Love-Knowledge Baby

A symbol strongly associated with babies, for some reason.

“Babies are EXPENSIVE!” someone exclaims.  Everyone nods in agreement.  Then the list begins, “Hospital bills, crib, diapers and more diapers!  Formula!  Not to mention that they outgrow their clothes in three blinks of an eye!”

That’s the current myth.  Heck, I believed it.  My pre-birth parenting skills seemed hinge on the THINGS I bought for the baby, as if buying tons of bottles, strollers, a gorgeous round crib (which I’ve been trying to sell for AGES, having never been used), pacifiers, diapers, etc. would prepare me for the most momentous life-change that I’d ever never be ready for.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I would never have been ready for motherhood until the moment was upon me.  Even if I’d read all the AP books out there (I’d read exactly zero), gone to parenting classes, and watched every How To Care For Your Newborn video available on YouTube, I would never have been ready to be a mother.

There are some things that you can have intellectual knowledge of, but still know nothing about.  Pregnancy, birth, and parenting are very solidly categorized as such, in my opinion.  So, I was the best consumer mom that I could have been, nurturing the child in my womb by valiantly tackling garage sales and Target clearance racks.  I amassed the usual baby paraphernalia, but I was already starting to show my green tendencies.

I shopped online for the best deals (package deals, clearance items, seconds) on cloth diapers and bought 2 dozen fitteds, LOTS of prefolds, covers, and snappis.  Since I’d bought the line that babies were expensive, I figured I’d do cloth and save myself a few bucks . . . along with giving my baby’s bottom a more comfortable ride.

I pre-washed them, stacked them in their assigned bin, and waited for my home water birth (which I’d been paying for out of pocket- $$$=better birth?) to commence and conclude satisfactorily so that I could finally use my round crib with 16 piece bedding and those perfectly fluffed cloth diapers which I’d so lovingly prepared.

My life was epically derailed as I failed to progress through a long labor.  We ended up in the hospital, and my baby’s first experience in life was not on my triumphantly heaving chest covered in afterbirth, but on a neonatal resuscitation platform out of my view.  The next week introduced sugar water into his diet long before his first attempt to nurse.

The pacifiers at the hospital were plugged into his mouth over and over again as the NICU nurses called my room and waited with little patience as I made my way to that wing hobbling around an episiotomy which has forever changed the landscape of my cervix and pelvic floor.

The nurses briefly, and by rote showed us how to bathe our son, how to change disposable diapers, and asked repeatedly about whether or not we would circumcise (NO!).  It took weeks to build up the courage to snap that first cloth diaper on my son, and I’d like to say we never went back . . . but I’d be lying.  We were hooked on disposables, regimented into the use of pacifiers, and scared to do any one thing differently from the Nurse Mandate of Infant Care.

The crib that was never slept in . . .

But my hippie-mom tendencies (which I credit to being an intuitively-led person), fought their way to the surface:  It started with cosleeping.  I found nursing so much easier, and there that gorgeous crib was gathering dust.  I could have used the [WARNING: Thrifty moms avert your eyes!] $600 on something else.  The breast pump and all those bottles I bought — I thought I needed them for some reason, but I read a lot of breastfeeding books during the pregnancy and worked really hard with Bailey to have a successful and exclusive nursing relationship and thus didn’t need or use bottles.  They would have been useful, had I gone back to work.

Then my midwife suggested “E.C.” to me which blasted the disposable vs. cloth debate right out of the water.  At five months, right after introduction of solids (Never doing that again!  Child-led solids for the next kid!) Bailey developed severe food allergies which really made me aware of food content: additives, preservatives, and unrecognizable concoctions.  As a nursing mom, I had to go on an elimination diet to make sure my milk was safe for Bailey.  Cooking at home every day, I’ve come to appreciate local farmer’s markets, organic produce, and quality instead of run-of-the-mill.

I guess those hormones got the better of me, and I snowballed into the land of the hippie.  I stopped buying paper towels and replaced them with cloth.  Instead of chemical cleaning products, I use spray bottles with 50% water and 50% white vinegar (great for E.C. accidents on the carpet).  We only bought disposable diapers a total of 10 times before we quit cold turkey.  We replaced them with plenty of inexpensive padded training pants, which are easier to take off in a hurry anyways.

All wrapped up.

I can use a simple piece of fabric to wrap my baby onto my body, replacing all of the following equipment: strollers, car seat as a carrying device (only the 5-50 lb convertibles from now on), bouncer, excersaucer, walker (which all should be banned anyways), tummy time mats (because wearing in a sling is the kind of stimulation tummy time is artificially replacing), shopping cart covers, child leashes and more.  5 yards of Osnaberg fabric and a little sewing know-how can make something that can replace hundreds of dollars of equipment: a woven wrap.

Something about motherhood awoke in me a fierce desire to live in an ecologically sustainable manner, to be clever with the resources at hand, and to depend on as little as possible.  I’ve still got a lot to learn from moms like the author of Raising Them Green and sites like The Green parent, but buying things used from garage sales or consignment is more fun than buying new.

I’m having a really good time, getting less and less wasteful, and working toward a lifestyle that will teach my child that the world around us is valuable, not disposable . . . and that we are the stewards of the world around us, just as we are the stewards of our own bodies.

So, what about that myth that babies are expensive?  I’ve discovered that they really aren’t.  You’ve probably already got what you need to nurture that baby in exactly the way he or she needs . . . all those extra things are just specialized tools that might be nice in one situation or another.  All a baby needs is a wealth of love, respect, and your personal time.

Only if you live by the creed that “time is money” should you find that babies are expensive.  In that way, our children represent the wealth of our future — and instead of pushing them aside, we should cherish every fleeting moment with them (as I try to remind myself while waiting out another toddler tantrum).

Take a moment and tell me what you do to make your life more green!  Share some tips and tricks because every little bit counts.  *clears throat* . . . and I was also wondering if anyone happens to want a round crib plus bedding?  I’ll trade you for something!  Offers . . . ?