The Intentions of a Good Mom: Part 1

My tiny newborn that entered this world 3 weeks early (much to the dismay of my students who I was forced to abandon) is now 23 months old.
This causes me to reflect on the past two years of our lives.
Before Aiden was born, I had intentions of being a great mom.
It’s funny that I read a lot of books about being pregnant, but I read very little about actually being a mom.
I mean how hard could it be, right?  Everyone has a mama.
I did, however, spend a lot of time planning my life as a mom.

Being environmentally conscious, I wanted to be a green mama.
I planned on using a diaper service.
That way I could use cloth diapers, which I believe to be better for our environment in at least some respects (reduce plastic trash), but potentially equal in impact in other respects (is energy consumption from washing comparable to energy consumption for creation of disposable diapers?).
Then, I found out that my city no longer had a diaper service – they went out of business a few years back.  Bummer.

Plan B – wash my own diapers – I wasn’t really up for that.
If I were going to be a stay at home mom, then yes, I think I would have done cloth diapers.
My daycare provider said she was willing to do cloth, but I wasn’t up for the time spent washing the diapers.

My compromise? Gdiapers.  I was so excited about this wonderful little invention – hybrid diapers.
They are a cloth diaper on the outside with a plastic liner and biodegradable inserts (or cloth if you prefer) on the inside.
I thought this was a great compromise.  Less plastic.  Less washing than regular cloth diapers.
Unfortunately, my Gdiapers started to leak after a few months.
I found out you weren’t supposed to hand wash the plastic liners because it stretched them out and ruined them.
I bought new plastic liners and tried again.  They were ok for a little while (don’t remember how long), but then the leak issues came back.
Not exactly sure what went wrong this time, but they kept leaking.
I had to leave several changes of clothes for Aiden at daycare.
My daycare provider was awesome and never complained, but I know she was frustrated by all of the issues.
My hubby was soon going to be staying home with Aiden while he finished his master’s degree, and he made it perfectly clear that he was not dealing with the Gdiapers.
Aiden was is small for his age, so the only reason for failure that I could muster was that he produced too much waste for the size of the diapers.
The next size up was way too big for him, so I was forced to try something else.
I abandoned Gdiapers for disposable diapers. {sigh}
My only slight justification is that Pampers designed their diapers with dry max.
This significantly reduced the amount of material needed for diaper production.
They also claim the dry max diapers use less energy during production than other disposable diapers.
Plus with all of the laundry I was doing because of the leaks, I figured we might save some energy by not washing so much in the long run.
Do I feel bad for adding trash to the landfill unnecessarily.  Yes.
Do I regret my decision?  No.

Like I said before, I had the intentions of being a good mom.

Stay tuned for more of my good intentions.
My good intentions with baby food are up next.

What good mom intentions have you had?