Cloth diapers while camping!
When we told people we were taking our 10 month old camping, the biggest reaction was to our decision to cloth diaper the whole trip. While it did seem daunting, we packed our small cloth stash (along with wipes and wet bag) and purchased clothesline, a package of clothespins, and enough free & clear detergent for a week. We did break down and buy a pack of disposables but not until day 6. Up until then, we hand washed (mostly foot washed actually, but I’ll get to that) in the campground showers and made two trips to the local laundromat.
Washing by foot
I am not sure what the rules are, but it seemed pretty obnoxious to hand wash a whole bag of pee-soaked diapers in a public sink. So I opted for the shower, which was at least private (in other words, no one knew I was washing pee-soaked diapers in there). My first go went well but my clothes got soaked. For the next load I just did the diapers during my actual shower, deep conditioning my hair while stomping on soapy diapers. I poured on detergent, agitated them as much as possible, then hand rinsed and squeezed out each one. I’m not about to adopt the same method at home but it did work.
Drying
Drying diapers on the line didn’t go as well as we had anticipated. The campground is near the coast. It was sunny, but not really sunny enough to dry diapers. Each hanging took at least two days to dry, so we had to use the dryer at the laundromat. Which ended up costing as much as a pack of ‘sposies for just a couple loads. On the upside, we also took the opportunity to run a load of regular clothes (We did those first, in an attempt to remove any old detergent from the machine) and use their wi-fi. 
The poop
There wasn’t a lot of poop, I guess due to nursing less and eating more solids while camping. Caught one in the potty. The others I washed off in public toilets and then hand washed in the shower. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I would have imagined. The only really bad diapers were the ones that I tossed in the wet bag the last two days and planned to wash at home. Rarely does anything diaper-related faze me in the least but I GAGGED dumping that bag into the washer. (Whenever we get a poop diaper at home, we throw it in for a rinse and start a diaper load immediately.)
The conclusion
Donny and I agreed, if Sebastian is still in diapers next summer we will do a combination of cloth and disposables for the campout. The worst part of cloth while camping, for me, was waking up in the freezing cold and having to immediately change a diaper to avoid leakage. I’m not sure if our diapers lost some absorbancy or if Sebastian peed more on the trip, but they would be sopping wet if I didn’t get him right onto the potty upon waking. I do not deal well with the cold and this was hell for me. So next year, super absorbent disposables for night time with a cover. Disposables are also nice for long car rides and I am sure much more comfortable for Sebastian. For daytime around the campground we will definitely use cloth. I loved showing them off and someone even told us that we were the first campers in the history of the campout to hang a line of diapers. Not sure if that’s actually true or not but it’s a cool distinction.
Two of the main reasons that people cloth diaper are to be environmentally friendly and to save money. Well, I am pretty sure that I used 10 times the water my washing machine uses per load. It would have been cheaper if line drying had worked out, but even the laundromat wasn’t too expensive. The biggest reason that our family cloth diapers is chemical exposure to baby, so we were definitely successful.
© 2012