Finishing Off Cloth Diapers

Oct 24, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting

We’re in the middle of potty training my youngest. I can hardly believe that soon I won’t have to deal with diapers anymore. Diapers have been a near constant thing in my life since my oldest was born 9.5 years ago. I am so glad we finally discovered cloth diapers so we could cut down on the waste.

Now my youngest is really starting to get it with her potty training. She has enough accidents that we aren’t ditching the diapers yet, although I think we could if we wanted to just deal with the occasional mess. Even nights are getting close to done, although it’s harder to predict when nighttime training will be complete. Now we have to decide what to do with the cloth diapers once we’re done with them.

By done, I mean we aren’t having more kids, so no need to save the diapers for the next little one. If we were planning on having more kids, keeping them would make sense. We’re not, so it’s going to be time for the diapers to go away.

One of the great things about cloth diapers is that even if they’re in a condition where all you feel you can do is throw them out, they break down faster than disposable diapers. Depending on type, it may be a few months or a few years, but they’ll break down, much sooner than the estimated 250-500 years for disposable diapers. But before you just throw them out, consider donating them to charity. Sometimes they have uses for old cloth as rags or someplace they can send them.

If your cloth diapers are still in generally good condition, however, you may be able to sell them or give them to a family who needs them. There are sites such as Diaper Swappers for selling cloth diapers online.

Some types of cloth diaper lend themselves well to repurposing. Just how you repurpose them depends on the type you get. Some are good as burp cloths or dust rags. Some cloth diapers use microfiber inserts, which can be good for a variety of cleaning jobs. Obviously you want to be sure you’ve cleaned them very well indeed before you reuse any cloth diaper for other purposes, and you may still gross some people out with the thought of it.

Of course, the same goes for your cloth baby wipes. They’ve done one job; now you can come up with a new job for them.

Tags: cloth diapers, potty training, toddler

Will You Join the “Life’s Sweeter with Fewer Sugary Drinks” Challenge?

Sep 12, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting

Life’s pretty sweet at times, but a lot of us overdo it with sugary drinks. They’re fun to have, and children in particular get into the habit of drinking sodas and such rather than make healthier choices. The Life’s Sweeter with Fewer Sugary Drinks challenge is about changing that habit.

Signing up is easy, just fill out the form on the site.  They’ll give you a free download with tips on how to help promote the campaign. A lot of the focus is on getting businesses and institutions to make changes in the drinks they make available, but individuals can participate as well. I learned about this challenge at Be the Catalyst.

The focus on is getting people to drink fewer sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks that aren’t 100% juice, and the like. The goal sounds amazingly easy to me, as I personally rarely drink even fruit juice, the kids only get 100% juice as an easy drink to carry to school (yes, reusable bottles), and my son only gets Gatorade for his soccer practice or games. Sodas and such are a rare treat for my kids, not a weekly thing. Makes the goal of bringing the average number of sugary drinks down to no more than three 12 ounce cans a week seem pretty easy for us. The current national average is more than twice that.

I have to say I don’t consider our current habits perfect by any means. The Gatorade thing for my son’s soccer practice isn’t a favorite of mine, but a firm preference of my husband’s, which I have not chosen to argue much with. It could easily be replaced with plain water most of the time. I was glad to have him drinking it a couple weeks ago when it was already over 100 degrees F by the end of his 8 a.m. soccer game (they really should have cancelled the rest of the games that day, way too hot and humid and one girl did pass out from the heat later in the day at a game), but most times water and some fruit or other healthy snack should be plenty rehydrating.

Even though it’s 100% juice, limiting juice intake is important. That’s why my kids only get that at school. I send it because they drink it well, and it’s easier to deal with than milk. I have frozen milk cubes we’ll use to send milk as a drink later in the school year, but as we’ve been having days mostly over 100 degrees F, I’ve wanted something that travels better. It’s quite heavily iced to keep it cold, so I don’t doubt that it’s well watered down by the time they’re actually drinking it. At home, it’s almost all milk or water.

As an individual, the steps you take in this campaign are quite simple. Don’t drink so many sugary drinks, and don’t serve or make available so many to your family, especially to children under the age of 6. My kids have always had fresh water available to them all day, and they love it. They’ll gladly take sugary drinks if available, but they usually aren’t so it’s just a nonissue.

