Non-toxic Baby Care: the Best Free, Online Resources

When I first became concerned about environmental toxins after my first child was born, there was plenty of information about eco-friendlier choices scattered around the Internet, but no concise simple guides to get me started. I ended up purchasing several books (which I now love), but as an eco-novice I found the amount of information in them overwhelming and difficult to absorb or implement. What I really needed was a short and sweet green guide for sleep-deprived new parents. But at the time, I wasn't able to find anything like that online. Not so anymore!

Here are a few excellent online guides for natural baby care that are free, concise, and doable.

Read More

Absorbent Yet Trim: Hanna Andersson Training Unders

My 22-month-old in Hanna Andersson XS Training Unders in organic cotton

Now that I am nearing the end of our days using training pants, I decided it was time to give those Hanna Andersson Training Unders in organic cotton a try. Guess what? They're great! Too bad I didn't invest in a stash when my first child was potty training. They cost $26 for 3 (solid colors) or $28 for 3 (patterns) and are made of 100% organic cotton, certified by Oeko-Tex Standard 100, an excellent third party certification for textiles.

Hanna Andersson Training Unders look a lot like Gerber training pants in photos, but they are so much better.

(Note: You can read an in depth comparison of the five other styles of training pants we've tried here.)

Why We Love Hanna Andersson Training Unders

• Well made. I'm impressed with the quality of materials and construction. 
• Organic cotton. Conventional cotton accounts for 10% of total pesticide use and nearly 25% of insecticides use worldwide. Organic cotton is much better for the environment. I don't buy much organic cotton clothing for my kids (they wear mostly second-hand), but I do buy organic pajamas and I'm moving towards organic underclothing. I figure they wear their pajamas for about 50% of each day and their underwear is right against their skin and in contact with their most sensitive parts. So those are my priorities.
• Great fit. The training unders come in size XS (1-3.5 yrs, 20-33 lbs) and S (3-6 yrs, 31-48 lbs). The XS fit my 22-month-old really well, and I'm sure they would have fit her well around 9 months and one-year as well (since she was chunkier then).
• Very easy to pull up and down. My toddler can remove and pull back up these trainers all by herself.
• Absorbent. The Hanna Andersson Training Unders have a four-ply crotch panel and are surprisingly absorbent. Not quite as absorbent as the Imse Vimse training pants, I'd say, but much more absorbent (maybe 3 or 4 times more) than the Gerber training pants  Despite the fact that they are similar colors to my Gerber training pants, I never have any trouble telling them apart, because they just feel denser and more substantial. I have been really surprised by how much the Hanna Anderssen Training Unders hold. They often prevent puddles, even for big accidents (which is the main kind of accident we have around here), especially if my toddler is wearing pants over them.
• Yet trim. The training unders feel like underwear made of heavy fabric with a little extra absorbency where it counts. As with the Gerber training pants, I will continue to use them as regular underwear even when my toddler's potty accidents are a distant memory because they basically have the same fit and bulk as regular children's underwear.

Naturally, they are not waterproof. But you could always slip a nylon shell over them if you needed some insurance.

I like our Training Unders and the idea of organic under clothing so much that I'm going to watch for a sale and stock up on Hanna Andersson underwear and undershirts for my older two children as well.


What are your favorite training pants?

Related Posts

Comparing Brands of Reusable Cloth Training Pants
Everything Eco-novice Knows About Early Potty Training
Everything Eco-novice Knows About Cloth Diapers

Is Your Child Ready to Use the Potty?
Top Methods of Entertaining a Child on the Potty


Disclosure: I purchased our Hanna Andersson training pants (and all of our other training pants) with my own money. All opinions are my own. Hanna Andersson and Amazon links are affiliate links. Your purchase via these links helps support my blog, which I very much appreciate. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Read More

Is Your Baby Lotion Safe for Babies?

Super soft newborn skin is also uniquely susceptible
to absorption of toxic chemicals.

This post is sponsored by Earth Mama Angel Baby and Green Sisterhood.

Like many of you, I started paying attention to the ingredients of common household products after the birth of my first child. When my baby first sucked on our wood floor I wondered, what's in my floor cleaner? When he sucked on my hair I wondered, what's in my leave-in conditioner and is it safe for a baby to ingest?   As I changed his diapers I wondered, what are disposable diapers made of? And as I rubbed lotion into his dry skin I wondered, how safe are the unpronounceable ingredients of this baby lotion?

I think anyone who has ever held a newborn baby in his or her arms cannot help but grasp on an instinctual level how truly vulnerable newborns are.  Unfortunately, one way in which babies are particularly vulnerable is to the effects of harmful chemicals in their environment.

