Margaret joins me to share her story of cloth diapering. Her family travels as part of their jobs, and over the past year, her son has been on over 25 flights.

Why did you consider cloth diapering? If you knew your job would require flights and travel, it might not have been on my radar as a mom.

Margarets step-daughters mom was influential in this conversation and saying she had to try it. She didn’t think she could, but after some time warmed up to the idea of trying cloth diapers with her family – especially thinking about the landfill wate with diapering a baby.

What kind of stash do you have?

Two stashes.

I have two stashes – a home stash and travel stash.

 I get most of my diapers from buy nothing, and second hand. I think I spent less than $100 and my stash is mostly pockets. I used to use infant prefolds but because they don’t have enough absorbency in toddlerhood, moved to flats which feeds into my travel stash.

Go to is a bumGenius with the GreenMountain Baby Muslin.

Travel – I travel really light, one diaper bag, one backpack, one computer bag for a trip.

I have two – one for if I have laundry, and one if I don’t have laundry.

If Laundry: 20 wipes, 3 shells (Thirsties Duo Wraps for the win), 10 Flats (birdseye), 1-2 fitteds, overnight cover, full size wetbag, detergent/softener, disposable liners 

If handwashing: scrubba washbag, octopus hanger, and rubber gloves.

The first time I traveled with cloth, I did just pack one full bag of pocket cloth diapers and I never did that again.

It’s not a vacation trip… it’s a work trip, it’s not the kick back and relax that you might expect or desire.

I don’t have time to babysit laundry between travel and working – so I want something that’s going to be really easy to wash and dry. If you have laundry facilities than you can get away with one days worth of diaper. If I know I’m going to be handwashing, then I overpack – but flats are super small and take up so little room.

How did you get through the foreign laundry fear?

There are resources that you can use to find out the water hardness  – or I pack water testing strips with me to help me give some idea of what is going on with the laundry.

Google the make and model of the machine.

Unless you’re going for a couple of months – your diapers will be fine for a few days.

 If you cloth diaper already – you already know how to cloth diaper. It’s not as complicated as you think it is. You don’t have to do anything new. You can just use what you have. Go with what you already know and you are comfortable with.  

Have you brought disposables traveling? Or had any cloth diaper regret when traveling?

That one time I we had ring worm – I used disposable diapers and it still took up space and all the blow out.

And the one time I was in Iceland, and drying the diapers was very difficult in the cold air. I ended up using a t-shirt.

What’s your biggest tip for changing a baby/toddler on a plane?

Almost all planes will have a changing table… but it’s not awesome. If you’ve purchased a seat, or just change it in a free seat

Just keep it as simple as you can…. You never know when you’ll hit turbulence.

We board last, we change the diaper right before we take off/load. And we bring a booster. Usually for a 3 hour flight we are fine – unless he poops then we try to make it the whole flight. A good hemp booster will make it go a long way.

Any other tips and tricks for flying with cloth diapers?

• You can always go half way, pack disposables for the flights.
• Practicing – practice at home, is this doable for me? Will this work?
• Adapt what you currently have to make it work. You don’t have to buy flats; you can use things you already have in your stash.

There are cloth diaper parents around the world that you can reach out to support and navigating the diapering experience. And in 2020/2021, translation services are a great resource.  Here’s some previous shows from cloth diaper parents from around the world:

• Romi in Argentina
• Stacey in Germany
• Kelsey and her experience in Russia
• Baby Koala, Made in Israel
• Weeking Diapers in Estonia
• Elskbar, Denmark

Where do you try to stay?

 AirBNb is always my go-to choice with laundry facility. I haven’t had to handwash much when staying in hotels because we can usually get an AirBNB. But sometimes it happens and I use the Scrubba bag  an easy resource for handwashing diapers.

• This is how I used the Scrubba bag for the Flats & Handwashing Challenge

Margaret shared her simple routine of handwashing with the Scrubba – it’s a pre-wash/main wash philosophy with only 6 days.