Remember, cutting down on sugary drinks isn’t just about the money, although you can save quite a bit by drinking more water and less of other drinks. It’s even more about your health, as sugary drinks add an amazing number of calories to your diet in an unhealthy way

Tags: challenge, decrease sugary drinks, drink less soda, drink water, life's sweeter with fewer sugary drinks

Can You Save By Packing Your Child’s School Lunch in Reusable Containers?

Aug 15, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting

The one problem with packing your child’s school lunch in reusable containers is the upfront cost of the whole thing. Good quality containers add up fast. Are you going to save money within a reasonable time frame?

Some of this depends on your situation and the particular containers you buy. I’m going to focus on safer, relatively eco friendly containers as best I can.

Naturally, if your financial situation is tight and you qualify for free lunches through the school for your child, you can’t save money over that. You may still want to choose to send your child with lunch if you can because you can better choose the foods you give them, and the lunches will be as healthy as you make them.

I’ll use local school lunch pricing for my comparisons to simply buying lunch at school, and I’ll look up prices to compare with buying disposable products. Your prices may vary. Food prices are very much an estimate, but I’m not talking about those horrid convenience lunches either that are even less healthy than what the schools provide. I’m assuming fresher and made at home as much as possible.

Lunch Bags and Food Containers

I’m going to start with the cost of lunch bags and food containers. I’ll add in food costs in a little bit.

A good, fairly eco friendly lunch bag can cost $10-20, more or less, depending on the brand you buy and the accessories it comes with. Right now, I’m assuming a fairly basic, insulated lunch bag.

I’ll go stainless steel for the containers. More expensive, but you don’t have to worry about what’s getting into the food from stainless steel, as you do with plastic. I chose the large Lunchbots container, which is about $20 regularly, but may be available on sale. Other versions cost less.

These containers aren’t for liquids, and as the weather turns cold in winter you may want to be able to send hot soups, so I’ll recommend also buying an insulated container such as a Thermos food jar for $15 or so. Yes, things are adding up already. They often do.

Now let’s look at the cost of equivalent disposable items. Paper lunch bags are pretty cheap – I found a pack of 50 recycled paper lunch bags online for under $4. I expect they’re available for less elsewhere, but I wasn’t able to get to the store. That said, unless you buy a huge pack, you will have to buy these more than once a school year as they don’t often survive the day.

Ziploc quart bags are also about $4 for 50. These can be reused, but kids are much prone to throwing them out and they aren’t likely to last through too many washings.

If you’re going to send hot food, you’d still need a thermos, so no advantage there to paper, and some disadvantage as it may have some trouble with the weight or size of even the kid size models.

At this point, I’m going more expensive than I have to on the reusable items and less expensive than I could on the disposables. I’ll discount the Thermos in the comparisons, as you’ll either choose to buy one or not, and it’s the same price in either scenario.

Cheaper versions of the reusable lunch bag run about $6, and my local dollar store carries a huge variety of plastic containers, sometimes in multipacks, so about $1 for a container or two.

Call things about $40 for the school year for the reusables on the high side. There are about 180 days in the school year, if you use only one paper bag and one plastic bag for each meal, you’d have to buy them four times, with some left over, or perhaps to be used those days you need an extra bag. This is pretty common with the plastic bags, as you don’t usually put a sandwich in the same baggie as the chopped vegetables or fruit. Call these supplies about $32, or a slight advantage pricewise over reusables… except that the reusables may be able to be used for more than one school year, depending on how much your child bangs them up or loses them. That’s not even getting into the debates about whether or not the plastic baggies are healthy for your child in the long run.

Now think that on the cheap side, you could get a reusable bag and containers in the same range as one round of disposables. They may or may not be BPA free, of course.

I’ve also skipped the cost of cold packs for your child’s lunch which can be important even if you go disposable otherwise. For food safety reasons, you should try to keep your child’s lunches cold.

Obviously, you have no container expenses if your child buys lunch at school.

Food Costs

School lunches here cost $2 a day if you aren’t on the free lunch program. That doesn’t include a drink, but I’ll be dealing with that in the next section.

I’ll assume that you’re sending about the same foods no matter which type of containers you use. Your costs will vary by season, your location and how much food you need to pack for your child’s appetite.

Now, many studies have shown home packed school lunches to be less healthy than those provided by schools, which I can only assume means many parents pack lunches with a lot of convenience and processed foods. In my estimates, I’m making a goal of avoiding those as much as possible, although my kids have been fond of a nice mozzarella cheese stick at times.

