Cloth to Cadillac

            Could we travel for several days using cloth diapers? During a spring break trip to visit family we set out to test our cloth merit.  We’ve never been a staunch cloth family.  We don’t cloth at night, and only recently have we clothed in the afternoon shortly before I return home from work.  Largely due to the overwhelming amount of stuff you already have to pack for a little man we have avoided long travel with cloth up to this point.  I had survived an overnight trip to my sister’s using cloth, but one night supported by my parents is far fewer than three, especially when three results in the need to do laundry.  We packed a bag of disposables just in case.

            Largely we packed hybrids—Flips with stay dry inserts and organic cotton inserts, GroBaby Shells and an Econobum.  In a plastic bag we placed a single load of powdered detergent.  We also traveled with a large home-made wet bag.

            I really loved traveling with the hybrids and believe it was a smart choice compared to the bulk we’d have had with our pocket diapers.  We soon learned a few lessons for next time.  We should have also brought a travel sized wet bag, since we weren’t always at the grandparents house and were separated from a storage container for dirty dipes save spare plastic grocery bags.

            Normally we like to soak soiled dipes.  After our first night, we learned we hadn’t brought a bucket.  The solution was a soak in the washing machine.  We’d brought enough to not need to wash until shortly before our return.  We ended up washing sooner than we’d plan, to ensure we didn’t interfere with our host’s laundry.  Instead of line drying the inserts, we used the dryer.  We don’t usually use the dryer, but oh how soft it makes them—especially the organic cotton.

            As a tangent adventure, we packed our homemade baby food ice cubes.  Our commute to Grandmother’s House took all day, as we were detoured to help move furniture from great-grandmother’s home.  Our cubes were all melted by the time we arrived.  We monopolized grandma’s ice cube trays and refroze an interesting conglomeration of foods.  For the remainder of the trip, peanut dined on veggie surprise and fruit medley.

            In short, we did it.  We’re still not one of those die hard cloth families.  We cheated and left peanut with disposables when he was left with family sitters.  We learned from our mistakes.  No, it wasn’t as easy as it is at home.  But we did survive and are no longer afraid to attempt it again.