Why am I posting a Pampers ad??

To illustrate something you will NEVER have to do with cloth!! 



There are so many things wrong with this commercial.  Like the shameless promotions for Walmart and Similac even though it is an add for diapers. Or the fact that Daddy feels going to Walmart to buy diapers is a big contribution to his family...he only changes about 1 diaper a month so I guess he has to do something.  Oh, and did anyone else notice the 4 month old sleeping in a crib that has one side wide open?

When you use cloth diapers, you never run out.  Getting low? Do some laundry.  No need to confuse daddy with a big adventure out to Walmart.

And yes, that baby might just go poo any minute now.


- Blogging from my iPhone

Why do #clothdiapers have to be so cute?

Someone asked me the other day, what is the point of a cute fitted diaper (specifically this cute one from Kissaluvs if you have to put a cover over it?

My answer?

Do you wear cute underwear?

Besides that, for normal daytime use around the house, you could probably get away with a fitted without a cover.

Sometimes though I do think the diaper makers are just out to feed my habit. Today I was flipping through my pre-release copy of Everything Birth's diaper catalog (a genius idea) when I discovered new prints from Happy Heinys!

Happy Heinys are definitely one of my favorite pocket diapers (tied with Rump-a-Rooz). In fact, I think the very first diaper I ever bought was the HH monkey print... months before my baby was born before I had become a diaper expert. :)

The new prints are awesome. Puppies, Skulls, Giraffe Rock, Owls, Tie-Die...I want them all! See them for yourself here. Which one should Xander have?


- Blogging from my iPhone

#Sleep easy? My #baby?

If you had asked me a year, six months, or even three months ago what our bedtime routine was, I would have laughed. All last winter, I suffered with a baby who wanted to go to sleep early but refused to sleep if he wasn't in direct contact with mom or dad.

We got really good at wearing him down. We found a chiropractor.


But this night weaning project has created a sleeper. It's cute and sweet...and easy!

After dinner we play for a while. Then the bug decides he's sleepy, takes me by the hand, gestures for dad to join, and takes us to the family bed. Then we put on his jammies and sleep diaper without a fight. He sits in my lap while we read a few books. When he gets starts to feel relaxed, we turn off the lights, everyone lays down, and I nurse him to sleep. Daddy can't sneak away too early, but once Xan is list in boobland he leaves the room. Ten minutes later I break his latch and were done.

One of the best parts is that he also now sleeps for more than 45 minutes at a time. Last winter, when I was able to set him down and walk away, the most we could make was an hour (about a sleep cycle) before he woke and cried. Now we are up to well over 3 hours.

There were times over the last year when I considered "sleep training", but it just didn't feel right. And here we are at the sane end, without all the tears. Was "huggie bed time" rough? Sure sometimes... but I wouldn't trade all those close snuggly nights for the world.

- Blogging from my iPhone

There's a baby on my head! Why you need a good night-time #clothdiaper

Since my last post I am back to sleeping upstairs alone. It is so weird sleeping without my baby OR my husband for nights on end. Since the Bug was born, the longest trip I have taken without him is 1 night. I've gone on longer trips for business, but I took him and left daddy at home.

I've had all kinds of crazy dreams. I guess that is what happens when you resume a full nights sleep after 18 months ++ of interrupted sleep. And really, 18 months implies that I was able to sleep pregnant...

So now it us Daddy's turn. As usual, I am torn about this. There was a bunch if buzz on Twitter earlier this week that said something like "you can never wean a baby from it's mother", and there is a part of me that feels like I am doing something bad or wrong by leaving my boys to fend for themselves at night. It's the same part of me that sometimes feels guilty about my son spending so much time at daycare.

I believe in attachment parenting. And, I don't remember seeing anywhere in my Dr Sears book where it said that the roles of the attached caregivers were set in stone. When the Bug was 4 months old and I had to go to work, I found a daycare provider who would carry him around all day or even wear him. Now he is in a Montessori where they practice child lead learning and discipline with Love & Logic. I guess what I am saying is that it takes a village, and I am comfortable calling on my community to share in roles that might *traditionally* fall on mom.

