The Evolution of this Crunchy Mama

Ok... Here it goes... I am finally ready to admit it.... I'm a crunchy mama.

I never thought I'd be this way, I swear! But, here I am in the middle of month 5 and I LOVE cloth diapers and baby wearing and breast feeding and natural childbirth and am excited to try baby led weaning.

I came to this realization this weekend while discussing cloth diapers with a fellow mama. I'm literally obsessed. I am like a cult leader trying to bring others into the cloth cult. And I was doing this while wearing my baby in a woven wrap at the beach. And I realized it. I'm a totally hippie. A total work in a corporate job by day, breastfeed at the lake in a woven wrap by weekend mom. And I started to look back over the last five months and try to figure out when this happened...

It really happened about seven months ago when I took the day long childbirth class at our local hospital. They talked about all kinds of stuff and showed lots of videos of different birth stories (women who did it natural and women who used analgesic pain meds and women who got epidurals). And I realized I did NOT want an epidural. Women with epidurals seemed so disconnected from the birth process. They didn't feel when to push. They couldn't walk around. They just laid in bed and waited for instruction.

Look. I will NEVER knock you for getting an epidural. Shoot. If you read back to the first post here, I signed all the paperwork after 23 hours of labor and was all set for the epidural when I found out I was 10 cm and sent the anesthesiologist packing with my new found second wind. But, when I attended that birthing class, I realized that pain free was not the birth I wanted. Well, let's clarify, numb was not the birth I wanted. Unfortunately, there isn't really an in between. You can't have a 'kind of' painful birth. You either get numb or rip your body apart kind of pain.... And of those two, I wanted to feel what my body was doing. It's pretty amazing that your body opens and expands to birth a baby! It's really an awesome experience, and I didn't want to be numb for it. I chose two words to describe my ideal birth experience: Engaged & Productive.

Engaged - I am birthing my baby. The birth is not happening to me. My body made her and will help her come into the world.

Productive - everything is happening for the purpose of bringing my baby into the world. All the pain is expanding my cervix and pelvis to make way for my baby. Every contraction brings us one step closer to holding our baby. 

So, that's literally a snip of the email I sent to my doula about the kind of birth I wanted. It sounds great, huh? Well, if you read back to the first post, you'll see what actually happened. I did get an engaged and productive birth, but it was not all rose petals and singing kum ba ya. It was our birth story and it's a good one, though.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. That birthing class was really the first step. But, even after my mostly natural birth experience, I still didn't believe I was a crunchy mama.

Then at 2 months, I started a cloth diaper trial. And LOVED it. And became obsessed with doing right by my baby, my wallet and the planet.

And then at 3 months, I really started to love breastfeeding. Which was a cruel joke by the universe, since this was the same time that I went back to work. Don't get me wrong, the first 2.5 months of breastfeeding were fine, but I started out having a lot of pain. Partially because of Chicken's shallow latch and partially because I'm super sensitive. So, I mostly endured the first month of breastfeeding because I knew it was best for her. I didn't really like it that much. By month 2, I felt like I was constantly attached to this tiny human and I really needed my space! But, then as month 3 came around, we had a much better 'routine' going (that's in quotes for a reason) and we were both getting better at breastfeeding. I really started to enjoy our one-on-one time and the realization that all of her milestones (smiles, laughs, rolling over, etc) were fueled by milk that I made, with my body! That was so amazing.  

And then at 4 months, I bought my first gauze wrap and practiced some cool baby wearing wraps. And LOVED it. And so did my little Chicken Nugget. It was so much more comfortable than the Ergo or the Britax (and way cuter). 

These days, you can find me nursing this little Nugget all over town, in any restaurant, at the lake, in my house, in the back yard, while playing board games with friends, etc. I'll just remove her from her woven wrap, change her adorable cloth diaper and latch her on (with no nipple shield and maybe even without a nursing cover). So, yeah, I'm a crunchy mama.... So what?

Cloth Diapers. How hippie are we?

We love air conditioning and showers. We eat fast food. I work in a cubicle for 'the Man'. We're not the type of parents that cloth diaper..... or are we?

About a year ago, I saw a friend post these things called FuzziBunz for sale. That sounds cool. What are FuzziBunz? Are they like a Snuggie? Because I love me a Snuggie. No. They are cloth diapers, but not like the cloth diapers that our parents used. They are super cute and have a waterproof exterior, so no leaking on mom and dad.

Hmmm.

Could we use those? How do we wash them? Would our washer have poo and pee in it after? How much do they cost? Whoa. There are like 1,000 different kinds of cloth diapers now. Which ones are best?!

After our little girl was born, and we realized that we spent roughly $2.50 a day on disposable diapers, which were also bad for the environment and possibly bad for our baby, we decided to give this cloth diaper thing a try.

Where did we start?

We did a trial through Kelly's Closet. We got 5 different types of brand new diapers and we had 30 days to try them. Anything we didn't want, we returned for 100% store credit or 90% Paypal refund (minus shipping). I figured, this was a relatively inexpensive and risk-free way to learn about these new kinds of cloth diapers. Let's give it the old college try.

First of all, let's get one thing straight: I hate laundry. HATE it. I always have. I will leave clean laundry in a heaping pile on any unused bed for days before folding it. But, the crazy thing is, I LOVED doing the diaper laundry. Why? I have no idea. I still can't explain it. I think it's because I felt like I was doing the right thing by my baby, my wallet and the environment. It's like some weird high you get from doing good in the world.

Secondly, our washer and dryer are awful. We got the washer for free from a friend who had it in storage for the better part of 10 years. I'm pretty sure it's a 1980s model, but it's always worked fine, so we haven't replaced it. I didn't think it would hold up to poopy diapers.... It did! The diapers come out looking brand new with no residue on the diapers or in the washer.

After two days of cloth, I was hooked. Not only for all the aforementioned reasons, but also because our little girl no longer had red, irritated skin in her diaper area. Cloth breathes way better than disposables.

In the end, we decided on the bumGenius 4.0 pocket diapers. They fit our baby the best, wash and dry easily, and are not as bulky as their All in One counterparts. Our whole arsenal of cloth diapers costs less than $250, which at our rate of using disposables will pay off in 3 months.

So, I guess we are a bunch of crunchy hippies. Bring on the granola and patchouli!

For some videos of our cloth experience, answers to some of my FAQs and reviews of the diapers we tried look here:
Cloth Diaper Videos