It's our kid and we'll raise him how we want to.

(Sung to the tune of "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.")

One thing I've learned in my very short (yet oh so long) 5 months of being pregnant is that EVERYONE has an opinion on something. Some of these are great, some are worthless. Lucky for us, I am an avid researcher and quite capable of making my own decisions. This usually is not an easy process, and quite often I'll ask opinions of others- this usually being my mother, mother-in-law, and friends who have recently had kids. Needless to say, I don't make decisions lightly and usually know what I'm talking about before I commit to something.

So, *ahem*, here are some decisions we have made regarding how our child will be raised. If you agree with them, fantastic. If you don't, well you don't bash my opinions and I won't bash yours. See how easy that is? :)

Diapering

Sadly, little man will not come out of the womb being potty trained. So, we had to make a decision- disposable diapers or cloth diapers? This is quite a debate these days, what with everyone trying to be green and all. We decided that we are going to use disposable diapers for the first month or so. This is because after that, we plan to cloth diaper and we are going to use the OS (one size) diapers. They claim to fit 7-35 pounds, but after talking to other mom's it is more realistic to expect them to fit around 10 pounds. We figure that we'll have enough to get used to at first with a new baby in the house so rather than buying seperate "newborn cloth diapers" we'll just use disposable for awhile. We have registered at diapers.com for the CD's we chose as well as Target. They are around $18/each and we figure we'll need about 20 in order to do laundry every other day. This comes out to cost about $360 (of course, we're hoping to receive some of that as gifts!). The great thing about these diapers is that they're ALL-IN-ONE which means no inserts to deal with folding, etc. Plus, they are one size. So, we spend $360 ONE TIME and that will last us for as long as our child is in diapers PLUS any additional children. To compare, a weeks worth of disposable diapers will cost around $20. That makes a ONE YEAR investment of $1040. Considering most kids are in diapers for at least two years... well, we're saving a considerable amount of money.

If you're interested, we decide on the BumGenius 3.0 AIO OS cloth diapers.





Feeding

Boobies are for eating! Okay, totally ridiculous, but I saw that on a onesie (we will not be purchasing it, by the way.)

Yes, I plan to breastfeed. I know this is also of great debate but we feel like a) it's the best option for baby, b) it's conveinent, and c) it's cheap. Given all of that, I can't see any reason NOT to breastfeed.

I'm well aware that some people have problems doing so, and I'm not above thinking that it may not work out. However, I plan to try my best and give lil baby the best nourishment I can. If it doesn't work out though, formula is not poison and we will go that route.

Oh, and no... I do not want to hear your horror stories about how you, your daughter, your best friends sisters niece had problems. I would rather go about in my dream world and assume it will all be perfect. :)

This picture totally reminds me of "Meet the Fockers"... hahaha



Solids

I'm not buying store bought baby food, except on the rare occasion that we travel, etc. It is SO easy to make your own baby food these days, then you know exactly what they are eating. My grandma got us this:



and we registered for some of these:



so it should be pretty easy! I'll just make and freeze whatever I'm making for us and he'll have individual portion sizes ready to defrost and eat. :)

I'm sure there will be more of these along the way, but I've been wordy enough for one day.