All this is to rationalize leaving my husband with a week + now of less than fully rested nights. He seems to just now be discovering that the baby wiggled around a lot, and whimpers, and tosses and turns, and sometimes struggles to get comfortable. And sometimes you end up with a diaper in your face.

We really struggled for a while to find a night time cloth diaper solution. Our end formula is a fitted hemp diaper (Happy Hempy at the moment but I am looking to try something new) with a cover. It is bulky and Bug looks like he has a bowling ball in his pants. And it requires a cover. And it's not easy to do all if this with a squirmy fussy over tired tot. For months now, I have complained and obsessed about making sure the diaper is 100% contained in the cover, knowing that halfway through the night I might find myself snuggled with the wrong end of the baby.

Now that the baby is sleeping on
my husbands head instead of mine, he finally understands.

I think soon they will figure out how to get a good nights rest without a boob, and hopefully soon I will be able to come back to bed. In the mean time I feel like I'm in a hotel or something.


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:my upstairs suite

Not Working Anymore (#weaning, #co-sleeping, #breastfeeding, #ineedsleep)

Maybe if I put enough hash tags in the subject line this post will make the feed if someone who actually has a solution.

I'm starting to think the people who said it is possible to night wean while cosleeping were full of shit.

I really love sharing the family bed with my little one. And I really love breastfeeding. But I am really, really, REALLY tired of Mom's All Nigh Boob Cafe. I've spent the last 2 months trying to night wean with no success. Here is a timeline if my efforts:

- August: tried to remove myself from the picture and break the habit from midnight to 5am. Bug woke up and cried a couple times a night. DH took to wearing earplugs to sleep. Survived at this for about a week then MIL came to visit so I moved back to bed

- September: Tried to pick up where we left off only this time I stayed in bed and just refused to give it up. I got my own earplugs. Everyone got sick and I got an ear infection. Set night weaning plans aside in favor of rest and BFing a sick baby.

October: Tried to pick up where we left off with refusing to give it up, but the Bug has gotten more persistent. We had several nights where we "fought" about whether or not he would nurse for almost an hour before I caved and nursed. Back to the cold turkey plan. I spent 4 luxurious full nights sleeping upstairs again. From what I could tell, it seemed like we were making progress because I was only hearing one wakeup a night.

Tonight: DH was tired and grumpy from losing sleep the last few nights, and I was missing my family so I came back to bed sporting a boob blocking sweater and fully intending to stick to my guns.

2:00 am - bug decides he wants boob. I play possum for 40 minutes while he pulls my hair, scratches me, kicks me, and screeches. The part of my brain that read all those stupid baby sleep books says if I cave now, I just taught him that throwing a 40 minute tantrum is the way to get mom to wake up and nurse. The part of me that is tired says fuck it.

Now: wake up and blog about it.

There seem to be zero resources for this. Books about baby sleep don't really cover cosleeping issues, and the very few books I have found in cosleeping don't really cover night weaning. A few friends say they have had success doing what we are doing, but I am at my wits end. How much longer will this take?


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:The All Night Cafe

#Clothdiaper Objections #2: Laundry

For the last week I have taken a little social network hiatus and instead focused my efforts on getting my house decorated. I have spent hours scouring Etsy looking for treasures, now I just need then to come in the mail!

In the meantime, my diapers arrived and I'm super excited to start posting about them, but I wanted to continue my objections series first by talking about laundry.

If you plan to cloth diaper using fitted, AIO, or pocket diapers (in other words anything other than prefolds), you will mist likely be washing your own. To my knowledge, diaper services pretty much stick to prefolds. For many of us, keeping up on laundry is hard enough without the added loads if diapers to deal with. And, many people will add to the workload concern by pointing out that more laundry = more water and energy usage...doesn't that make the whole thing less green?

