As parents, we are faced with many decisions all at once. Breastfeeding or formula? What’s the right car seat? Is it okay to co-sleep?
We wade through them, evaluating pros and cons, thinking (obsessing?) about how it will affect our baby and family. We hope we are making the right choices and not screwing our kids up too much. Then every once in a while there is a decision that is very clearly the right choice for the baby AND it ends up being a great choice for you as well.
I feel that way about cloth diapering. It is very clearly the right choice for my baby girl and I am getting as much (or more) enjoyment out of it as she does!
I love the fluff, the colors and lessening my impact on the environment. But what I love more is the real sense of community I feel with my fellow cloth diapering mamas. I’ve had three experiences in the last week that really made me appreciate the full weight of this awesome community:
First, I attended the FuzziBunz #redwhiteandbunz Twitter party last Monday night. It was my first twitter party and what fun it was! Something as simple as our diaper choices link us together and we can bond in cyberspace, encourage each other and make each other smile after a long day. Show me a car seat that can accomplish that!
My second experience was just a simple Internet search to try and get info about cloth wipes. The amount of specific, user-friendly info out there from the cloth diapering moms
who have come before me is unmatched. Helps me feel like I am not in this alone.
And finally, a new acquaintance and I just realized that we also have cloth diapering in common. She is now borrowing my newborn-sized diapers for her second baby due in a month. We spent half of our moms group meeting the other day in our own world, excitedly discussing detergent and how much we love it when dipes come out of the dryer. We are both part of the CD community! It was an automatic bond.
Parenting is a tough, sometimes alienating endeavor and it’s nice to be a part of a supportive, experienced environment – both online and in person. So hats off to my fellow cloth diaperers and thanks for creating a special community we can all share and for welcoming the newbies with such open arms. May we continue to support each other.
Who knew that just another tough parenting decision would have such an added bonus!
Sarah is a mom of two and blogs about her adventures in motherhood, cloth diapering and everything in between. Catch her “Cloth Diapering Unwrapped” series on the FuzziBunz blog every Tuesday.
