How this Mum survived camping with a cloth-wearing baby

This summer was my son’s first camping trip. We were heading away for a few weeks and I was stubbornly determined to use cloth nappies rather than disposables. My son is 8 months old and we catch most poo on the potty. I was keen to use this time to consolidate our Elimination Communication (EC) practice now that my son is on solids and he has more control over his bowel motions.

In the end, I conceded and took a pack of disposables as a backup. We had a fantastic 3 weeks camping, walking and relaxing. We had a huge amount of success with EC, used a few disposables and probably amused a few people along the way. My 5-year-old nephew was with us the first week and he was a great help wringing the nappies in the old fashioned wringers at the campground. This helped transform nappy washing from a chore into daily entertainment.

Before the holiday we were using 3-4 nappies most days (and 1 overnight) and by the end of the holiday, we were down to 2-3 nappies on most days. I used prefolds in pocket nappies and these generally dried within a day on the line. I would rinse each nappy in cold water when it came off and then do a daily hand wash in water from the solar shower. In total we had 5 poop misses in 3 weeks (4 of these within 24 hours), out of around 50 poops in total.

Spot the frozen potty! Potty while camping. Thaw out the potty!

Would I take cloth nappies on another camping holiday?

Absolutely. Would I do it without EC? No way!

What I learnt about camping with Elimination Communication and cloth nappies:

It is possible to go camping with an 8-month-old, use cloth nappies and still enjoy the holiday!

It would be hard to do the above without EC as hand washing poopy nappies is not much fun. And there would have been a lot more nappies each day.

It is worth using disposables when it is hard to offer the potty and/or washing the next day is not possible. For me, that was the ferry on the way there (we had a full travel day the next day too), and when the forecast predicted multiple days of rain.

EC is possible with disposables, however, I found it frustrating as the tabs would catch on the inside of the nappy when it was off. There was also less incentive to get catches with disposables. For future trips, I would consider taking disposables for nights and cloth during the day to reduce the number of cloth nappies I needed to take (as we don’t practice EC overnight).

Hand washing nappies in warm water worked well and we had no issues with smells. Sard soap was nicer on the hands than laundry powder and line drying in bright sunshine helped ensure the nappies were well sanitised. (I gave everything a long, hot wash when we got home.)

I had planned to put the nappies through an extra wash at the laundromat halfway through but discovered they only had cold wash options, and quite short cycles, so I didn’t bother.

Old fashioned wringer. Washing and wringing out cloth nappies.

Cloth nappies air drying on the line. Cloth diapers air drying on the line.

Bare Bum Baby exploring while camping, fresh air to dry out, elimination communication cloth nappy baby.

What I (re)learnt about EC and travel:

We got our longest dry spells with babywearing and car travel. In both instances, I would put him on the potty before we started, he would usually fall asleep within 30 minutes and then we would stop for a potty break as soon as he woke up. If he didn’t fall asleep within 30 minutes he would pee when given the opportunity.

EC is easier when the people around you actively support and encourage the practice. Comments like ‘Oh, he’s awake, let’s stop now’, really helped. Comments like ‘you’re putting him on the potty again?’, really didn’t help, although it is very satisfying when you catch a pee just after someone has just made that sort of comment