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| Hello ladies. We are soon moving and then promptly going to visit family for a few weeks. We'll be rather displaced for a while. I don't want to go that long only using disposables! I read some previous posts, but wanted to ask again about tips and suggestions for cloth diapering when away from home for an extended time (i.e. vacation). |
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Hmmm, ok just some misc. stuff off the top of my head....
-If odor is a concern (cramped space, unsupportive relatives etc...) you could try rinsing even pee diapers before placing in pail. Even just rinsing nighttime diapers will really cut down on odors. This could be especially important if you don't have room for an actual pail. When we travelled we used a Bummis bag with a drawstring closure. Never really had a problem with odors but thought I'd mention the tip anyway, just in case. Rinsing could also perhaps let you stretch out time between washing a little bit if that becomes an issue.
-Consider Gdiapers. I would highly recomend getting maybe one pack of the flushable inserts. The inserts are exactly like the inside of a disposable but there's no plastic so they're flushable or compostable. Even if you can't do either, it's still that much less plastic in the garbage and they're more breathable than regular disposables. You don't even need to actually buy the Gpants they offer. Just use the flushables inside a velcro cover or laid on top of the fleece in a pocket diaper (basically any cover that is capable of holding up an unfastened prefold). You can even use the insert in a cloth diaper as a super duper nighttime diaper (or a great combination for a car trip where diaper changes can't be made every 2 hours regularly).
-If you do look into Gdiapers, either don't get the pants (and stick with familiar covers you know work well) or give yourself time to experiment a little before you leave. The pants can be great but many people have trouble getting them to not leak in the beginning and that's not something you want to have to deal with on vacation.
-If disposables tend to leak for you but you find you must use them for whatever reason, try combining them with a cover (will hold in messy poop much better than disposables alone) or even with a diaper & cover together. For example if you really don't want the hassle of a nighttime diaper (bulk, odor, liners, whatever) but disposables leak too much then a cloth diaper & cover over top can take any leaks the disposable lets go through...
-Consider using some disposable liners. They'll make poopy diapers easier to clean, especially in public washrooms. They don't always work perfectly for everyone (some kids - like mine- always have poop that's too soft and ends up running off the liner and on the diaper anyway), but even if it's not perfect it's still better than nothing and could at least buy you enough time till you get to a more comfortable spot.
-Stay dry liners are your friend when you can't always change as frequently as you'd like (ie on the road, visiting people etc...).
Hmmm, that's about all I can think of for right now... I'm sure others will have great ideas as well. Or maybe if you have specific concerns you can tell us and we'll see what we can come up with.
Karen.
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We have never used a posie and have went on vacations. Basically just try to make it a simple as possible. Fleece scrap liners or disposable liners so you can toss out poo or flush it. Tight fitting bucket pail with carry handle. See if you can hit a laundry mat or use a friend's washer once or twice when gone.
We've went camping in the Rockies, boating in Michigan, and a 2 week trip to Hawaii with no issues. Just be prepaired and try to think simple. You can do it if you want to.
Have fun! |
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Last year around this time we moved back to the US from the UK. Our stuff was in a container for about two months, so we were literally living out of suitcases for that time. I did use disposables for the air travel, but used cloth for everything else, including 24 hours in the car across the country. I didn't take my whole stash with me; I went with about 20 OS, plus some snap-in liners for nights, fleece liners, and wipes. We were at my in-laws for part of the time and an apartment for the rest. I did have easy access to a washer at all times, which made it very easy. I did use a diaper pail--a 5-gallon paint bucket at my in-laws, and then a big kitty-litter pail for our apartment, but when we've travelled in the past I have used plastic garbage bags or hotel laundry bags (the kind with the drawstring and double layers) when I didn't have access to a pail. Even at my brother's with a dog, the garbage bag didn't seem to have any smell problems (if I were going to use a bag for longer I'd invest in a wet bag so as not to be throwing away all those garbage bags).
