I am learning so much from your blog!

Maybe we do need to stress the sentimental value of these things as a means of all recycling. It certainly seems to work brilliant in some situations.

If cots, cribs and clothes can become sentimental, even precious, items it would encourage both that they are looked after well, and gratefully received by the family.

I think it is a class thing here in the UK too. After my third child (I know, not sustainable) I tried to hand on the baby things to others via the Health Visitor, but she said most people wouldn’t accept them - even cots & baby chairs, which are expensive. So I’ve discovered Freecycle, which is fab.

And that’s much of the problem. It goes beyond parents wanting to dote on their infants and older children. Relatives can do a lot too. It really requires a shift in how we think. There’s the excess purchasing that comes pretty natural to a lot of parents to welcome the first baby, and then the feeling that you have to welcome the second, third, or whatever with the same amount of loot. Never mind that babies don’t care about new or used.

People also don’t think about how wonderfully sentimental some handmedowns can be. My mother has the crib that she was in as a baby. My kids slept in it at her house when they came for a visit, and she told me if we had gotten rid of ours, we could use that one. We don’t need it, but it’s pretty neat that she thought of that. Telling kids as they get older that they slept in something handed down through generations is more special than talking about the store it came from.

Some of it takes experience too. My oldest sister declined the stock of handmedown clothes my younger sister and I had generated for our daughters when my oldest sister had her daughter. Within a few months of the birth she was asking about it. She thought that because she made a really good income it wouldn’t matter that she’d need to buy a lot of clothes. Now she cheerfully takes handmedowns because it’s just so practical.

Wish I knew how to get that point across to more moms-to-be.

Diana, I had completely forgotten about the cloth wipes. My mother told me some years back about using them, but aside from that I rarely hear anything about them. Of course, she also noted that for emergency use even a plain washcloth will do the job. The thought grossed my husband out at the time, but now that he’s amenable to cloth diapers I don’t think cloth wipes are that big a leap.