You do have to think about the kind of lunch you’re packing your child, or the school may be right about their meals being healthier. Just take a look at this flyer (PDF) from a school that compared their school lunches to what kids brought in. I have to say their photographed lunch look better than what I’ve seen in school lunches. It’s pretty sad to me that only 4 kids out of the 130 surveyed had a vegetable in their home packed lunch.

Do not buy prepackaged foods for your child’s school lunch if you can at all help it. That can often double the cost of the food item. That includes skipping the “baby” carrots in the one or two pound bags in favor of regular carrots. You can peel and chop them as necessary yourself. Same for sliced apples and such.

The main dish is where your cost will vary most widely. You can make sandwiches or wraps fairly cheaply, but be picky about the lunch meats you use. So many have a lot of preservatives and other unhealthy ingredients. The basic peanut butter and jelly sandwich is cheap and may be sufficient to some kids.

If your kids don’t mind vegetarian food, lunch may be a good time to go that route. Quinoa or couscous cooked and mixed with vegetables and seasonings is pretty affordable and healthy. They aren’t for all kids, but some will eat them happily.

Hard boiled eggs travel well too and are a good source of protein.String cheese can be pretty good too, with an average cost of about $0.50.

Costs for the main dish of your child’s lunch will vary quite a bit. A single egg may be under $0.20, depending on the type you buy and where you buy them. Most other main dishes will be more, so call it a range of $0.20 – $2.00. Remember that if you have leftovers that travel well and don’t need to be reheated, school lunches are a way to get them eaten.

Vegetables don’t have to cost a ton. A pound of carrots is usually well under a dollar in my area, and cucumbers can range from $0.50 to $1.00 each. But a pound of carrots is good for many lunches, and a cucumber can be sliced for 2-4 lunches, depending on its size and your child’s appetite for them. Broccoli, bell peppers and cauliflower are good lunch choices as well. Whatever you choose, let’s call it $0.10- $0.50 for a vegetable in the lunch.

Fresh fruit can be quite affordable, especially if you can stick with fruit in season. It doesn’t even have to be a lot of trouble if your child doesn’t mind you not cutting it up. My son needs sliced apples right now due to a temporary shortage of upper front teeth, but the rest of the time, he’d rather have them whole.

Bananas are most often $0.69 a pound in my area. With an average weight of 7 ounces, that puts one banana at about $0.30. Apples vary quite a bit more, going as low as $0.69 on sale in season, and up to about $1.69 out of season. Their average is also close to 7 ounces, so that’s as high as $0.74 each. Other fruits, other costs.

Taking the middle of the road here, that’s $1.10 for the main course, $0.30 for the vegetable, $0.52 for the fruit, or about $1.92 for the whole meal. Expect a lot of variation, your costs may be higher or lower depending on what your kids like to eat and what you serve them.

I usually skip chips, cookies and crackers in the school lunch, aside from very rare treats.

So no, you won’t be saving a whole lot, if you save anything at all. That doesn’t make it not worth your time and money if your school isn’t providing a very healthy lunch. Some have improved a lot in recent years, but other schools still provide rather horrifying meals.

Drinks

A good reusable drink bottle can be pretty cheap or on the pricey side. I’ve seen stainless steel drink bottles as low as $3.50, although I don’t know about the quality. Too thin of stainless steel may not last that well. Klean Kanteens start in the $14 range and are quite durable. Insulated bottles will cost more.

A gallon of 100% juice costs about $3-4, depending on the type you get. Assuming a 12 ounce reusable bottle, that’s about 10 fillings of the bottle, so $0.30 – $0.40 per serving. You can cut down juice consumption and your cost by adding ice or not filling the bottle completely. 12 ounces of juice may be more than necessary, although lunch is the one time of day my kids get juice. It’s not a necessary drink as such. If you decrease the serving of juice, it can go as low as $0.15 – $0.25 a serving.

Milk is in a similar price range although harder to keep fresh for a lunch. I suggest freezing cubes of milk to put into reusable bottles so it stays cold without watering the milk down with ice. My kids tell me it works great. The hotter the weather, the more frozen milk cubes you add. Be very, very careful about this or your child’s lunchtime drink will be spoiled before they get to it. Not that drinking from the water fountain is the worst thing they could do.

You can also go super cheap with ice and tap water. Cost is near enough zero that I won’t bother calculating it.

Juice boxes may be 8-10 boxes for $3, depending on the brand. Do note that this is a smaller drink size, and that many juice box juices are not 100% juice, not to mention the tremendous waste. Shop carefully. Call it $0.30 – $0.38 a serving, but the serving will be 6-8 ounces. If your

Milk at my kids’ school is not included in the lunch, but can be bought for $0.50.

