We started out with cloth diapers and cloth wipes. There isn't a diaper
service around here, so we just did it on our own. It's a big outlay up
front but it saves a ton in the long run. The diapers were fine, but we gave
up on the wipes fairly quickly- we just never seemed to have enough and the
washer was running constantly. We found the best compromise for us was cloth
diapers at home and disposables away from home, and regular baby wipes. We
keep a fully stocked diaper bag that lives in the van just in case.

The vanagon seems to have been made for kids, provided you retrofit to
current restraint standards. The kids like being able to see, they have air
vents right near 'em and they're not so far back that you can't hear or
reach them easily. It's even easy to get them in and out of the car seats.
Beats the hell out of the current mini-vans we've tried. Speaking of
diapers, that rear hatch area is like a big 'ol changing table- it's great.
We can take the kids, get two week's worth of food and a month's worth of
household stuff and do it all in one trip. We haven't been able to come
close to that in any other vehicle we've used.

Cya,
Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Goff" <THX0001@AOL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: Traveling/Camping With a Baby

> In a message dated 10/17/05 12:23:30 PM, dusty.edwards@MAC.COM writes:
>
> << we've read and heard of how hard it is to ween a child from your bed
> once
> this practice begins. >>
>
> Don't worry about it; that was not at all my experience times two.  Our
> first, my daughter, was such an avid breastfeeder and grew so quickly that
> my
> brother-in-law used to joke that sooner or later she was going to be
> picking up her
> mother to breastfeed.  She was walking at nine months and once she got her
> legs she soon demanded her own digs.  And, she turned out to be the most
> perfect
> daughter and most decent human being a man could hope for.  It seems that
> perhaps that was one apple which rolled away from the tree a bit once it
> had
> fallen.
>
> George
>
> PS: Cloth diapers?  Good choice.  Although this subject caused endless
> argument between my Sweetheart and me, as long as see never sees this, she
> was
> right.  Oh, and you'll need more of them than you think you will.  A baby
> is a
> black box with three ports, one input but TWO outputs.