Camping with cloth nappies

Clean Cloth Nappies admin and camping enthusiast Amy shares her experiences using and washing cloth nappies while camping.

My family really enjoys camping and I have a daughter who was in cloth nappies full time. Over her time in nappies we went camping on quite a few occasions and I used several different systems to manage camping with cloth nappies. Here are my experiences and what I’ve learned from each of them.

Washing cloth nappies with a hand-powered machine

The first time we went camping was for 3 nights. I bought a portable hand crank washing machine and packed my trusty Biozet powder, laundry booster and dry pail. My plan was to use the portable washer to do daily first washes, as we were using night nappies, and main wash them when I got home.

After my daughter’s night nappy came off on the first morning I boiled some water on the camp stove and got to work. I added the previous day’s nappies (poo had been removed at the toilets), a bit of laundry powder and booster, and some water I had slightly cooled all into the machine. I cranked the handle a bunch of times, which created lots of suds. My husband and I alternated turning the handle for about 10 minutes in total. We figured that was plenty, and it was very tiring.

What I hadn’t considered was where I would dispose of the dirty water. Nappy washing water is considered black water and detergents are high in sodium, which is bad for the soil. I found a dirt patch out of the way and tipped the water there, but it wasn’t ideal.

It took about 4 or 5 goes of adding water, cranking, and wringing out the nappies for them to be free of suds. I then hung the nappies up using peg octopus hangers. All up it probably took close to 30-45 minutes of manual labour.

I repeated this process the second morning. The third morning we packed up and went home, so I didn’t bother with the hand wash. When I got home I put all the nappies in the washing machine for two 2.5 hour 60°C washes with detergent. They all came out perfectly clean.

I never used the hand crank machine again.

Flats and a coin-operated washer

The next camping trip we had planned was a 10-day camping trip with a group of friends. I hummed and hawed about buying disposables. In the end I decided to buy a 12-pack of big Softies terry towel flats to supplement the dozen I already had instead. I also packed my smaller Supercheap Auto terry towels to use as boosters in night nappies.

I practiced folding the nappies at home, had a pack of Snappi fasteners, made some microfleece liners and packed a heap of my PUL covers.

The campground we were staying at luckily had a laundry, with coin-operated Speed Queen front loaders. I dutifully traipsed down to the laundry every second day to wash the flats; I didn’t bother to do a daily first wash. On the fourth day I did a main wash, ran the terries through the dryer and hung the covers up at the campsite to dry. This worked well for that particular trip.

Flats are definitely the way to go for longer trips. They’re the easiest to wash and quickest to dry.

My final decision

After these experiences I decided washing while camping was too much work. I have a large stash of cloth nappies, so I have decided from now on to just dry pail dirty nappies, including my night nappies, until I get home.

We usually camp for 4-5 days or less. My process is to remove the poo into the toilets and dry pail (store in a giant wetbag or bring my plastic basket) until we get home. I run everything through two long hot washes (back-to-back main washes due to the full load). You can add chlorine bleach if you need to. 😊

My top tips for camping with cloth nappies:

• If you have enough nappies just dry pail until you get home
• Flats are perfect for camping, as they’re cheap, versatile, easy to wash
• If you want to wash, plan what you will do with the waste water 
• Know that everything is fixable with long hot washes and bleach when you get home

Happy camping!