Conclusions

You aren’t always going to save money by packing your child’s school lunch versus buying lunch at school, but you will have more control over the quality of food they get. If you go processed or convenience, or skip the vegetables regularly, that’s not always a good thing.

That said, you can go frugal and healthy and save money overall on their lunches, even after buying supplies. It will take time to make up the investment in supplies, but especially if they last more than one school year, reusable lunch packing supplies can be a very good deal.

If you do pack a lunch, you can absolutely save over the costs of buying disposable supplies to send your child’s lunch in. Just how quickly the savings will add up depends on how much you spend on reusable supplies at the start, and if your child tends to lose them. Better put his or her name on it and find out where the lost and found is.

Recipe Books You May Enjoy

Healthy Eating for Kids
Lunch Boxes and Snacks
The Just Bento Cookbook: Everyday Lunches to Go

Tags: cost of packed school lunch, pack school lunch, reusable lunch containers

How Can You Be Eco Friendly With Your Toddler?

Jul 14, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting

Kids are hard on the environment, there’s no denying it. They have a lot of needs, and many of the things they need they’ll outgrow in fairly short order. That doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot to be more eco friendly while raising a toddler.

Handmedown Clothes and Toys

It’s not always easy to get handmedowns for your kids, but when you can manage it, they’re one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do with your toddler.

Most toddlers don’t need a lot of new things, and when you have a resource for handmedowns, make the most of it. Toddlers won’t care that someone else wore their clothes first or that they aren’t perfectly new. They won’t care that their toys aren’t new in the package. In the meantime, you’ll be saving a ton of money and you won’t be buying newly manufactured products.

If you know someone who needs handmedowns for their toddler, make sure you continue the trend. Keep the things your toddler has outgrown organized so that you can hand them down easily when the time comes.

Thrift and Resale Finds

Thrift and resale stores are great for finding other items your toddler needs. You may have to pay a bit more attention to product safety, and some products, such as car seats, I suggest buying new simply to be certain of product safety.

But other products you can buy quite safely used. You may be able to find a good quality dresser, for example. Beds are a possibility as well, but once again, be picky and careful.

Thrift and resale are great for making up those areas where handmedowns weren’t sufficient. Lots of clothes end up in thrift stores, and if you don’t have someone to hand your toddler’s old clothes down to, they’re a great choice so that the clothes continue to be used by someone.

Cook From Scratch

The more you cook their meals yourself at home, the more likely you are to teach your toddler lifelong healthy eating habits. Skip the convenience foods as much as possible. Sure, hot dogs and boxed mac n’ cheese are easy favorites for many toddlers, but there’s no reason to serve these things often… or at all if you can manage it. Not every family can, but it’s certainly worth the attempt to keep such foods to a minimum.

The younger you can get your kids used to home cooked foods, fresh produce and so forth, the better.

Keep Their Bedrooms Simple

It’s a lot of fun decorating a room for a toddler, but keep it simple. You don’t need to buy lots of wall stickers or borders to give the room some personality.

Most toddlers love to draw, and there’s nothing wrong with displaying their artwork in their bedroom. Their scribbles may not look like much to you, but some toddlers know exactly what they’ve drawn. My two year old insists that one of her pictures is a cat; another is a bird. Get some basic art supplies such as crayons and let your toddler enjoy them.

You can also put up photos that mean something to your child, perhaps pictures from outings and vacations. Much more interesting than princesses, cartoon cars or whatever the latest trend in children’s decor may be.

Don’t forget a bookshelf. This is a great age to encourage a love of books.

Encourage Toddlers to Help Recycle

Toddlers can start to learn what items can go into your recycle bin. Just what that means depends on the recycling program in your area, but toddlers can certainly learn to recognize that most paper gets recycled, as well as any containers that are usually recycled in your area.

Also teach them to reuse things before recycling when possible. It’s nice to save a few old containers to use for crafts and such.

Encourage a Love of Nature

Toddlerhood is a great time to introduce your child to the beauty of nature. This doesn’t mean toddlers get to go exploring the wilds on their own, but you can certainly take a toddler on a hike, carrying him or her as necessary, go to zoos so they can see the amazing range of animals, visit an organic farm, maybe even keep a few backyard chickens along with any other pets you may enjoy.

The point is to show your toddler that there is more to the world than what’s indoors. Keep your kids inside all the time at this age, and why would they appreciate the outdoors? Even playing in your backyard or a walk around the block is a help.

