Today we have a great post about eco-friendly parenting from Zwaggle user, Holly.  Holly has her own blog, The Cloth Diaper Experiment, where she writes about her journey to be a green mom.  Be sure to check it out!

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Holly from “The Cloth Diaper Experiment” here!  I have recently taken a huge interest in becoming more eco-conscious.  The reason for this recent obsession?  My 7-month-old son, Jackson.  Jackson means the world to me and I want to do my part to leave him with a better, cleaner planet.  By making small changes, I feel like I’m doing something huge.

One thing that I’ve done recently is joined Zwaggle!  Zwaggle fits in perfectly with my goals to be an eco-conscious parent.  I love how the site focuses on reusing and recycling, and I also love the sense of community here, because being green is all about community!

So, what else have I done over the past 7 months to become the best eco-friendly mom I can be?

1) I do not buy bottled water anymore.  While water will always be my beverage of choice, I refuse to buy cases of water, which I used to do all the time.  Instead, I got a BPA free, reusable water bottle a years ago and fill it with filtered water from the fridge.  It seems so simple but it’s making a huge difference.  I think that individual bottles of water should be saved and used for emergencies, not everyday use.

2) I take reusable bags to the store with me.  I have about 15 and I try to keep them in my car at all times.  If I forget them and end up with plastic bags, I feel pretty guilty.  If everyone would switch to using reusable bags most of the time instead of plastic, it would cut way down on unneeded garbage.

3) I make Jackson’s baby food.  I am not throwing away several jars or plastic containers everyday and I know EXACTLY what he is getting to eat!  Making your own baby food is so simple and easy:

Cook the food until it is soft (steaming works the best and retains the most nutrients), puree, blend or mash to the desired consistency, and then freeze (I use BPA-free trays, ice cube trays with lids also work great).  After the food is frozen, I pop the cubes out of the tray and into a freezer bag!  When it’s time for Jackson to eat, I just thaw a cube or two.  That’s it!

It’s really easy to make big batches of baby food at one time and store them in the freezer.  The last time I made it was over a month ago and I still have 3 bags of cubes in the freezer!  By doing bigger batches once a month, it’s really not time consuming at all!

4) My biggest (and scariest) change so far has been switching from disposable diapers to cloth diapers.  Did you know that it takes a disposable diaper 500 YEARS to break down in a landfill?  Yes, you read that right, FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!  The average family will use 5,000-7,000 disposable diapers PER CHILD.  That’s A LOT of unneeded garbage stinking up our landfills for A LONG time.

Not many people know about the cloth diapers of today.  They are not like they used to be!  Prefolds (the kind of cloth diapers that you are probably picturing) are still around, but there are so many new varieties that are just as easy to use as disposables!  Sure, you might worry about how to deal with dirty diapers (I know I was), but you know what?  It’s not a big deal with the right products!  I don’t know what I would do without my diaper sprayer; it makes messy diapers so easy to deal with!  For the extra squeamish, there are flushable liners.  They resemble dryer sheets and you lay them on the inside of the cloth diaper.  When it’s messy, just flush it down the toilet.  It’s that easy!

Switching to cloth diapers has a HUGE impact on the environment and it also saves you money.  They’re also ADORABLE and are so much more healthy and comfortable for your baby.

Another great thing about them?  They last, so I can use the same diapers on any future brothers or sisters that Jackson has!  When I’m done with them for good, I can post them here on Zwaggle so that other families can do their part for the environment too!

As you can probably tell, I’m very passionate about cloth diapers.  I started my blog to show that it can be done and that it’s not complicated at all.  If you have any questions about cloth diapers or making your own baby food, I would be happy to answer them.  Just visit my blog and leave me a comment there or here on the Zwaggle blog, and I’ll be sure to get back to you!

Making little changes today makes a big difference for tomorrow.  I want to be able to tell my children that I did whatever I could to leave our planet in the best shape possible for them.  Don’t you?

* Be sure to follow Holly on Twitter: @TheCDExperiment

Clowns, SpiderMan, Ninjas, Ballerinas, Fairy Princesses, Ghosts - all appear at my house with startling regularity every Halloween. Snickers, Kit-Kats, Milky Ways, Hershey Bars, Sugar Babies - all disappear from my house also with surprising speed every Halloween. (Ahem. Sorry about that - apparently this trying to lose weight thing is affecting me more than I thought!)

So, Halloween is on the horizon. It’s one of my favorite holidays - the excuse to walk my kids around the neighborhood with good friends, sneaking a candy bar or three out of my kids plastic pumpkins while drinking a hot coffee - well, there’s really not much to adore. Except for trying to find new costumes each year.

My kids have been scouring the catalogs for weeks now, planning the most elaborate outfits involving crowns, light sabers, glitter, sequins and cardboard boxes. All they can see is excitement, festivities, fun and partying, and all I can see is work. How much time and how much work those costumes will be for me. I mean, I hate to be a spoilsport and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun, but at the same point in time if I have to create a bunch of homemade costumes that will ruin MY fun - and I’m in the mood for fun not work.

In the past, my kids have been dogs, lions, pirates, ballerinas, Sesame Street characters, prom queens, iPods, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Padme Amidala, fall fairies, and a bag of jelly beans. We reuse some costumes each year but most need to be passed on since apparently its against the law for one of my children to wear last year’s outfit.  Last year I posted a bunch here on Zwaggle and of course, am planning on doing the same this year.  I mean, really - have you seen the costumes that are available right now? There are some really cute ones, and the thought that I could list one of ours and without spending anything, move it on to another family, while obtaining a “new to us” costume that would make my own kids happy - well, that’s just gold right there. So save the money you’d spend on a brand new costume. Trade your Zoints for one here and then use the money you saved to take yourself to dinner. You’ve earned it. I’m sure of it.

I do love to see the costumes kids come up with though, except for some of the costumes I’ve seen for preteen girls - I wouldn’t even wear some of them myself, much less send my 11 year old to walk the streets in them.  Anyway, don’t get me started.

I remember one year, when my son picked a costume - and I don’t remember exactly WHAT costume it was - but the mask was the entire costume. As in, the costume made no sense without the mask - and he refused to wear it. Without the mask, he was wearing a simple robe, and no one knew who he was, but he didn’t care. Or the year that my daughter was a fairy, but she refused to wear the wings, the tiara or the bodysuit - basically, all she wore was a t shirt and some pink tights. It bugged me like nobody’s business, but kids are funny like that - they can create a costume out of a robe and some spray painted ice cream cones with a snake on top.

What about you?  Tell us about some of your favorite costumes (good or bad) from year’s past or even a funny Halloween story.  We all have them.  And we all love to laugh.