Travelling internationally with cloth nappies

Long-term Clean Cloth Nappies admin Georgina recounts using cloth on an extended holiday to the Philippines.

At the end of 2017, my family of four embarked on nearly 6 weeks of interstate and international travel. Our son was five, and our daughter was seven months. From our home in Brisbane, we travelled to Adelaide, Darwin and then onto the Philippines via Singapore. 

My husband’s family is Filipino and his family was hosting a family reunion to celebrate his Lola (grandmother), the family matriarch, returning to her village. 

I wanted to use cloth as much as possible while we were away. This was especially important to me as we were going to developing areas with limited infrastructure and garbage disposal.

For nappies, I packed a combination of prefolds and terry flats, with PUL covers for the day, and wool covers at night. I had been practising elimination communication and I was pretty good at picking up on my daughter’s pooping cues. For backup, I had some compostable inserts and disposable nappies. 

For detergent, I packed Cold Power detergent pods. I didn’t want to carry unidentified bags of powder through customs, and there was no risk of the pods spilling in my luggage. I also took a bar of soap and some lanolin for the wool covers. 

This was before adding bleach regularly to nappy washes was popular, but it’s worth noting that bleach-based cleaners are classified as dangerous goods, and strictly prohibited on all domestic and international flights. Check with your airline if unsure! 

Brisbane to Adelaide

The first leg was the flight from Brisbane to Adelaide. We booked a self-contained apartment in Adelaide with a front loader and a dryer. We had a top loader at home at the time, but luckily the Clean Cloth Nappies Facebook group prepared me well and I worked out the cycles without too much difficulty. I used disposable nappies for the flight and was glad to get my daughter back into cloth once we were settled at the apartment.

At night, my set-up was one terry flat (or prefold), then a prefold, and a microfleece liner. I secured the lot with a Snappi, then used the wool cover over the top.

Darwin

The next stop was Darwin, where we stayed with my husband’s family. It was the midst of the tropical wet season, which meant high humidity and daily monsoonal showers. I had a limited amount of nappies and there was no dryer, so I broke out the compostable inserts. On the upside, perfect Darwin “home attire” is a singlet and terry flat. 

Singapore

We headed to Singapore next. We stayed in a teeny-tiny hotel room without any space for drying clothes or nappies. The hotel had an exorbitant dry-cleaning service and that was it. To make matters worse, the closest coin laundry was nearly 3km away. 

My top tip here for any kind of travel with young children is to always book a place with a laundry service or easy access to a coin laundry.

I switched to compostable inserts during the day. These are sweaty in tropical conditions and I wouldn’t recommend them in usual circumstances. At night I used disposable nappies as the compostable inserts didn’t cut it overnight.

Philippines

A flight to Manilla, quick transit, and then a flight to Iloilo. I appreciated the bidet sprayer when I was a bit slow getting her to the toilet for the morning poop.

The next leg was a boat ride over the idyllic Guimaras Island. 

Guimaras was real island living. All the washing went to be hand-washed by the local ladies, so I wanted to make sure all the nappies were in absolutely great condition. I scrubbed stains with soap, then soaked them with Cold Power in the shower buckets that they have in every bathroom. Stomp, rinse, and wring out, and they then went with the rest of our laundry to be washed and dried.

3am flights are terrible at the best of times, but horrendous with kids. Nonetheless, we survived the flight from Iloilo to Cebu City. From there we were whisked to Kawit in northern Cebu province for the family reunion. In Kawit we stayed in a guest house, which – a luxury of luxuries – had an old top loader connected to cold water only. 

By this time I’d run out of Cold Power and had to send my husband to the nearest sari-sari (convenience) store to buy some individual detergent sachets. I continued with the hand-washing. I was down to soap only, saving the powder sachets for the machine. 

We had a few days in Kawit before heading back to Manilla via Cebu City. During this time I went back to the compostables and disposables. I was daunted by the “pay by weight” laundromats. I was worried about being charged extra for my damp nappies, not realising they’re weighed after drying. Lesson learnt! 

My take-home message

My take-home message is to give it a go. It’s often far more doable than we might think. I used 46 compostable inserts and 30 disposable nappies, a significant reduction compared to full-time disposables. 

Think about the accessibility of laundry facilities when travelling with small children. This holds whether you choose to use cloth nappies or not. Of course, keep some flexibility, life can throw us a curveball, especially when travelling.

Cloth nappies are pretty durable. Over the short term, they are forgiving for a less-than-perfect routine. 

At the end of our trip, I was glad to get home, give everything a solid hot wash, and get back into some colourful modern cloth nappies.