Don’t forget the delights of gardening with your toddler. They aren’t old enough to know a weed from the plants you mean to grow, but you can talk about it and show your toddler the benefits you gain from the garden. It’s a wonderful source of fresh produce for your entire family if you grow some fruits and vegetables.

Besides, toddlers love playing in the dirt. Try setting aside a place where your toddler can dig.

Minimize Use of the Television

Too much television is a bad habit; I think we all know that. It’s worse for toddlers, who are building the habits they’ll use for a lifetime. Keeping television watching to a minimum in early childhood is important for their development.

Commercial television exposes kids to all sorts of commercials, and means they’ll want things they otherwise would never have known existed. Most any television at all, including many otherwise educational shows also have a lot of products kids will want if they see them in the store. A little, carefully chosen television isn’t a bad thing as such, but do think about what your kids are watching. I like my Tivo, as it means my kids get to watch shows I approve of at the times I let them watch TV, not just when the show happens to be on. It’s also helpful for avoiding commercials when the show does have them.

Used DVDs are also a nice choice, and options such as Netflix’s instant queue. You don’t have to buy movies new if you have a bit of patience.

There are plenty of other things you can do to be eco friendly with your toddler, but these are some good places to start. It’s not too soon to teach the basics of respecting the environment.

Tags: eco friendly toddler, handmedowns, thrift store shopping

9 Eco Friendly Activities to Keep Your Kids Busy This Summer

Jun 9, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting

My son is out of school for the year, and soon my oldest daughter will be too. It’s time to start thinking about how I’m going to keep them busy, ideally without spending a lot of money or wasting a lot of resources. Here are some of the ideas I’ve come up with.

1. Grow a garden.

This is already started, of course. We have more tomatoes than I think we’ll manage to eat, but my husband always wants to grow a big variety of tomatoes. If they go well, I’ll either have to figure out how to preserve them or start giving the excess away to family, friends and neighbors. Not a bad deal.

We also have zucchini, basil, pumpkins growing from the seeds of last year’s Halloween pumpkin, strawberries and beans. Not a big garden, but we’re pretty limited in this house we’re renting to what we can do to the yard. We also have a few flowers planted just for attracting bees and for pretty. My favorite so far are the native larkspur that grew on their own.

The kids are learning to weed and are responsible to help keep the garden watered. They love knowing that they can snack freely on what grows and is edible.

2. Stargazing

Kids love looking at the stars, and my son picked a small telescope out for his birthday earlier this year. Stargazing is a great way to make those summer nights special for your family.

3. Camping

Take a little time and go camping with your family. Most areas have decent local campgrounds, or you could camp in your own backyard. Older children may even enjoy camping out in the backyard on their own. This was a favorite when I was growing up.

4. Playing with friends.

Don’t get so into doing activities with your kids that they don’t get a ton of time to just play with friends, whether it’s at your house, the friend’s house or on their own at the park once they’re old enough and responsible enough. Let them have fun doing their own things.

5. Visit the library.

Our library has a summer reading program that allows kids in grades 1-5 to earn prizes for the number of pages they read. Prizes shouldn’t be needed to get kids reading if you’ve encouraged it all along, but make sure they keep the habit of reading books that interest them all summer long. The library is a great resource that will allow them to read more books than you could probably afford to buy.

Don’t forget to check out any special activities your local library may have over the summer. Many have activities for all age ranges, which is great when your kids have a range of interests and abilities.

6. Do recycled crafts.

I covered a few good books to help you get ideas for recycled crafts just the other day. Summer is a great time for trying some of these ideas out.

7. Visit museums.

While museums bring a picture of boredom to some minds, they don’t have to. Most kids love a good, hands-on science museum, and many other museums have come to recognize that having a hands-on component makes it more interesting for children.

Check with your local museums to see if they have any free or reduced price days to keep the expense down. These days are usually more crowded, but may put this activity into a more budget friendly category.

8. Go to the zoo.

Most children love the zoo. Annual passes may be quite affordable, or you can suggest that family give passes as a gift. Children will be impressed by the range of animals, and it’s a great opportunity to discuss why we need to protect the habitat of various animals.

9. Go hiking.

Yet another thing you can do fairly locally in most places. Find out where the hiking trails are in your area and you have a great family activity that will help to keep you fit while seeing nature in action.

Tags: eco friendly activities, Gardening, keeping kids busy, kids, summer