Travelling With Cloth Nappies | Eszter @Eszterhead
Eszter shares her experience and tips for using cloth nappies while travelling abroad to Hungary.
Our cloth nappy journey started when our littlest one was born. We took the plunge and started to use our hired newborn stash as soon as we got home from the hospital and fell in love with everything cloth nappy!
When T was 5 months old I decided to go to Hungary for 3 weeks with the kids to visit my family whom I've not seen for over two years at that point due to various lockdowns.
This is where the dilemma started...
Should I buy some disposable nappies over there? Should I take cloth? If I take cloth, which ones would be the best? My choice fell on the easiest, most versatile and cheapest option, FLAT NAPPIES!!
Flat nappies are an amazing way to use cloth while traveling. They can be easily adjusted to daytime or night time by boosting it, they dry super fast, easy to hand wash if needed and super cheap.
I bought 6 birdseye cotton flats to add to my already existing 6 and took 4 cotton terries too. That's 16 nappies in total which means I only had to wash every second day.
As these nappies are super slim, they hardly took up any space in my luggage!
Now I only had to decide on what covers should I take.
Knowing that my mum will want to give cloth nappies a try I took mainly Velcro fastening nappies. As cotton flats are super slim even pad folded I took a few empty pocket shells as well as wraps for ease of use. I also took some bamboo and hemp inserts to boost the nappies if needed and for night time.
As we use terries at nights at home, I knew that we'll need a bamboo booster for them. I also took our favourite wool cover for the night nappy which I washed and lanolised just before we went so I didn't have to worry about washing it while in Hungary.
Now that I had all the flat nappies, empty pocket shells, wraps and boosters/inserts packed it was time for us to go!
The first part of our trip was fairly straightforward and easy. We stayed with my dad and used their washing machine, bought some Ariel powder googled the machines settings and got on with our normal wash routine. As we went at the end of July/ beginning of August it was super hot, 35-38 degrees, and all the flat nappies were dry within hours of washing them!
The second part of our trip is where it became interesting...
We rented accommodation by lake Balaton for a few days with my mum. There wasn't any washing machine or a laundrette anywhere near, so I had to hand wash the flat nappies and covers. I bought some washing powder in the local Tesco and hoped for the best!
As Theo was still only breastfeeding at this point I didn't have to worry about getting rid of the poo. We gave the nappies a quick rinse if the shower every morning and night (basically everyone had a shower with the nappies in the bath and filled the bath to about 1/3 with the recommended amount of detergent for hand wash then started the workout!
Who knew hand washing nappies is a good workout?
After the squeezing, squishing, rubbing I emptied the tub, squeezed as much water out as I could, then filled the tub with clean water without detergent and rinsed the nappies.
We always did the washing either last thing at night or first thing in the morning so we can hang the nappies outside straight away.
During the summer months it's always above 20-25 degrees in Hungary, even through the night. With the summer sun all the flat nappies were dry within hours and hand washing them was a real experience!
I would definitely do it all over again, and choose to travel with cloth!
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