Natural Baby

I am anticipating using my snooze button tomorrow and barely making it out the door for work on time, therefore, I thought I would do a rare evening post before I forget what I was actually going to say. Since I actually had a comment on my blog (comments are fun, you should try leaving one:) and it gave me an idea and reminded me while a few of you out there know me extremely well, some of you are reading this that don't know all of my quirks...so I thought I would explain a few of them that relate to the way we are going to raise our daughter. First off, diapers. Yes, I am in full belief that every child needs them:) However, since I do plan on staying home with her, therefore allowing me to be able to use them, I will be using cloth diapers. There are two big issues here, really. First off, I admit, I'm cheap. Diapers are not. Cloth diapers aren't really cheap either, but are wonderfully reusable. Yes, I realize that I will have to clean them and it will be work, gross work, but have you looked at the price of disposables? I was able to get a bunch of all-in-ones and prefolds and flat diapers, along with a few covers leftover from a garage sale, so I probably have close to as many as I'll need. I'm not really sure how many that will be. (Hint: If you want a really good bargain on something, look at garage sale ads. If they list something you would want, but don't want to pay what they are asking, contact them after the sale and if they still have the item, most people will make you an incredible deal. That's how I got the diapers.) So, yes, cloth diapers will be cheaper than disposables, but I also want to use them for other reasons as well. Do you realize how durable disposable diapers are, once they are used and gone and forgotten about? Landfills are full of such things and since I am in the field of conservation, I think about these things. The other option, they now make fully biodegradable, flushable diapers, if you can afford such a thing. Seems to me like you are asking for a clogged toilet, but I've never actually seen those so I'm not sure how they work. So, our child will be wearing cloth diapers, only using disposables if she is travelling and we dont want to have to spend days with a stinky diaper:)

Cloth diapers aren't the only thing that we've decided will be either healthier for the baby or healthier for the environment or healthier for our checkbook:) I will also be breastfeeding, hopefully exclusively at first. And when she starts eating baby food, have you ever thought about how that stuff is made? The kind you buy at the store is loaded with preservatives, comes in little plastic or glass jars (reusable but how many do you really need?) and isn't very cheap. Plus, anyone out there actually want to eat baby food? So I do plan on making my own baby food. You can buy cookbooks on the how, but mostly it boils down to take your normal food and smoosh it up. A small food processor is all that will be necessary, along with a little time to do it. Saves money, saves millions of tiny jars, and will be healthier. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. I also plan on teaching her about wilderness from the very beginning, hopefully giving her a good appreciation for all things wild.

When registering, I have already mentioned I had fun at babies r us but there was one thing that was extremely disappointing. They had all the necessities to breastfeed, all the stuff to make your own baby food, lots of organic things, but they didn't have hardly anything for using cloth diapers. They had a few diapers, a few vinyl pants, but not even a single diaper pin....hmmm....

So, I realize I'm looking at things from an idealist point of view and will occassionally buy food, give my baby a bottle (but hopefully it will be breastmilk) and sometimes use cloth diapers, but i'm hoping that I can manage to do many of these things.