Category Archives: Eco Friendly Parenting

6 Basic Principles of Green Parenting

Being a green parent takes effort. It’s not easy to avoid the temptation to give your kids everything and to teach them to avoid consumeristic behavior. There are a lot of little things you should do.

1. Clean green.

Using homemade or environmentally friendly cleaners is a very important step for green parents. It’s a way to avoid exposing your family to many of the chemicals that are common to so many homes, some of which can cause health problems. Just think about any time that cleaning with harsh chemicals has left your eyes watering, given you a headache or made it just a little harder to breathe. Why expose your family to such things if you don’t have to.

2. Enjoy hand-me-downs and thrift stores.

Hand-me-downs and thrift stores don’t just save you a ton of money. They allow you to reuse clothing, toys and other goods that someone else doesn’t want anymore.

It can be amazing what you can get for so little. Thrift stores won’t have the hottest styles, but you can find some very good quality clothing in them for very low prices.

Delight in the finds, and make sure that anything that is reusable when you’re done with it goes down to another family or to the thrift store.

3. Keep things simple.

Birthday parties. Holidays. The general clutter of the house. If you can encourage simplicity in your life, you’ll generally consume less. You’ll also be less driven to distraction by the chaos of it all much of the time.

Kids really do love simple birthday parties, especially when they’re younger. Don’t fall for the competition to have the best party in the class. Younger kids will happily just play together. Their parents may even be grateful if you keep the goodie bags simple or even just don’t bother.

It gets more challenging as kids get older and start to feel peer pressure more, but keep at it. Talk about why you do what you do and why you don’t do what you don’t do. Sometimes they’ll agree and be happy about it while other times they’ll be disappointed, but that’s life.

4. Teach the kids to recycle.

Recycling is easy in many areas these days, but not everywhere. If you have it easy, make sure your kids start from an early age tossing recyclables into the correct bin.

5. Garden.

It can be a small windowsill garden or a serious one out in the back yard, but having your own garden is great for green parents. You’re teaching about where food comes from as well as an appreciation for nature.

Make sure you include composting. You don’t have to get fancy about it, but why should that food waste go into the trash if it can benefit your garden?

6. Get active.

There are a couple of meanings to this one. Yes, get active physically. How else to show your children that there’s more to life than television, cell phones and computers.

But also be active in your community. Volunteer. Do so as a family as children get old enough. Don’t just talk about the issues that matter to you, show that you mean it.

Toys R Us Baby Gear Trade In

I’m pretty excited about a deal Toys R Us has going on right now. I heard it on the local news the other day, and it can be found on their website too. But you have to go into your local store to participate.

From now until February 20, 2010, they’re allowing people to bring in certain types of used baby gear to trade in for a 25% off coupon toward one new baby gear item. The categories for both include car seats, strollers, cribs, play yards and more. It’s only for participating brands also.

You don’t have to have bought the item from them or have a receipt. You do have to make your purchase on the day you do the trade in, and only in the store.

The condition of the item doesn’t matter. The whole idea, in fact, is to get unsafe baby gear out from where it might be used.

This is exciting for me because I have a car seat that is on the old side. Selene’s about the age where she’ll be going into that size, so it’s nice that we’ll be able to upgrade to a newer model for a nice savings. The car seat is heading toward 7 years old, which is older than is commonly recommended for use, especially since it has spent most of that time installed in the car as my two older kids used it.

I gather they destroy the trade ins, and I hope they recycle what materials can be sent for recycling. An awful lot of baby gear has significant plastic content, so I don’t know how easy that is. But it’s nice to think that some of it could be recycled.

Figure out what you want and contact your local store to be sure they have what you want before you bring in your trade. That step could save you a lot of trouble if what you want is out of stock.

Are Cloth Diapers Too Much Extra Work?

Cloth diapers have become pretty popular in recent years There are tons of styles to choose from and many parents rave about them. But many fear that they’re a lot of work. Are they really worth all the trouble, the extra laundry, rinsing in the toilet? And what about leaks? And stinks?

I’ve been using cloth diapers on my daughter for about a year now and I can tell you that for me these things are really not a problem. It’s just not as bad as you might think.

For starters, the extra laundry really isn’t that much. Yes, you’ll be doing a load every 2-3 days. One load of cloth diapers. They’ll need an extra rinse cycle to be sure the detergent gets out, but they only use 1/4 the amount of detergent a regular load uses. The diapers should smell clean after washing.

You can dry cloth diapers outside in the sun (I strongly recommend this if at all possible) or in the dryer. The sun does some nice natural bleaching as well as saves energy, making it a generally good deal. Hanging the diapers out is certainly some extra effort compared to just throwing them in the dryer, but if you have the time it’s really not so bad. I find they stay freshest this way.

If you put them in the dryer, dry them on hot for most brands. You can check with your particular brand to be sure of care instructions.

But what about solid wastes? Aren’t they a pain?

Strictly speaking, even with disposable diapers you’re supposed to put the solids in the toilet. I think most packages even say that, although I don’t know that many parents obey that part, and that’s why this seems like such a big deal with cloth diapers.

For the most part solids shake out pretty well, especially as baby gets older. For wastes that are on the runny side of solid I like a diaper sprayer, which is a simple attachment to the toilet. No dunking required. Other parents just use some toilet paper to wipe the excess out.

And leaks?

On the whole, I’ve had less trouble with leaks with cloth diapers with this baby than I did with disposable diapers and my two older kids. We use bumGenius 3.0 cloth diapers, and they really don’t have a leak problem if you care for them properly and change the diapers regularly. Any diaper will leak if you leave it on the baby too long.

