Travelling with cloth nappies

I get a lot of people ask me if I take my cloth nappies on holiday with me - yes I certainly do! I'm actually on holiday in Turkey as I type, this is Edwards first holiday abroad so he experienced his first flight and first glimpse of an aeroplane. I've been planning what to bring with us for a few weeks, obviously the washing machine wouldn't fit in my suitcase (no matter how hard I tried) so I needed to work out how I would be washing nappies whilst away. I am using a wrap system with a combination of pre - folds and disposable nappy pads. I purchased the nappy pads from a high street store (if you'd like the details feel free to email me) and they can also be found on the internet. My plan was to use the disposable pads whilst travelling and then switch to the pre folds when we arrived. All I can say is so far so good! Although I'd rather not change a dirty nappy in an aircraft bathroom ever again lol!
We arrived in Turkey at around 9pm local time - after a 6 hour flight delay :( I'll admit Edward coped very well with both the delay and the flight, to get him to sleep we had to put Daddy's earphones on him and play some of his favourite songs! He wore a fleece sleep suit to travel in as it would be ideal if there were any leaks, thankfully we didn't get any :)
We had our welcome meeting from our rep yesterday, this is something different for me as I usually book independantly and haven't experienced many welcome meetings. We were 'welcomed' along with another family who have a 5 month old daughter, we got around to asking the rep where we could find baby essentials at a reasonable price locally. She advised us on the best places to go and where to avoid for certain things, my Mother in law then proudly commented that we wouldn't need nappies as Edward was in reusable nappies - the other couple looked at me as if I were bonkers!! I'm not, I promise!! I'm never sure how I should respond to the ''You have lost it'' look when I tell people about using cloth nappies, any ideas? If you have some good one liners on how to respond please let me know :)

Well I'm off to explore some more with Edward, I'm taking him for a walk in my Mei Tai in the evening sun!

This time last year....

I was waiting around for my little boy to show his face! He was 2 weeks overdue in the end (born 11th February) so I was spending my time ensuring my hospital bag was ready, washing the new baby clothes and pre washing all the cloth nappies ready for use.

Pre washing is recommended for ALL nappies, dependant on which fabric is used will depend upon how many times you need to prewash. Prewashing will help build up the absorbency of the nappy - just in the same way we wash our towels before we use them so they work better.
I usually pre wash all my new nappies together if I can, but it's fine to pop them in your normal wash. You don't need to dry them in between washing - I usually put my washing machine on it's shortest cycle at 30 degrees and then just keep washing!
So for example....
Cotton terry will need about 5 or 6 washes
Bamboo terry and hemp will need about 10 - 15 washes
Micro fibre and fleece will only need 1 prewash.

I'm spending this year a lot differently, I'm planning Edwards first birthday party, discovering new nappies and thinking about all the money I've saved over the past year by using cloth nappies. This time next year I imagine I'll be looking at potty training!!