Mother Naturally

Hi there!  My name is MacKenzie Monroe and I am the owner and founder of Chic & Savvy Mamas.  I guess my story really started when I was pregnant and began to realize that I had many more options than my doctors were telling me about.  This lead me to do a lot of my own research and hire an AMAZING doula.  Through my research and the help of my doula, I was able to present my birthing care team with a Birth Plan that was well informed and concise, and proceeded to have a birth that, although very long and painful, went the way I wanted it to go.  As I began to meet other new moms in the following weeks I started realizing that most of them hadn't had the kind of birth experience they had wished for and had also felt underinformed about all of their options. 

Then began my mothering experience.  I started out, once again blind to my options, as a fairly "generic" parent.  I was devoted to breastfeeding and wearing my baby (although I didn't know it was called that at the time) but vowed that I would never, and I mean NEVER use cloth diapers!  My husband and I read the recommended books about crying it out and training your child to sleep in isolation on a schedule, and even tried it a few times.  In the end we just had this feeling that there had to be a better approach to parenting. 

And thus my research began again!  Through lots of reading, web surfing, and contacts with other moms (including my AMAZING doula), I started finding out about this thing called attachment parenting and all of the incredible products that many attached parents were using.  I realized that cloth diapering had dramatically changed since the days of pins, plastic pants and toilet dunking.  Another major part of my research involved finding out about all the chemicals I had been inadvertantly exposing my son to through his disposable diapers, baby wash and lotion, and a variety of other products I used on him and in my home but had never given much thought to before. 

After much consideration (and convincing of my husband) my cloth diapering/natural parenting adventure began!  I purged all the nasty stuff from our home and splurged a bit on restocking with all natural products.  The first investment I made was in cloth diapers.  My cloth diapering stash started out with 8 pockets, 2 of 4 different kinds to find out what I liked best.  I exclusively (or very nearly) CDed my son for 2 months with only these 8 diapers- yes, it can be done!  After two months however, I was looking for a reprieve from the laundry and felt ready to branch out a bit with my CDing, so I ordered some prefolds with snappis and covers.  Since then I have tried nearly every type of CDing out there and have really honed my tastes in on what works best for my family.  The next thing I invested in was natural body care for the whole family.  Following that I ditched all of our cleaning supplies and started making my own- and wouldn't you know it, not only are they cheaper but they work WAY better and smell so fresh!

All in all, my pre-parenting and parenting experiences have really developed a passion in me to help other parents get the knowledge and know-how that is not readily available in our society.  I hope to help new (and not so new) moms diminish that sense of being lost, especially in those early days of parenting, and reveal to them a whole different and completely wonderful way of taking care of their little ones.  I also hope to make natural parenting products more readily available- especially to those in my community (Eastern Washington), since we have virtually no natural parenting products available in our area.  So that pretty much says it!  Now my husband and I can't fathom parenting any other way, and seeing cloth diapers on our son's little bum is just about the cutest thing we have ever seen!  Who knew that diapering could be fun?!