Unique Susceptibility of Babies to Environmental Chemicals

Read More

(Almost) Everything I've Ever Bought or Sold on Craig's List

The other day when I mentioned that I'd recently sold something on Craig's List, a friend asked me, "How does that work? I've never used Craig's List." I was shocked. SHOCKED. This frugal soul had neither purchased nor sold a single thing on Craig's List. Just in the past month I have purchased a TV stand, infant bucket swing, and kid's bicycle, and sold 2 portable air conditioners on Craig's List.

My conversation with my friend inspired me to try to catalog all the items I've ever bought or sold on Craig's List. It's not truly possible, because it's just been too many things over too many years (dating back to my single days in Los Angeles over 15 years ago), but I did look through my emails and walk around my house to try to remember what I've bought and sold on Craig's List. Here is what I came up with.

Read More

Hidden Dangers in Baby's Nursery Infographic by HCHW

Last month I wrote about Healthy Child Healthy World's free eBook Easy Steps for a Healthy & Safe Nursery last month. Now they've released this informative infographic called Hidden Dangers in Your Baby's Nursery.

Via Column Five for Healthy Child

Share, tweet, and pin! Spread the word to help parents protect children from harmful chemicals during this vulnerable stage of development.

Related posts

• Eco-novice's Top Five Tips for a Healthy Nursery
• Easy Steps for a Healthy & Safe Nursery: a Fantastic Free Resource from HCHW
• Avoiding Toxins in Baby Products
• What Does a Baby Need?
• Non-toxic Crib Mattresses
• In Search of the Affordable Natural Bed
• The Best Time to Try Cloth Diapers

Read More

Eco-novice's Top Five Tips for a Healthy Nursery

Here are some simple suggestions for keeping your baby's nursery healthy and toxin-free.

Use less. I have three children. My youngest is one year old. The more babies I've had, the less baby stuff I've wanted. Even without switching to greener products, you can expose your baby to fewer toxins just by buying and using less. Buy less furniture and decor, use less baby gear, slather the baby with fewer bath and body products.

Read More

Which Soft-structured Baby Carrier is Better: Ergo or Beco?

I have an Ergo and a Beco Butterfly II, both of which I love and use regularly. I often get asked by friends and family which carrier is better. More specifically, I often get asked, if I only could have one baby carrier, which one would I choose: the Ergo or the Beco?

Read More

Easy Steps for a Healthy & Safe Nursery: a Fantastic Free Resource from HCHW

Healthy Child Healthy World, one of my favorite and most trusted sources, has just released an invaluable resource to help parents and other adults keep children safe from toxins: Easy Steps for a Healthy & Safe Nursery. This interactive eBook is 40+ pages and packed with user-friendly information and tips.

I love that the Easy Steps eBook begins with a section entitled "How to Use This Guide" which directly addresses the toxic information overload that so many parents encounter when they first discover the number of toxins in our everyday environment. Next, the eBook briefly discusses why we need to pay attention to chemicals in the environment, including a discussion of childhood diseases that are on the rise -- a great section to share with partners and other caregivers who might need a little convincing that baby products can be unsafe.

The bulk of this eBook, though, is all about solutions. Here are some features you'll find within Easy Steps for a Healthy & Safe Nursery:

Read More

Natural Nursing Pillow as Sitting Aid for Baby

My 7mo baby using the Blessed Nest nursing pillow as a sitting aid. I still use it for nursing too.

I never liked nursing with the Boppy pillow I received as a baby gift. But I did find it useful as a sitting aid for my first and second babies once they were around five months. My babies are pretty late on the physical developmental milestones. My current baby at nearly 10 months still isn't sitting independently. Plus I have wood floors and falling over hurts. So, for me, some kind of sitting aid comes in very handy and is used for many months. But I don't own a Boppy anymore. It didn't make the cut during the last move.

So I was pleased to discover that my Blessed Nest nursing pillow actually works quite well as a sitting aid. It works well because it's so flexible and adjustable. I can move the sides all the way around so they fit snugly around the sides of the baby, and distribute the hulls either evenly or variably with more in the backs or on the sides.



I thought some of you might like to know.


(You can read my full review of the Blessed Nest nursing pillow and other natural nursing pillows in this post.)

Read More

Wood Keys by Etsy Shop Mama Made Them

My 8-month-old with wooden keys by Mama Made Them.

When my first child was a baby, I used to sometimes give him my car keys to play with while buckling him in the car seat. But one day after buckling him in, I walked over to my car door and just before opening it heard the familiar "beep" of the car alarm. I had accidentally left the car keys in the hands of my baby and my baby had locked me out of the car. Before total panic could set it, my baby pushed another button and unlocked the doors. Needless to say, after that experience, I never again let him play with my car keys.

Even if you are no where near your car, you should avoid letting small children play with your keys because household keys often contain lead and little kids love to put keys in their mouths.

