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!