Cloth Diapers during travel

This is an long overdue post. I must apologized to whoever waiting for this post. I did mentioned about this in the other post but not so details. I think I need to elaborate the explanation as well as my own experiments.

Cloth diapering..YES ....we all know it. And many LOVE it by now. It 's such a different thing compare to just over a year ago when I was just started to use CD on my own baby. Almost every one thought that is so out fashioned , unpractical and messy. BUT.. Look at us now :) we can just mention it as CD..and we know that we are talk about Cloth Diaper and not Compact Disc! And when I do blog hopping I was so amazed that many of you are actually fall in love with it ! :-)...
Isn't it a good thing ?

But...cloth diaper during traveling is it do-able? is it possible? is it too much hassle and work?
It's depends on how you look at it and how long is your journey and your trip, where will you stay, and how is the weather or season?

Let me try to give you some examples here ( this is going to be a long post ). I divided them into several different scenario to give you idea to plan what to you if you plan to travel with your kids in cloth diapers.

Scenario 1 : *Short trip*
Stay in : Hotel room , no balcony, the typical "city style" hotel room, with toilet and bath tub.
For one night trip, cloth diaper is really possible to do. No washing require here, just toss it into wetbag. Same routine like when I take my baby to day outing.

How I did it:
We went to Kudat for weekend , we stayed there for one night. This was a short journey ( about 2 hours ride) , and Maya was about 1 year old.
We started the journey at about 9.30 am. So I packed about 12 -13 diapers this time. Considering Maya use 6 pcs in aday.
I don't do washing , except for the soiled CD ( poo poo) I rinsed and squeezed dry in, and air dry in the hotel's bathroom. Put in the wetbag the next day.
I also took 2 allday wetbags with me. One for dirty diapers and one for dirty clothes.


Scenario 2 * Longer trip*
Stay in : Typical "city hotel room again" no balcony , hotel got laundry service.
This time we went to KL , for a 2 nights and 3 days trip. Maya was about 2 months old.

How I did it:
Since we left KK to KL , Maya wore CD , and the first day she was also in CD full time.
I sent the CD to the hotel laundry and the cost was rather high. But it was dry the very next day ready to be use again.
I couldn't wash it my self since the room has no balcony.

But the cost to do the laundry is the problem. As they counted it as children pants ( for the pocket diapers )and towel for the inserts , times 6 pcs .

So on the 2nd day, the diapers were ready and clean. But I decided to use dispo on Maya on the 2nd day. Why : the cost of laundry is rather high, and if I didn't bring enough CD for her to use for 2 days.
I bought the 6 pcs dispo. And it was just nice for the day.
That night , Maya was on CD again. So I had another 5 clean CDs for the next day

3rd day : We are heading home already , so Maya was back on CD again .


Scenario 3 : * 10 days trip to China *
Stay in : our own house ( it was our house now btw :) ), I got full access of washing machine , clothes line, but weather was very humid and no sun.( It was October) and Maya was over one year old.

How I did it:
Pretty simple as I got the access to washing machine :) Maya was full time on CD during this trip.
I brought 2 wool covers , so I don't need to wash it, just air dried and one wool shorties and it was very useful as the weather was a bit cold, and Huggalugs did help too!
I took a variety of CD with me , pocket, AIO, fitted, wool covers, PUL covers.
Still my favorite for traveling are Pocket diapers. It really dry pretty fast! And I use fitted mainly for night time combined with wool cover.
Fitted and AIO really took a long time to dry during this season. The season was always cloudy, damp, no sun and a bit cold. I need to on my heater in the room and dried the CD there ! LOL I certainly missed Malaysian hot sunny day!

Scenario 4 * 14 days holiday in Bali*
Stay in : a holiday villa/bungalow type, big balcony, big bathroom, Affordable laundry service, very sunny and dry weather.

How I did it:
First of all : YOHOO...! Love Bali so much ! Maya was 9 months during this trip.

Ok back to the topic.... I pack about 20 variety of diapers, inserts, 2 wool cover to use at night.
I brought mostly pocket as this can be use as swim diaper as well ( no need the insert).

I hand washed the CD if I got time. Use pail and soak everything while I bathed the girls and my self. Use a bit of detergent only. Then I rinse it 3x. And hang dried on the balcony. It dried pretty fast .
Some other day if we spent most of our time outside ( like we went to visit the lake, mountain etc) I send them to the Villa laundry , I put the instruction " Do not use softener/bleach baby is allergic" This will catch their attention and make sure they don't use any of that.
Since I don't know what detergent they use ( if it's enzyme free or not) I make sure I did stripwash when I reach home after the holiday. This is too make sure , the residue will be rinsed off properly .

However Maya used disposable sometimes, like when it was raining and the CD were still wet. But during this trip I think Maya just used about 6-8 disposable.


Scenario 5 * A month back to Jakarta for my brother wedding*
Stay in : My parent's house, my sister's house, some hotels, my aunty's house
We moved a lot during this trip. Maya was about 4 months old

How I did it:
This was a quite hectic trip. You know, many relatives to be met and greet, many functions and ceremonies for the wedding, and we had this welcome to our family tour for my new SIL ( we went to Bandung, Lembang area) , we stayed back and forth either in my parent's or my sister's.

So mostly Maya was on dispo during this trip.
Why : It is quite confusing for me, that I was worry I left all the CD EVERYWHERE between my parent's , Aunt's , and sister's. My CD stash was still growing at that time, and I didn't have that many . So I want to make sure I have it all with me when I need it , like when I stay put in my parent's for 3 days Maya was in full time CD.
But when we moved around so much ( 2 night in hotel for wedding ceremonies, 4 nights in Bandung's hotel, 1 one at my aunt's, 2 night at my sis ) Maya was on dispo.
This is just to ease my mind, and not to worry about her CD.

Summary :
As a mom who used CD full time, to be back on dispo even for temporary can be frustrating . But I think , you just need to relax and be flexible.
When you think you can go for CD then do it. But when you think it will be hard on you then you have the right to decide.
For me , If I got the facility and time to do so I will go full time on CD even during my travel .
Do I feel guilty when I put dispo on her? Oh yes...very.
But , I put like 99% CD on her, so that is good already.
And sometimes, being so used to put CD into the wetbag, I even put the dirty dispo into the wetbag and carried it around. * normal brain malfunction in my life !* LOL :0)

My next mission?
3 weeks trip back to Italy and I will stay with my MIL and my BILs ( 2 of them)
I am looking forward to this trip and the journey of Cloth diapering during travel and on a long flight ( still considering should I go for dispo during the 16 hours journey)

I am confident on this one, as I know I got 100% fully support from my dh.
He wouldn't even suggest to use a single disposable until today.

Beside during this next trip, I think I will also spread the news on cloth diapering .
My wonderful mom in law already know about this and she is my great supporter.
But I have 3 more SIL and some of my dh's cousin to be persuade into this CD-ing.
My challenge ? to be able to explain it in Italian. :(

Wismilak!