But recently I was thinking about how my current baby is always trying to grab my keys out of my hand. And why not? Keys are fun. That's why there are about 100 varieties of plastic toy keys for sale. I once owned a set of colorful #5 plastic toy keys, but I have long since purged all plastic infant toys from my house. And so I thought, I should get her some wood keys.

Read More

Labor and Delivery Hospital Bag Packing List

So you're having a baby. What should you pack in that bag you are taking with you to the hospital? I've had a lot of time to think about what to pack in my hospital bag for labor and delivery. All three of my children have been overdue. My first two babies came two weeks over due and were induced, so those deliveries were basically scheduled and I had much more time than I ever wanted to think about what to put in the bag. Here are some things to consider taking if you will soon be finding yourself in a labor and delivery room.

Read More

Eco-novice's Favorite Breastfeeding Gear

It's World Breastfeeding Week!

For me, one of the wonderful benefits of breastfeeding is the fact that you don't need any gear. You will forget the diaper bag or change of clothes or favorite toy many, many times in your parenting career, but if you breastfeed, you'll never forget the milk. Nonetheless, there are some things that have made breastfeeding easier and more comfortable for me. They aren't necessary, but they can be useful.

Nursing pillows. I am able to read and even write or use my computer a little while nursing if I have a nursing pillow. For my third baby, I ditched the polyurethane foam one in favor of two natural nursing pillows. One is filled with buckwheat hulls, the other with organic cotton. I love them both. The buckwheat one has also worked really well for my baby as support/ padding for sitting.

Read More

Our Favorite Natural Baby Teethers

I used to have lots of plastic baby toys.  First I got rid of all the soft plastic toys (in case they were made of vinyl and contained phthalates), then I got rid of all the plastic toys except those that I knew were made of "safe" plastics. But in the end, I decided to banish all the plastic baby toys. I found that when I had plastic as well as natural toys, I often had to watch my baby favor the plastic ones.  But for my babies who never got to suck on plastic, I've found they like the natural toys plenty.

Since babies spend so much time with their hands and their toys in their mouths, and since babies are especially vulnerable to synthetic chemicals, why mess around with plastics? These days there are tons of awesome teethers, rattles, stuffed animals, blocks and other toys for babies made of cotton, wool, bamboo, wood and other natural materials. Here are some of my third baby's favorite teethers:

10 Natural Teethers for Baby

Click here to continue reading on Green Phone Booth.

.

Read More

Avoiding Toxins in Baby Products

Research on Toxic Chemicals in Baby Products

It seems like every few months I read a new report about the toxic chemicals in baby products. Developing fetuses, babies, and young children are especially vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals.

Formaldehyde in furniture. In the report Toxic Baby Furniture: The Latest Case for Making Products Safe from the Start (2008), Environment America reported that "baby nursery cribs, changing tables, and dressers can emit formaldehyde at levels linked with increased risk of childhood allergies and asthma." Formaldehyde is also a carcinogen.

Read More

What Does a Baby Need?

Snoozing in an Ergo baby carrier.

I have three children. My youngest is 3 months old. The more babies I've had, the less baby stuff I've wanted.  Here is a sampling of baby gear I used to own that I have gotten rid of:

• Pack 'n' play (barely used it)
• Exersaucer (took up too much space for the limited amount of time it was actually useful)
• Swing (my kids never took to it)
• Infant car seat (now we use a convertible car seat that lasts until the booster seat)
• Play mat (not safe to use with a toddler around)
• Changing table (now I use a towel on top of my bed)

Babies do need to sleep, eat, pee and poop, move and play. But after three babies, I know that there is very little stuff that a baby actually needs to do these things. Since babies are extremely vulnerable to endocrine disruptors and other harmful chemicals, this is the time to be super-conscientious about materials and ingredients. Here are five items that have turned out to be essentials for my babies.

Read More

Natural Nursing Pillows

Blessed Nest nursing pillow, filled with organic buckwheat hulls.

I nursed my first two children on a My Brest Friend nursing pillow, a hand-me-down from my older sister. I often let my infants take a little nap on the nursing pillow after nursing while I read a book.  I liked a lot of things about the My Brest Friend: the flat, firm surface; the adjustable girth. But there was also something I learned to really not like about the My Brest Friend: it's made of polyurethane foam, most likely treated with toxic flame retardant chemicals.

Read More

Non-toxic Crib Mattresses

[This post is frequently updated as new non-toxic crib mattress options become available.]

Every few months someone asks me about crib mattresses. With good reason. Babies spend a lot of time sleeping! I think greening the bed should be a pretty high priority for anyone trying to expose their family to fewer toxic chemicals.

Read More

I Love Baby Carriers (Wordless Wednesday)

This post is part of

Wordless Wednesday @ Farmer's Daughter

Read More