Do any of you fellow hippy mama's have recco's on a brand that fit/work for newborns? Lots of my pals had a hard time making them work on small babies and kind of gave up once they were used to the ease of good ole pampers.

Also - did any of you all have to go to daycare with cloth? How'd that work out?

I'm thinking I'd have to go home cloth/daytime pampers, but I'm scared I'll get lazy with my efforts! Lord knows I'll probably have a hard time finding a 'crunchy' childcare in Tennessee

I am having our first child in Febrruary 2013 and will be using cloth diapers as well. I have several friends who use them. I think a lot depends on the type of baby you have - some are long and skinny while others are chunkier, lol. Rumparooz makes Lil Joey Preemie/Newborn diapers that fit babies from 4-13 pounds. They're tiny! I have several covers and diaper types picked out to try in my Amazon registry - Thirsties size 1, Bum Genius (heard they're great for overnight when the baby gets a bit bigger), regular Rumparooz and Best Bottoms. The Lil Joeys come in a two-pack but from my understanding you won't be using them very long, the baby will grow out of them quick!

I guess I'm super crunchy but don't think of it that way and people probably wouldn't know unless you asked. Since you asked. Three drug-free births with midwives. 1st with Bradley Method, last 2 with Hypnobabies. Extended bf, over 2 1/2 years each. Elimination communication alternating with cloth. Co- sleeping, no vax. Food direct from farm most of the time. Don't even know how I got this way. LOL

I just had my 33wk appt yesterday and my doctor said that I did not need a birthing plan. I am going into it wanting a non-medicated birth and am going to breast feed. I know as soon as the baby is born they put some sort of ointment on his eyes, give a vit K shot, and start the hep B series. This all is very overwhelming to me. I'm not sure what the ointment is for and don't understand why a newborn, fresh out of the oven needs to start the hep b series???My dr. also tried to push the flu vac and pertussis vac on me, saying how important it is to protect the baby. She looked at me like I had 14heads when I refused both vac. Any insight? Thanks! I also work in healthcare, NMT!

So glad this thread was started, it's good to hear about all the things that hospitals automatically do so I can plan to tell the doc I don't want it. I love my OB but I'm moving accross country at 6.5 months so I'll have to find a new one in CA quickly and make sure he/she is on board with my plan. Luckily CA is a bit more crunchy than NJ so that should be a bit easier.

For those of you who use cloth diapers, what would you suggest to have on hand to start out with? I really want to do cloth but hubby isn't on board and I'm afraid he wont change any diapers if they are cloth :laugh: Also what method do you use for cleaning them. I researched it and saw that you can swish it in the toilet, have a wet pail to put them all in....this all seems a bit cumbersome and messy. What do you all do?

So glad this thread was started, it's good to hear about all the things that hospitals automatically do so I can plan to tell the doc I don't want it. I love my OB but I'm moving accross country at 6.5 months so I'll have to find a new one in CA quickly and make sure he/she is on board with my plan. Luckily CA is a bit more crunchy than NJ so that should be a bit easier.

For those of you who use cloth diapers, what would you suggest to have on hand to start out with? I really want to do cloth but hubby isn't on board and I'm afraid he wont change any diapers if they are cloth :laugh: Also what method do you use for cleaning them. I researched it and saw that you can swish it in the toilet, have a wet pail to put them all in....this all seems a bit cumbersome and messy. What do you all do?

Most people I know use a dry pail. We have a swing lid garbage pail lined with a laundry bag (they also make waterproof bags just for cloth dipes), and when we change the dipes, we just throw them in there. Then when it's time to do laundry, empty the dipes into the washer, and wash the bag along with the dipes. For liquidy breastfed poops, no need to rinse. When baby starts solids and the poos become more solid, we have a sprayer attached to our toilet to spray the poop off. Much easier than dunking/swishing.
It sounds a lot scarier than it actually is once you get started.

Oh, my favorite newborn dipes are a combination of prefolds and kissaluvs fitteds. They are sooooo soft! I like prowrap newborn covers because they are also soft and have a little notch for the umbilical cord. But they grow out of those quickly.

For size small on up, I like prefolds and fitteds with Thirsties covers. Did y'all know that you can get some good deals on cloth diapers off Amazon.com, often with free shipping? And on Amazon, you can read reviews.
Also check out Diaperpin.com for tons of cloth diapering info and reviews.

I'm just getting around to the thought of using cloth diapers!! What do you do when you're not home all day? Dont they stink? I feel like I'm slowly becoming "crunchy" if you will so I'm new to all of this but I've been doing my research!

It's official! I'm using cloth light pads for my pee-sneezes! ;b

Cakes-what's Bradley?

I don't know if i will be birthing in NJ or CA but I found a birthing center I REALLY want to use in CA. http://www.sactobirth.com/ I am in love with the set up and my sis had her baby here and loved it. Just reading the birth stories make me want SO BAD to have our baby there. How many of you have issues with Insurance not covering things like this? Do you feel it's worth it to pay for the birth you want? I am thinking i'd rather pay out of pocket to have the baby here then use insurance and have it in a hospital (unless I have a doctor that is 100% on board with my birh plan which I doubt will happen). I just need to decide if how much i'm willing to pay.

what has been all of your experiences with insurance and natural birth?

