Cloth-diapering on the road

When I was pregnant with baby girl, we decided to cloth diaper. It was a decision my husband and I made together. People around us thought we were crazy when they heard about this. But we simply didn't want the 2,000 kilograms of diapers our child would generate to be still present on earth in 2260 in the same form as they were disposed.

Long story short, we've been successfully cloth-diapering for two years (and targeting to potty-train her in the summer). At some point last year, we decided to take it to another level: we wanted to cloth-diaper while traveling. The first few trips with baby girl (including a week of Berlin when she was 2.5-month-old) were accompanied by disposable diapers. After a couple of trips, we decided that it didn't make sense. If we could cloth-diaper at home, we could cloth-diaper on the road. After many attempts, these are some tips we could share, in case you choose to travel in cloth.

Self-service laundry are now available everywhere (in Europe) 

Although it's something common in America, self-service laundry (with washers and dryers you can use using coins or tokens) were not too common in Europe until recently. Everyone has a washer at home. Lately the number of self-service laundry in Croatia had significantly increased. Our first attempt taking cloth diaper to travel was a summer holiday to Lovran, a small coastal town 2-hour drive from Zagreb. We were planning to stay for five days. We stayed in a youth hostel we've been staying in for the last three summers, right in front of the beach. As we never needed to do any laundry there before, we never noticed that they have their own self-service laundry. That summer with baby girl I went to ask the receptionist where I could find self-service laundry in town, and she appointed the other end of the lobby. Easy. We washed and dried the diapers just like at home.

Muslin are the best choice

On our first trip with cloth, I packed different kind of diapers: the conventional ones (cotton diapers shaped like disposable that need a waterproof diaper cover), the all-in-ones (conventional cloth but with a waterproof layer already sewn on them) and the all-in-twos (only a waterproof shell that has pockets or snaps, so you fill it with muslin). Muslin (also called flats) is that light and thin cotton cloth you usually use as burping cloth or for swaddling. After a couple of trips, our best choice is: muslin! It's light, it's thin, it's high absorbent, and it's air dry quickly. We could hand-wash in case there is no washer around, if they're not soiled. The soiled ones, we keep in the wetbag until the day we're heading home. We did only-muslin diapers for Greece trip. With the abundant of sun and big balcony with constant gentle wind, it was easy to wash and dry them immediately. (More about our Greek trip in this post here). As for baby girl, her skin appreciates natural cotton material during hot summer days, way more than the plastic-like diapers.

Summer holiday in Umag, baby girl wearing the waterproof shell from Close Pop-in filled with muslin

Child's luggage (for us) is meant for diapers

The challenge of traveling with cloth is, obviously, the space. If you go somewhere for over a week, you might need to bring around 20 diapers so you can comfortably wash them every other day. If you're flying though, it's easy. Whether your child is a lap-child or a bigger child with an own seat, most airlines will give him luggage space. When we traveled to Indonesia in 2014, with Turkish airlines, baby girl (as a lap-child) got a free 10 kg checked in luggage, plus a cabin hand-luggage. An older child would get the regular 30 kg checked in luggage like adults. I used this 10 kg exclusively for her diapers checked in a cabin size suitcase. Her clothes and toys went to my luggage with no problem (30 kg was more than enough).

Vacuum bags are handy for packing diapers

If you travel with car though, you might need to pack your diapers in self-vacuuming bags. I personally never did this, but I've heard good stories from other moms who had problem with lack of space in the car. Self-vacuum bags could really press packed diapers into real small and flat package you can just fit into any corner of the trunk.

Investing in good wetbags is essential

At home, storing dirty diapers while waiting for a wash is no problem. We, like probably most parents, store dirty diapers in a big bucket with a lid which we put on our balcony. Every other day I would just throw everything into the washer and that's basically it. On the roads, things are different. The chances are we need to drive in the car with piles of dirty diapers. Or store them in the hotel room if we don't have a balcony. Or carry them in our suitcases on the way back home. The key is investing in high quality wetbag. Wetbag is a waterproof bag where you store dirty diapers while on the road. Good wetbags are not only waterproof, they're also smell-proof. Once you find washer, just wash the wetbag together with the diapers and they usually air dry in no time. We own around different six wetbags in different sizes, which let us travel in peace. When not traveling, these wetbags go with baby girl to the daycare everyday, so her caregivers store her dirty diapers in it. Neat!

When your baby is no longer a baby

Every parent has a hard time realizing how fast their children grow up. Moms want their babies to stay little forever, and dads want their children to never leave for college. Unfortunately, they do grow up. And they do it quickly.

How did this happen to me? My baby girl still sleeps in the same crib. She still eats while sitting on her high chair. I still carry her on a baby carrier. She's still in diapers! What changed? The price of her plane ticket changed. Now we need to buy her a plane ticket for in full price. Sigh.

My baby girl turned two last month, in mid April. Until then, we only needed to pay 10% of the full plane ticket price that I'd pay for myself, and she can travel on my lap. Now that she's two, the aviation companies decide that she needs her own seat. I mean, to be real, she probably won't even sit by herself. But it is what it is. I honestly didn't know about this until quite recently. I thought that children pay half price at least until they're 15.