Here is my take on the two part laundry objection:

First of all, many a cloth diapering mama will attest to the fact that there is some perverse pleasure to be found in washing cloth diapers. For me, it is an opportunity to play with and admire my collection. It reminds me of being a little girl, when I used to spend hours just counting and sorting and organizing My Little Ponys or Pound Puppies. This magic has faded slightly over 18 months of diapering, but I still find calm and zen in dealing with a big basket of soft clean diapers--very different from folding a load of shirts, socks and underwear.

Now for the question of resource consumption. I do know people who have decided against cloth because of this concern. I think it is an idea that was planted in the world by the makers of disposable diapers, because there is no way that footprint on the planet created by buying, washing, and reusing cloth diapers comes close to that of manufacturing, distributing, selling, and throwing a way a disposable diaper.

Here is a very unscientific analysis of the life of a cloth diaper and it's affect on the planet: It is sewn from materials generally made from cotton, hemp, or bamboo and sometimes polyester, depending on the diaper. Most diapers were created by moms, and many are still sewn by them. Then they might get shipped to a retailer, or they are drop shipped from the maker to the consumer directly. The diaper is then washed, dried and reused 2-3 times a week, for about a thousand hours of use (3 hours per wear, 3 times a week, for 2.5 years) over the course of it's one child's use. The big environmental issues are 1- shipping, 2- water use, 3- energy use (to heat the water and run the dryer).

For now let's focus on the water and energy, since cloth diapers are only shipped once and sposies are shipped over and over. Keep in mind that diapering is temporary. For 2 years, you will increase water and energy consumption as they relate to diapers. I do two loads of diaper laundry per week. I have not noticed an increase in my utility cost. I offset this increased use by reducing water and electricity in other areas. I have a low maintenance backyard that can sustain on rain alone for most of the summer. I only run my dishwasher when it is full. I discriminate regular laundry and try not to wash what isn't dirty. I take fewer and shorter showers. I unplug my electric toothbrush, iPhone, and other gadgets if they are not actively charging. I use CFL bulbs. You get the point. These are changes that I have made that I will continue well beyond our diapering years.

Now for the life of a sposie: it is mass manufactured from paper, plastic and chemicals at a factory that produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. It is then packaged into a cardboard box or plastic bag by a machine, loaded into a diesel truck, and shipped across the country to your grocery store, where you drive your SUV or Minivan at least once a week. You buy it and drive it home, then use it once for 4 hours (you can go longer in a sposie thanks to the mystery chemicals), then shrink wrap it in plastic to hide it's odor while you wait for the massive diesel fueled trash trucks to come haul it away to a landfill where it will sit until our grandchildren find something resourceful to do with all that trash. And this all gets repeated every 1-2 weeks for 2.5 years.

Am I using more water? Yes. When my son is potty trained, I will have contributed 0 diapers to landfills rather than the 2500 that the average child uses. And even better, I can use the same diapers for another child or sell them to a friend!!


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:cuddled with my sleepy toy

Laundry Day! #clothdiapers

Most of my stash got washed today.  They looked so pretty all folded up, I thought I'd post some pics.  I'll do another post about diaper laundry later.

Sorted, folded and ready to be put away

Custom US Soccer Diaper, Rumparooz Firetrucks, White BG, Black HH

Big stack of AIO's - mostly Thirsties and GroVia

Some pockets waiting to be stuffed

#Clothdiaper Objections #1: Germs

Yesterday at work we had a celebratory lunch that involved a few pitchers if margaritas and a lesson in tequila sipping. There are a lot if daddies at my company but I'm new and I haven't really loosened up enough to talk with them about baby issues. I guess the tequila helped a little, because I had a chat with a coworker who is expecting a babe around thanksgiving.

I told him about my crunchy tendencies and it was pretty clear from the get go that this guy isn't one who is interested in listening. But it did get me thinking about all the reasons people are afraid of or resistant to cloth diapers so I thought I'd do a blog series.

This particular dad's concern is germs. Honestly, when he didn't respond to my usual logic, I kind of gave up...but here is my rational:

First if all, changing a cloth diaper involves exactly the same exposure to germs as changing a sposie. Babies do not poop more in cloth, nor does a sposie somehow reduce your proximity to poop at changing time.

