Crunchy Mom Prioritizing

When my first baby was born, I wanted to do the right thing, but there were so many life changes needed to be a fully crunchy mom, I was overwhelmed and confused.

Then, I ran across a blog that pointed out when you’re having a new baby, taking baby steps into the green lifestyle is often the best way. The woman explained I needed to prioritize so as not to get overwhelmed. Instead of prioritizing by what was most important to me, I thought about what one choice would have the most impact right off the bat?

Crunchy Priority #1 was clearly cloth diapering. Cloth diapering causes lasting positive impact in so many areas…

My Baby’s Comfort
Realizing that he’d spend 2-3 years in them, I thought about what I’d rather sit in: Paper and plastic or heavenly soft cloth? With the new cloth diapers, there’s almost no need for rash cream either, they were designed to fight rash.

My Finances
Disposable diapering for 2.5 years cost about two grand. Even the greatest set of cloth diapers would end up saving meat least $1500. As it turned out, my FuzziBunz managed to get passed around to other kids and then, I sold them for almost what I paid for them because by then, the different colors and styles of FuzziBunz were like collector’s items.

The Ecological Legacy I Leave for My Children
If I used disposable diapers, I would be leaving a legacy of about 6,000 dirty, non-biodegradable diapers for my kids to figure out how to clean up when they’re my age. Each year, tens of billions of disposable diapers are tossed into US Landfills. Our kids are not going to be happy when they realize we didn’t actually pick up after them when they were infants, be just swept their poop “under the rug.” At least with my diapering choice, I can stand confident and tell my children when they’re grown that I was a part of the solution, not the problem.

Convenience
Instead of cloth diapering being a hassle like I thought it would be, it turned out to be very convenient.  Using cloth meant I didn’t have to buy a huge box of diapers every week. I thanked myself in the middle of the night once when I had run out of clean diapers that I didn’t have to run out to the store. All I did was use a hand towel inside of a FuzziBunz cover until the rest of the diapers were clean! Besides, as it turned out, washing a load of diapers isn’t like washing a load of clothes. The hassles aren’t there. Washing diapers doesn’t involve coat hangers, ironing, matching socks, or folding pants just right.

As it turned out, my number one crunchy mom priority wasn’t that hard to get used to and it wasn’t long before I was able to work on my next self improvement step! I’m just glad I was patient with myself and eased into it so that I didn’t end up frustrated and throwing in the (crunchy) towel.