...
    October 19, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    Good info to know!!! Glad your travels went well 🙂

  • De-De said...
    October 18, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    That’s awesome! I actually do disposables at night because I have a very heavy wetting 2 year old, I put a bumGenius over the disposable at night for the extra absorbency plus just as in your case, they hold in any blow outs! So many uses for bg’s!

    De-De

  • dreamingmama said...
    October 17, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    Sounds like you made the right decision for your trip. I use disposable right now, but am looking to transition to cloth. I like reading the blog. Thanks!!!

  • Heather Brandt said...
    October 13, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    I’d love to try something like this when we return to Russia to finalize our adoption of our son (probably will be 19-20 months old). Do you have any ideas of how to do this when we don’t know how much he’s grown? We last saw him in July…. Any advice would be great…We are first-time parents :0

    heatherlbrandt (at) verizon (dot) net