Second, cloth forces you to get rid of human feces the way that our society has agreed is sanitary...by flushing it down the toilette. You do not have poop sitting in a dirty diaper in your trash waiting for trash day.

Third, because you are the one who chooses how often you do laundry, you can wash diapers whenever you feel the yuck factor has reached your threshold.

I made these suggestions to my coworker and he said he keeps dirty diapers in a "hermetically sealed container outside". I didnt know what this means...maybe a diaper genie? I thought about going into the fact that diaper genie poops will be sitting in landfills until they become fossils, but it's clear thus guy isn't Eco motivated so I saved my breath.

If you are reading this and have more feedback on the germ concern and cloth diapers, I'd love to hear from you!


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:bed, with my little one quietly sleeping beside me

My little love bug #breastfeeding

Next week Xan will be 18 months. We are now to the point where people are surprised to see he is still breastfeeding. Tonight, my husband (who thinks that 2 is just around the corner), said we are "almost done".

I have no ideas as to how much longer we will breastfeed. Part of me thinks as long as I am making milk, my baby must need it, right? I realize that it is a supply and demand thing and "as long as I am making milk" could drag on. But for the most part I enjoy nursing my baby.

This is not to say we don't have challenges. I find it really annoying that every one of my shirts is stretched from him tugging at them, and it embarrasses me when he sticks his hands down my blouse at the grocery store. And I am really, really tired of the all night boob cafe (we have been experimenting with night weaning for a month or so).

But overall, I really feel that if we had weaned before a year, I would have missed out on something special. It used to be that I nursed my baby because he needed it...he was crying, hungry, I didn't know what else to do. Now I nurse my baby so we can have special quiet time together. I can see the love we share in his eyes and the sweet way he strokes my face and hair. We relax and melt away our stress together.

Right now I'm in another room, hoping my boobs will get a rest tonight, but all I can think of is the sweet, loving, and appreciative way my son looked at me before he fell asleep.


- Blogging from my iPhone

Thank You Followers #followme #clothdiapers

It's been almost 3 years since we bought our house. I've lost touch a bit with my belief in the power of setting goals and dreaming big. But this week I have crossed two items off of my list that have been lingering for a long time: painting my house and starting a little diaper biz. Consistent with my motto (yes I CAN have it all), the diaper biz seems to be something that works with my busy working mom life, without a big financial commitment.

Today I set up my FB fan page...one problem though--no fans!! So do me a favor and stop by!

Denver Diaper Parties Fans




- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:my sofa fort

Why fluff? #fluffybutt

Today I got set up with my Everything Birth web site. I am so excited to start selling diapers! Next on my agenda: get my EB profile up, figure out how to post to the EB blog, and set up a Facebook fan-page. Oh yeah...and plan some parties.

So why cloth diapers? This post could be long, so I'll break it up and start by discussing why I have chosen fluff as my mama cause.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are a lot of natural parenting issues I am passionate about: circumcision, baby wearing, midwifery, cesarian rates, breastfeeding, cosleeping, home birth, and cloth diapers. There are a lot of important issues in this list that I could go on and on about. But they are all such personal decisions. And many if them are one time choices. But diapers? Your stuck with them for years...and people aren't generally very personally attached to their choices. In fact, I find many people will tell you "I thought about cloth, but ____" (here is where a career in sales comes in handy).

Of all the topics I care about, I chose cloth diapers to be my action item because:

1- your decision to use sposies can be reversed (can't say that about circumcision)
2 - it's just poo...nobody is offended
3 - it's fun and cute and something everyone has to deal with
4 - it is an easy way to make an impact on the planet and

So what are YOU waiting for? Do you have any little butts in your house that might like some fluff?


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:the clean corner of my messy house

Why I (heart) my diaper sprayer

This morning the bug woke up before I got out of bed and was happily playing on the floor beside my bed when I heard a loud fart sound followed by an odor I could only assume came from my husband. I woke him up to give him a hard time about it which of course he denied.