Cakes-what's Bradley?

I don't know if i will be birthing in NJ or CA but I found a birthing center I REALLY want to use in CA. http://www.sactobirth.com/ I am in love with the set up and my sis had her baby here and loved it. Just reading the birth stories make me want SO BAD to have our baby there. How many of you have issues with Insurance not covering things like this? Do you feel it's worth it to pay for the birth you want? I am thinking i'd rather pay out of pocket to have the baby here then use insurance and have it in a hospital (unless I have a doctor that is 100% on board with my birh plan which I doubt will happen). I just need to decide if how much i'm willing to pay.

what has been all of your experiences with insurance and natural birth?

I'm seeing a midwife at a birthing center, and it's 100% covered by my insurance. The best thing you can do is contact your insurance carrier and find out if they cover midwives or home births. Some do, and some don't. It saves them a small fortune keeping you out of the hospital. Total cost of my care with birthing center is $4,000 including post-natal care. Total for hospital birth alone (average) is $15,000-$25,000.

Cakes-what's Bradley?

I don't know if i will be birthing in NJ or CA but I found a birthing center I REALLY want to use in CA. http://www.sactobirth.com/ I am in love with the set up and my sis had her baby here and loved it. Just reading the birth stories make me want SO BAD to have our baby there. How many of you have issues with Insurance not covering things like this? Do you feel it's worth it to pay for the birth you want? I am thinking i'd rather pay out of pocket to have the baby here then use insurance and have it in a hospital (unless I have a doctor that is 100% on board with my birh plan which I doubt will happen). I just need to decide if how much i'm willing to pay.

what has been all of your experiences with insurance and natural birth?

I'm seeing a midwife at a birthing center, and it's 100% covered by my insurance. The best thing you can do is contact your insurance carrier and find out if they cover midwives or home births. Some do, and some don't. It saves them a small fortune keeping you out of the hospital. Total cost of my care with birthing center is $4,000 including post-natal care. Total for hospital birth alone (average) is $15,000-$25,000.

Apparently I need to ask the Birth Center submit a request for authorization, if they get authorized it's 25$ a visit if it's not authorized I have to pay 20% up to $1,000. If I end up paying the 1000 then the family will have no more copays or deductions the rest of the year so I definitely think I will do it there no matter what (unless I'm still in NJ.) I'm soooooo excited!

That's a pretty good deal! Congrats!

I plan on nursing but i'm sure I'll want bottles once in a while, i'm thinking of getting glass bottles by Born Free. have any of you used glass bottles. Do you think they are suprerior to BPA free plastic?

I didn't do glass bottles (it's just that they do get dropped from time to time - and not always by your child), but I did Born Free BPA-free plastic bottles. I liked them overall, but I did have issues with leaking (I did all the "tricks" to get them not to leak), and they have a million parts to clean, which gets really old, really fast. However, they did do a good job in reducing air intake and whatnot, and compared to what I've heard about some other bottles, they are good. (I recommend buying from Amazon compared to everywhere else, for both bottles and different stage nipples - much better pricing!)

This time I am considering switching to either a Playtex drop-ins system or Avent Natural. I plan on breastfeeding but definitely want to pump, too, and my son did not have nipple confusion issues (so my hope is that this baby will not, either).

I have a few questions maybe some of you (esp the nurses) can help me with....I'm also going to talk to my doc about it also.

I found a website that gives all storts of birthrates for NJ hospitals http://www.icanofnj.com/

first I just wanted to see the c-section rates in the hospitals I can deliver at but it also has epidural, induction, episiotomy and midwife attended birth rates. For most of the numbers I prefer Hospital #1, but their midwife rate is 10.9 as opposed to 23.1 (only reason I would care is if I can't have MY doctor i'd like a midwife) and the episiotomy rate is 22.2 as opposed to 4.1....that seems like such a BIG difference.

So for hospital #1 the worst number is the episiotomy (which scares the crap out of me) but it's also great to see that they have a 41.2% epidural rate as opposed to hospital #2 which is 64.3 and I really don't want to deal with them pushing meds on me.

So here's the question. I really want a natural birth. Period. I know there could be extenuating circumstances but if i need epidural, induction, episiotomy, or c-section i want it to be my choice not because they pushed it on me. So do I pay attention to the numbers or do I just talk to my doctor and know that I trust him so as long as he is there i'm good? Also, while hospital #1 has better numbers (aside from episiotomy) their rooms aren't as nice and, having been there, I can say that their nurses are kinda rude. I wish I could go to a birthing center!!

decisions decisions!

I can't find a doula in my area for the life of me! I looked it up online but had no luck when I tried making calls

I do some crunchy things but I just do what is right for me and my family. I breastfeed but have been unable to go past 10.5 months. My goal this time is one year. We do an alternate vaccine schedule and do not get all of them. I made almost all of my youngest child's baby food and plan to do it again. It is so easy and I know it tastes better! I encourage my children to eat healthy and I refuse to keep junk around just for the kids.

Birthwise, I am not really crunchy. I have had 2 c-sections, and I would like a VBA2C this time. That may or may not happen, I have pregnancy related BP issues. My first two babies were classified as IUGR and SGA, I am just thankful they are bright, happy, healthy children.