When I was pregnant for Bitty I had decided I wanted to try things like extended breast feeding, extended rear facing, baby wearing, and cloth diapers. I did all of my homework on each topic and was prepared even when she came early. As with everything that is important to me, my Hubster supported me whole heartedly. Especially after reading all of the benefits it all reaped for our lil doll face.
The plan was to do extended breastfeeding until she was at least two or until she started weaning on her own. Which she did at eighteen months old. It was a very special eighteen months of bonding that only she and I shared. A time I will forever cherish.
The baby wearing has been something both daddy and I could do to bond with her. There have been countless times that it was the only way to console her. We still baby wear her and even sometimes wear her big sister that still loves it at nearly five years old. Especially if I am tandem wearing them both at the same time.
She is now two plus years old and still rocking the rear facing. It is the safest position for her and she is clueless as to what she may be missing out on, so it doesn’t phase her. Besides she’s gotten pretty good at watching Frozen through her mirror.
The cloth diapers. Oh my! I couldn’t walk in my fave local cloth diaper store without buying a new one. This lil lady has a huge stash of fluff! I absolutely love her lil bum in them. It took a little effort to get in a routine with adding the extra work to my already full load of being a stay at home mama to four. As well as adding the extra laundry cycles to my already always full washer. But was quickly figured out and a piece of cake. I mean come on let’s be real, there hasn’t always been a huge isle of disposables available in every store. My dad has often joked about me being stuck in the fifties when he has visited and stepped in our backyard to see my clothesline full of cloth diapers. A joke that I clearly could only take as a compliment because that was a fabulous era! Any who, as the last two years have quickly flown by, so have the many obstacles come our way. I’ve had to have four surgeries since I gave birth to our sweet one. While I haven’t minded taking on the brunt of the special care required for the cloth diapers, I hated to add the extra work load to my husband or Bitty’s maw-maw as I healed from each surgery. Yet was faced with the dilemma. The whole reason for me putting her in the cloth was because of my research about disposables. There is some rather icky stuff in those things. Suddenly nothing was too good for my baby’s lil bum, and I only wish I had known then what I know now for my three other bambinos. So when choosing a disposable, I went with the safest chlorine free, dye free, and bio degradable diapers I could find. Sure they cost a tad more, but not much, and was well worth it to her daddy and I.
So while we are nearing the potty training phase and I am finally feeling more complete since my surgery. I slapped her bum back in her cloth yesterday. I rather missed seeing that lil fluffy bum running around. That is until today. Holy cow! This lil gal had her share of those lil cutie oranges over the last few days. Of course diapers change over time when they switch from only breast to solids and so on and so forth. But this one particular diaper I was faced with today made me realize just how much I love those convenient expensive packs of special disposable diapers! Today is the day I said heck no I don’t want to do that again! Wowza how someone so cute can make that kind of mess I’ll never know. But I do know should that happen again I’ll be simply tossing a forty cent diaper instead of trying to save a twenty dollar cloth diaper.
Do I feel like a failure? Not in the slightest. I am still choosing to go with the best and safest (in my opinion) disposable. Yeah, someone may want to take my “crunchy card” away, and I’m good with that too, ha ha. I don’t do what I do with our lil monsters to fit in a category. I do it, because it’s what I see best for MY children. I don’t want to be compared to another mom no more than I want another mom to be compared to me. That’s just strange. Obviously we all have the same common goal, right? Honestly, I will shred my own “crunchy card” just to never be faced with a scary two year old cloth diaper like that again as my four year old hovers over my shoulder with a look of horror asking what in the world we are going to do about it.
So now my precious Bitty is tucked into bed dreaming sweet baby dreams. Not an ounce of doubt in my mind she could care less what kind of diaper is on that lil bum of hers! But oh my gosh I am so happy it’s a disposable, however I must admit, I’ll miss that little fluffy bum of hers in a few days…after the trauma of today wears off. So for all of the folks that think I do “strange hippie things” there is one thing you can scratch off of your list.