Then I got to thinking...last night I was out of town, DH and DS went to a soccer game. I asked DH what they had for dinner. He told me the little one had spicy fries and oranges. Uh-oh.

I promptly got up to find a poo explosion. I took diaper duty while Daddy took butt cleaning duty.

Many people worry about switching to cloth for fear of moments like this. Personally, I think a poo explosion spicy French fry disgusting diaper is going to suck any way you work it, so I'd rather clean in than put it in my trash for 4 days. And I'm happy to say (as happy as one can be in this situation) that I had the diaper, the pajamas, and the toilette all cleaned up in less time than it took for DH to rinse the baby bottom. No mess on me or my hands either.

Switching to cloth? Please, do not forget the diaper sprayer!!


- Blogging from my iPhone

Location:The red zone (little loveseat where we boob-nap)

dichotomy

di·chot·o·my [dahy-kot-uh-mee]
-noun, pl.-mies.
1. division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2. division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.
3. Bot. a mode of branching by constant forking, as in some stems, in veins of leaves, etc.
4. Astron. the phase of the moon or of an inferior planet when half of its disk is visible.
Origin: 1600–10; < Gk dichotomía. See dicho-, -tomy

My life is a dichotomy. Am I a natural mama or a working mom? I walk the line and often feel like I don't fit with either fully.

I'm a working mom: I have a full time job. I choose to work because I enjoy it. I go on business trips and still think they are fun. I make good money and I like to spend it. i keep my nails manicured and my hair highlighted. I think that daycare is a happy, healthy, good place for my son to spend his day. I think I would go crazy staying at home--and I certainly wouldn't do a good job keeping my house clean!

I am a natural mama: I'm an advocate for breastfeeding. I think that women are strong and childbirth is what our bodies are made to do--not a medical condition. Scheduled inductions make me sad, scheduled cesarians make me sadder. My son's penis is intact. He sleeps in my bed. He still nurses at 18 months and I have no plans to stop. I wear my baby and seldom use a stroller. I use cloth diapers and am passionate about sharing them with others.

I try to do both. I wash my diapers in the hotel laundry (or I take the subway to the laundry mat). I put my baby on my front and my laptop on my back as I scurry through the airport. I take pump breaks and I'm happy to announce that's where I'm going. I order a crib for the hotel room and use it to organize my diapers.

I see no reason why these two should be exclusive if each other, but I spend a lot of time biting my tongue...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Service Loop,West Columbia,United States

Diaper Parties

This week I officially signed up as a DiaperParties rep. I have spent the last 18 months dreaming about having a diaper business, and fighting with DH about the practicality and costs. Because of the way DP is structured, I only have to make a small inventory purchase and handle local marketing.

I am SO excited about the inventory available! I have spent the while week looking at the web site. I will have diapers of all sorts with all of my favorites, mama cloth, pails, wet bags, natural toys, accessories, home birth supplies, clothes, herbal supplements, homeopathics, carriers, you name it.

I'm hoping to have my website up and marketing supplies ready in a week or so. Hopefully convincing my friends to buy things they are already buying from me won't be too hard (free shipping with party orders!), and I'm really excited to start working with some new mamas and expanding my circle.

I am posting this from the plane. iPhone + Delta GoGo Wifi = Happy Gwen :)

Here's a pic...









- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:30000 feet

Back to the Blog - 10 minutes at a time

Before I had a baby, I loved to blog.  I kept two, one about my life in general and one about my pregnancy.  I loved eveything about it... journaling, learning html, tweaking and re-tweaking, random strangers reading about my life, following and being followed... you get the idea.

And then Xan came.  From day 1 it was too much work to get out the laptop, too hard to blog from the iphone, and he got jealous when he wasn't the focus of my attention.  So this blog will be kept up with short posts.  Short enough to write from work.  Some take a smoke break, I take a blog break.

With any degree of focus and commitment, you can come back here to find information about being a working mom, cloth diapering, natural parenting, and maybe some other random stuff as well.