For car travel including and since the move, I do usually but not always bring a pail in the car. When I change DS I put the diaper in a bread bag (since I'm usually inside a rest area, etc) and that gets tossed in the pail. That does mean some "unpacking" upon reaching one's destination, but hey, you get double smell containment. I would second the suggestion to try some disposable or flushable liners, esp. since it's summer and depending on what kind of car you have. We took a day trip with my in-laws in a minivan (no pail), and DS happened to be having a horrible poop day, really stinky and awful. Although usually I don't think that diapers smell when rolled up and bagged, there was no way I could put those in the same area as everything else, so I ended up throwing away a couple of fleece liners. Not something I like to do at all, but it was the lesser of evils. A flushable liner might help you to get rid of most of the nasties for less smelly interim storage.
It's very doable as long as you have a place to put dirty diapers and a place to wash them every few days. |
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| And I second Karen's suggestion that if you have to use a disposable and aren't confident of its containment abilities, put something like a Rikki wrap over the top. That saved us a few times in the airplane; I just did not have the space to carry diapers on top of everything else, but lived in fear of those explosive BF poos! |
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Thanks all. I am curious about gDiapers and think that my sister (who I hope to convert to cloth!) would like the idea of flushable liners. Are the "pants" like a Prowrap cover? That's what I have now. The gDiaper pants seem a bit pricey for a regular cover.
Our car is a bit small and my husband isn't excited about using cloth diapers while traveling, so I'm sure we'll be using disposables while on the road. But I'm anxious to show my family how great Mother-ease cloth diapers are! |
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The Gdiaper 'pants' are different than any cloth diaper cover I've ever seen. They are a cotton outer with velcro that fastens at the back (soft, fabric covered elastic at waist and legs). Then you snap in a vinyl 'liner' inside the cloth part and the flushable liner goes inside this vinyl liner. The vinyl liner is elasticized all around and forms kind of a craddle hammock type shape for the flushable liner. You could put a prefold or a pocket diaper stuffer inside but you couldn't use it for fitted cloth diapers.
But I have used the flushables with a Prorap (I think that's what it was, not sure as this was a couple years ago) and it worked great. I also used it with Bum-Genius pockets (laid on top of the fleece, not inside the pocket), a Fuzzi-Bunz pocket and Bummis cover. Worked great with all of them. In fact, I think it worked *better* than with a Gpant. Those always leaked for me and when I used them I would put an Airflow on top to prevent wicking to clothing. If I had more kids I would get some type of velcro cover and some flushables for use while travelling. I wouldn't bother with the pants, although they were absolutly adorable and I really liked that they were available in bright colors and prints. It might be more worthwhile to take the time to make the pants work for someone who was planning on using them full-time.
Karen. |
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| I moved cross country when my boys were almost three months old. We were about six days on the road driving (it took a while due to an emergencry surgery the day we were supposed to add an extra day on the road for the surgery in another town, having to pump breastmilk for my preemies, and other preemie issues). During that time I had to use disposables. However, last summer I went on vacation and took my Sandy's. My boys were 15 months old and it worked great! There's two of them so it's double the diapers. I think I took just a wet bag and no pail. I don't recall any smell issues. We were two days on the road to and from our location, but stayed at my aunt's home and I could wash there daily. I even had extra dirty diapers when we left for our trip (my son was in the hospital for five days for an asthma attack and we had to leave a couple days late leaving just hours after discharge--I'm starting to sense a theme here and hope nothing happens when we go on vacation this summer!). So with extra dirty diapers (although only from the one child who wasn't hospitalized) when we left and two days of dirties on the road we were fine and had no bad odors. I was very, very glad I chose to take the cloth on the trip (along with the car seat covers from my car and my mom's car). We all got the stomach flu and disposables would have been useless! I would agree to take disposable liners (look for toddler size ones because you will know they will cover the diaper and you can tuck in any extra), but if you can't do that and have dry liners, stay dry liners, or fleece, that will help if the poop will roll off of those. I really think the cloth was much easier on the trip than disposables would have been--the only mess was contained in the diaper and not all over clothes! |
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