By Kimberlee Jensen Stedl

The character Bettina on Absolutely Fabulous once commented on eco-parenting, “We tried to be green, but it’s just not humanly possible.” While I love cloth diapers, eco-parenting on the road tested my mettle.

Pocket diapers such as Fuzzi Bunz (which are available at Nature Boy in Missoula) are genius. However, cloth diapering while traveling makes even these stylish and simple diapers difficult. In my son’s first year of life, we did three two-week trips. On trip one—a visit with grandparents—we compromised and used primarily disposables but cloth at night. Trip three included a stay in the jungle of Dominica, where the nearest place to buy disposables was 45 minutes away and open limited hours. So using cloth there was a no-brainer.

Trip two was the interesting one. My son Ivan and I tagged along with my husband as he went to New York City on business, then we headed up to Boston to visit my parents. On this trip, I insisted on reserving disposables just for plane and train rides.

My husband’s company puts people up only in ultra-swank hotels. After a few days there he called it the stiletto heel of hotels—looks gorgeous but is utterly dysfunctional—a great place for metrosexuals to have an affair, but good for little else. In our room we had a loofa sponge and candles, but no coffee maker or ice bucket. Most importantly, there were no coin-op laundry machines on the property.
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