I would also say we’ve had very few blowout poops, which is something to be dreaded. It can just be an individual baby thing, but she’s had some impressive outputs at times, so I don’t think it’s that.

If leaks start to be a problem it’s time to strip the diaper to be sure that you don’t just have a buildup problem.

So do cloth diapers stink?

They can, sometimes. But that generally means that your washing routine isn’t quite right. Maybe you use too much detergent. Maybe they need to be stripped, which is a special wash of cloth diapers using original Dawn dish detergent and hot water, plus extra rinses because that Dawn can be a bit hard to get completely out. Be careful with this if you have an HE machine, because Dawn most certainly is not low sudsing!

Some parents also use tea tree oil to help with stinks. Bio-Kleen Bac-Out is another popular solution to stink issues. Just spray it on the diapers as you drop them in your bucket. It’s an enzyme cleaner and is very effective.

I know, this is sounding like a lot of effort. It’s really not that bad. Baby care in general is a lot of effort. At least with modern cloth diapers you aren’t fussing with pins and such. Some brands go on the baby in ways that are very similar to how disposables go on. It’s simple.

Just think of all the advantages. Over time cloth diapers tend to be cheaper than disposables. They’re less wasteful. You can even use them for more than one baby. Many babies get less diaper rash with cloth, and you can’t forget to note how many cute styles there are in cloth diapers.

And best of all, many cloth diapered babies potty train younger! The slight inconvenience of laundry is much offset by the potential to be fussing with diapers in general for less time in my opinion.

Talking as a Family About Where Food Comes From

For the most part, kids don’t care where food comes from, so long as they can eat what they like. That’s natural. However, you can teach them from pretty young to appreciate where food comes from.

There’s not much you can do for babies, of course. You can appreciate things yourself, though, and make homemade baby food when possible. Teach your baby from a very young age how wonderful homemade food is.

Believe me, they do notice the difference. My nearly 1 year old isn’t nearly so enthusiastic about eating when it comes from a jar, as it does when we visit relatives. She can tell the difference.

Toddlers and Preschoolers

Toddlers and preschoolers can begin to appreciate where food comes from. One of the best ways to do this is to start a garden with them. Go select seeds together, and plant them together. Get your toddler or preschooler involved in caring for the garden – watering, learning what makes a weed, and of course harvesting.

Another way to teach appreciation for where food comes from is to visit a local farm. Try to find one that offers tours. This may be easiest to do as a part of a preschool group, so suggest it to the teacher if your local farm prefers group tours.

Kids this age love to be told that they are eating “grow foods” when they’re eating healthy foods. Little kids do love to grow!

Elementary School Age Kids

Keep working with kids as they get older in ways similar to how you started with your toddler or preschooler, but increase their participation. Teach your child how to cook age appropriate recipes. It’s really not that hard to teach a child to do something like make scrambled eggs safely. Talk about safety rules and only cooking with adult supervision, of course.

You can also get more into the difference between organic, local and conventionally produced foods. If you haven’t already, join a CSA or co-op and get some organic or local food at a pretty good price.

Middle School and Up

Time to get serious!

You might want to check out The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids as a great starting point for really getting into what goes into bringing food to the plate. It really gets into what goes into all kinds of food, and the environmental damage that occurs.

And of course keep up the healthy eating habits and keep the kids involved in food preparation at home. It’s not only a great way for them to really appreciate what they eat, it’s great family time.

Just What Is Discreet Breastfeeding?

I’ve been doing breastfeeding a long time. Still breastfeeding baby #3 right now, who turns one year old soon. But the thing that always gets to me is when people talk about the need to be discreet when breastfeeding.

It’s just not always that simple.

Keeping oneself covered up is pretty easy in the early days when baby is too small to do much about it. But as babies get older that becomes much harder and sometimes pretty near to impossible.

What Is Discreet Anyhow?

One of the problems I have is that the definition of  “discreet” can vary so much from person to person. Does it mean always draping a covering across baby and your body so that no one can see anything going on? Is just popping out one breast just enough for baby to latch on and keeping the other covered discreet enough?

Who decides these things anyhow?

Essentially, it always seems to come down to other people. What’s discreet enough for some is too much for others to handle or it’s seen as worrying too much about the whole thing.

It’s About Feeding the Baby – Comfortably

For me it comes down to how best to get baby fed in a way that works best for you. Others can judge, but that doesn’t mean they’re worth paying attention to. It can mean being prepared to deal with rudeness, especially from those who mistake breastfeeding for some sort of sexual display. As if!

I’ve been fortunate enough to not get it that bad.

I’ve found that what is discreet enough can change quite a bit from baby to baby as well as with how the baby’s need to move around while breastfeeding changes with his or her development.

That’s particularly true with my current baby. To her, breastfeeding is pretty much an athletic event. She’s all over the place if she’s awake. What most people would call discreet just doesn’t happen so much with her. She can move herself and other things around and she knows it.

Breastfeeding a baby who has climbed over your shoulder is an odd experience. Even if you are leaning way back at the time.

I do tend to resist feeding her in public not out of embarrassment but because she clowns around even more with an audience. Better to be quiet so that she focuses a little more on her food than on flirting with anyone amused by her antics.

That’s what’s comfortable for us at this moment.

Used to be I could feed her anywhere, and did so. My father-in-law has had to get used to the fact that I will do that. So did my mother-in-law, but she got it after the second baby was born. My father-in-law still resists a little.

As a mother, you have to figure out what’s right for you and your baby. It’s not about what’s right for those around you. You may have to decide how to cope with situations made awkward by the reactions of others, but it still comes down to what you’re comfortable with doing.

In the end, breastfeeding means you’re feeding the baby the way babies were meant to be fed. It’s a wonderful ability, not something to be hidden away and treated as something shameful.