I know that I have had several experiences in different restaurants and stores that made me wonder, but I’m here to tell you that good (even great) customer service still exists!

One place you can find it is at Cottonbabies. I have been buying my cloth diapers from them. Last week, they had a sale and I bought 5 diapers. When I received them, I was getting them ready for the wash and I noticed that a large part of the seam around the elastic on the leg hole was coming out on one diaper.

I wrote an e-mail to their customer service department on Monday evening (after hours) explaining my problem and asking what I should do. Well, yesterday (Thursday), I received a phone call from Dee, I believe but I’m not sure on the name, at Cottonbabies. She asked me a few questions about my diaper and the problem with it. She then told me they’d mail me out a replacement as soon as possible. Thanks, Cottonbabies!

A while ago I realized that so many times when we have a bad customer service experience, we tell everyone that we know about it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen nearly as often when people have good experiences. I just wanted to spread the word that I had a great customer service experience, and I am planning on buying more diapers from Cottonbabies, because I know I can trust their service and their products.

When I was pregnant with my son, I had read a few parenting books in my planning for life with baby. I read both On Becoming Babywise and Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. I had it all planned. My son was going to be born and go directly onto a schedule which included him learning to sleep through the night by 8 weeks if not sooner. Sounds great, right? Well, the minute he was born, my heart changed. I threw those books out the window and became what some people call an attachment parent. I quickly realized that I didn’t want my son to cry without me or my husband calming and soothing him. I wanted to breastfeed for as long as it worked for both of us. I wanted to wear him in a baby carrier. I became what is also lovingly referred to as a “crunchy” parent.

To find other moms who had similar parenting philosophies to me, I sought out the Attachment Parenting message board at Babyzone. Since I was already active on their message boards, I started looking there for support in my newfound philosophy. That was eighteen months ago, and since then, I’ve come to believe even more so in our choices to be “attachment parents.”

The other moms on this board did things I didn’t know people still did. They made their own baby food and they cloth diapered! When I first heard that, I thought that maybe they were crazy. Then, I started looking into cloth diapering, and I talked to my husband about it. He was a little skeptical at first, but when I showed him the diapers that I wanted to try, he become more and more interested.

Now, instead of using a simple piece of cloth with pin and a cover, cloth diapers have become more and more sophisticated. Now, there are many choices. There are prefolds, pocket diapers, and all-in-ones to name a few. The diapers that we researched and eventually purchased are the Bum Genius 2.0 One Size diapers. The appeal of these over the others was that once the new baby reaches 10-12 pounds, we will be able to cloth diaper both of our children in the same diapers without having to buy new sizes from about 10 pounds until 35 pounds. Hopefully, by 35 pounds our older one will be potty training.

Yes, now not only am I an extended nurser who advocates natural childbirth, I’m also a cloth diaperer! The next thing I want to try is canvas shopping bags instead of using the store’s paper or plastic bags. Wish me luck!

Since I have been about 20 weeks pregnant, I could tell that my milk supply has been dipping more and more. My little milk man was still determined to continue nursing though. He nursed several times a day at that point. Steadily, though, he has decreased his nursing over the past weeks until he was down to one or two times a day pretty consistently. Well, the weekend of May 12 and 13, my family was in town, and with all the commotion of having them here, my little milk man seemed to forget about nursing. May 14th was the first day in his life that he went an entire day without nursing. He did nurse the next day though, so I thought maybe he would slowly cut out that last session.

Well, this week, he went from Sunday, May 20th until today without nursing. Imagine my surprise when this morning after I got him from his crib, the first thing he did was look at me and do the milk sign!

So, when do I say he officially weaned? I have no idea, but I do know that I will let him nurse as long as he keeps asking. Just for my own purposes, I would love it if he could make it until June 3rd, so I can say that he nursed for 19 months. I do know now that each time he nurses, I try to remember every minute of it. I realize that each time that could be the last time we ever do that, and I won’t know it at the time. I’ll only be able to look back and realize it later.