"Can it be done?": Cloth diapers and the working mom

I had the pleasure of 'meeting' a professor and online/distance learning coordinator for a major Chicago university on Monday night... in the weekly #clothdiapers Twitter party.

That's right: a mom with a demanding full-time job outside of the home--and academia rivals the world of corporate business in terms of demands placed upon those who hold management positions--uses cloth diapers. Not only does she use them, but she loves them enough to pop in for cloth diaper-themed Twitter parties and contribute to the conversation. (And since she's a social media and online communications prof, believe me, we retailers, bloggers, and manufacturers eat up her tweets like candy!)

One of our own cloth diaper consultants, Jill C. in Kinder, La., works a full 40 hours as the assistant to an anthropologist on a tribal reservation here in Southwest Louisiana. (Among her many responsibilities is maintaining a greenhouse garden--how cool is that?!) Jill was hesitant to get started in cloth because she worried that she wouldn't have time to add the laundry to her home routine and because she was anxious that her family's chosen daycare, which she was very satisfied with, wouldn't take kindly to the idea.

Our Facebook fan Emily, an expectant mother, expressed her concerns about working and using cloth diapers this way:

Well, Emily and company, how about this?

Over the next three weeks, our blog will focus on ALL the how-tos of cloth diapering while working outside the home full-time. We'll leave no stone unturned: whom to approach at your daycare and how, exactly what to teach the childcare providers so that they feel empowered and confident while cloth diapering your baby, what kind of diapers to send to daycare, when to schedule your cloth diaper laundry, where to seek support for troubleshooting should the need arise, why you should make sure your commitment to cloth diapering isn't causing the rest of your household chores to suffer, how cloth diapering even with limited time at home will benefit your home life, and anything else you can think to ask!

And, just for fun, we've decided to announce the winner of the $10 gift certificate right here on our blog today! The winning photograph can be found after the jump...

And the winner, as voted upon by our consultants, is Ashley Johns and her little McNeese Cowboy in his matching blueberry SoftBums!

Congratulations! Ashley, contact us within 24 hours at allison@elemeno-pee.com to retrieve your gift certificate code!