Best cloth diapers for travel: From errands to vacations

If you’re going out for 30 minutes to an hour, you really don’t have to put a ton of thought into which cloth diaper to take.

But as the length of your trip grows, the more thought that needs to go into the decision making.

• Short trip/errand: 1 cloth diaper & 1 cloth wipe of your choice
• Daytrip: Cloth diapers that are quick and easy (pockets, all-in-ones)
• 3 days+ trip: Cloth diapers that are easy to wash, dry and use (flats & cloth diaper covers or flats in pocket diapers)

If you want to learn more about cloth diapering check out my article ” Good overnight cloth diaper: How to stop leaks for dry jammies”

How to use cloth diapers while running errands

Many people choose to use cloth diapers at home and disposable diapers when they are away for any length of time.

We did this for a short period of time but found it to be more of an annoyance than a help.

The first thing you will need for cloth diapering while running errands is at least 1 cloth diaper and 1-2 cloth wipes (assuming you are using cloth wipes) for every 2 hours you will be gone.

As long as you have enough cloth diapers, you can cloth diaper while running errands.

I personally use mostly pocket cloth diapers, so when I’m getting ready to go somewhere that’s usually what I bring.

I’ve never had a problem with using pad folded flats or prefolds with cloth diaper covers while in a public restroom or while changing in the car, but I was always kinda nervous about them getting dropped and having to refold them.

Plus, most of the time when we are gonna be gone long enough that we need to do a diaper change my husband is usually with me, so each of us changes 1 kid and then whoever is done first changes baby number 3.

So, since my husband is probably gonna be doing at least 1 diaper change, I want to bring cloth diapers that are very, very straight forward and easy to deal with.

Once you figure out which type of cloth diaper is easiest for you to use, you can just stick it in your diaper bag, or you can use a wetbag, or even better, a wet/dry bag.

Wetbags are special water-resistant bags made to store your dirty cloth diapers in, wet/dry bags are wetbags with an extra pocket to keep your clean cloth diapers.

If you want to learn more about wetbags and wet/dry bags check out my article ” Do I need a wetbag for cloth diapers?”

Once you have your cloth diaper and whatever you are storing your cloth diaper in, you’re ready to go.

Now, you’re out and about and somebody needs a new diaper, well what I do is I take the wet/dry bag and I either go to the restroom, or out to my car, whichever I feel more comfortable doing.

I change the baby, put the dirty diaper and wipe in the wet (dirty) pocket of the wet/dry bag, and I’m done, mission accomplished.

If I know I’m going to be changing them in the car, and I know there aren’t going to be any water fountains or any other water source around I will bring a little bottle of some sort with water in it.

If I’m just going to change them in the restroom then I’ll just use the sink.

Don’t overthink about what kind of bottle though, I literally used to take an old baby Motrin bottle full of water with us in the wet/dry bag (I have upgraded to a peri bottle since I had more kids and needed to take more water).

Tips for using cloth diapers on a day trip

So, a whole day, away from home with little kids in cloth diapers, I can feel the stress starting to bubble up just thinking about it, but not because of the cloth diapers.

While small children are travel sized, they tend to be kinda unpredictable when it comes to whether or not they feel like being travel friendly.

Now, as far as how many cloth diapers you would need to bring on this day trip, well that depends on how long you’ll be gone, an easy equation is

1 cloth diaper x every 2 hours you’ll be gone + 1 extra cloth diaper.

So, if you’re going to be gone for a full 8 hours, that’s 2hrs, 4hrs, 6hrs ,8hrs, so that’s 4 cloth diapers then add your + 1 extra and that = 5 cloth diapers for an 8-hour trip.

Most medium wetbags will hold 4-6 cloth diapers so you should be able to fit 5 into one, medium wet/dry bags on the other hand would be pretty maxed out with 5 cloth diapers in the dry (clean) pocket, but they’ll fit.

If you don’t have a wet/dry bag then you’re probably gonna want to bring 2 wetbags, or you could just bring 1 wetbag for dirty cloth diapers and put the clean ones in the diaper bag.

Also, on a day trip when you are a long way from home tends to be when your kids will decide to be as messy and gross as possible, so you’re probably gonna want to bring 2 cloth wipes per cloth diaper.

Cloth wipes are also really good at cleaning little faces and hands, so there is basically no such thing as bringing too many cloth wipes.

Vacationing with cloth diapers, is it even possible?

It is very possible to cloth diaper on vacation, I cloth diaper everywhere we go.

Now, we have quite a few animals, so we don’t usually go on long trips, but we have gone on a few weekend and overnight trips with cloth diapers.

If you’re gonna be gone longer than 1 night, then you might want to either bring a lot more wetbags or just bigger wetbags.

There are even some pail liners that can be closed up that you could bring to store your dirty cloth diapers in.

Take as many cloth diapers as you can and make sure to remember your overnight solution.

I would not recommend switching up your nighttime cloth diaper solution while you are on a trip, no matter how much room it takes up or how hard it is to wash.

Now, if you know that 3 flats are enough for your baby for overnight, but you just prefer a fitted, then that’s great, go ahead and just use the flats if that’s what you’d prefer.

I have always just picked a quick and easy and easily washable system and packed as many of them as I could.

You’re also gonna want to bring your favorite cloth diaper safe diaper cream along just incase.

I store the wetbags in the hotel room and just pack a wet/dry bag for when we go out.

It was never a big deal and the fact that we were using cloth diapers while traveling never made the trip any less enjoyable.

Washing cloth diapers while away from home

I personally have never had to wash cloth diapers while away from home since I could just bring enough to last the whole trip.

But whenever we do go on a trip there are usually laundry facilities nearby, so I would always bring a small container of detergent with me in case I decided to just go ahead and wash my cloth diapers there.

PRO TIP: Powder detergent travels better than liquid.

Now, if I was going camping or someplace where there wouldn’t be any nearby laundry facilities than I would probably breakout my super, duper, awesome handwashing skills that I picked up during the flats & handwashing challenge.

The flats & handwashing challenge is where you use only flat cloth diapers and cloth diaper covers for 1 week, then you handwash and line dry them.

I’ve done the challenge for 3 years and filmed it 2 of those years, basically you put the dirty cloth diapers in a bucket, fill it with water, add detergent and then use a plunger to agitate and clean the diapers.

So, in case you’re wondering what style of cloth diaper I would recommend taking with you on vacation, the answer is flats, 110% flats.

Now, flats can be very quick and easy, all you have to do is pad fold them and stick them in a pocket diaper.

Flats and covers will also take up a lot less space than all-in-ones for example.

Pocket cloth diapers with also get perfectly clean when handwashed, but they will take slightly longer to dry than just a plain cloth diaper cover.

While the idea of handwashing cloth diapers can seem really scary and gross, it really isn’t, as a matter of fact, every year I actually look forward to the challenge and have fun doing it.

Resources

Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from qualifying purchases made through those links. * Indicates an affiliate link

Link to Thirsties wet/dry bag at greenmountaindiapers.com

Link to PlanetWise medium wet/dry bag on clothdiaper.com *

Link to PlanetWise large hanging wet/dry bag on clothdiaper.com *

Link to Thirsties pail liner at greenmountaindiapers.com

Link to Petite Crown birdeye bamboo flats at petitecrown.com

Link to Cloth-eez muslin flats at greenmountaindiapers.com

Link to Cloth-eez birdseye flats at greenmountaindiapers.com