The morning my baby girl turned two

Earlier this year I was hunting for cheap tickets to Paris, to get us three to be in Paris somewhere when the European football championship will be happening this summer in France. These tickets were a birthday present for my husband, so I got them secretly. Not until when I was about to enter the passenger details did I realize that my baby girl was no longer in the infant category. I was getting us tickets for June, so the airlines system recognized her as a "child" who needs her own seat. At full price. I did finalize the payment. Sourly recalling sweet memories when we used to pay just two seats to fly us all.

Okay I kind of exaggerated a little. It was not that bad. But only because the ticket was real cheap. I got us a low-cost carrier ticket to fly from Venice to Paris for like €19 per person (yup Ryan air, what else?) so it was really not the end of the world. But imagine some longer flights, some further distance, some more expensive routes...

I was wishing that it was just Ryan though, but it seems that it's a common policy. I tried tens of other companies and they all want you to pay for the full price for a two-year-old.

The good thing is, other transport methods don't seem to be as mean as the planes. We checked trains. My husband wanted to go to Bordeaux from Paris with TGV, and the French railway allows you to hold your child on your lap until they turn four, free of charge. In the end we decided not to go to Bordeaux and stay the whole time in Paris, but it's good to know.

I didn't check ferries and other waterway means, but I'd guess they also have some longer tolerance for free tickets for babies. I know for sure that cruises do. They allow your child to cruise for free with you until they're 18! Of course if he stays with you in the same room. But he'll get his own bed. Isn't cool? We're going cruising soon, so I know that for sure. Well, not too soon, only in October, but we booked it already. Baby girl will get her own bed in our room, for free. Of course the bed is not all they get, the children get all the foods and access to entertainment as the adults do.

A quote I found on the internet recently, which I loved!

Okay so now we've got the tickets. For Paris I mean. It's now just the anxiety of waiting for the date of departure to finally arrives. And curiosity whether baby girl would actually sit on her own seat in the plane.

Overall, if you have an infant under two, lucky you! Go fly somewhere you've been dreaming of. Now, don't wait until your infant turns two!

"Why taking her? She won't remember!"

It's one of the phrases we usually hear when we're sharing our travel plans with someone (of course, who doesn't know us that much). Other that that, there is "why not leave her (with grandma) and enjoy the trip (just with your husband)", or "poor baby, it's such a hassle, she will suffer the whole trip!" Now let me get this straight, my baby girl doesn't suffer during any kind of trips. And we actually do enjoy that she is with us, as much as she enjoys the trip itself. Do we know that she will not remember? Yes, probably she won't. Do we care? No, we really don't.

It's not whether she will remember that she'd visited the Acropolis that is important to us. It's the act of traveling itself that matters. That she experiences the whole process from the earliest days possible. Because traveling, like other types of experiences, helps shaping a child's personality.

Baby girl playing with a the son of a family friend we visited. Picture taken in Szentgotthard, Hungary

Our child is one of the most social kids I know. On one hand, it's quite scary, because she would talk and play and probably goes away with any stranger. On the other hand, it's actually cool. In any kind of gatherings I don't have a child hanging on me or hiding her face behind my leg. She's familiar with meeting new people during our trips, so she doesn't have hard times being in the crowds. More often than not, she's able to entertain herself, with whatever or whoever she finds. I don't have to constantly entertain her and convince her to stay a little bit longer before we'd go home. Generally she's a content child, but I believe that frequent travels had somewhat helped her grow to be one. She's able just to adapt in new surroundings and to enjoy with whatever is around.

See, baby girl eats a lot in relation to her petite figure. She is far from picky eater. Much of this, I believe, is caused by frequent travels. Wherever we go, usually we'd try the local specialties. And if there's more options we have to choose, we'd usually choose the one we never tried before. This leads to the fact that she would, literally, eats anything she's offered. It doesn't always end up by her liking the food, but she would always try. If she hates it, she'd stop and tries something else.

Another quality they'd learn by traveling that will be pretty handy for daily life is sleeping. Baby girl would literally sleep anywhere. She had learned to sleep on the metal bench of the airports, on the pebbles at the beach, in her carrier, or on anyone's bed. She doesn't have "rituals" before bedtime, she doesn't cry for her own bed or pillow or blanket. I found this really helpful in general, even when not traveling. We're actually able to attend weddings with her with no problems because she would sleep whenever she's tired, we can hang out with friends on evenings during the week and she'd just fall asleep while we're enjoying wines after dinner, wherever.

Enjoying morning bath in Indonesia, something new for her; she doesn't bath in the mornings back home,
clearly not outside, and not in a tiny tube. Grans don't own a bath tub!

Generally traveling introduces a child to the concept of adaptation. She might not remember that she visited the Eiffel tower, but she's got all the time in the world to visit the tower by herself later in life, creating her own memories of it. What you could benefit from taking your child with you when traveling is you could probably grow a child that can easily adapt to new environments; and that will result to a child who enjoys everything. Anytime.