Both Green Boss and Green Pharmacist alerted me to an article in this weekend's Washington Post by Mary Ellen Slayter, Greening Up Baby.
Slayter covers six topics: food, travel, toys and soothers, diapers, clothes and the nursery. Since the Post did not think to do it, here are actual, real live active links to the products and people Slayter mentions in her article for those beginning wanna-greenies who want to delve a little deeper.
First up is Trish Riley's book "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living" - granted I don't like being called an idiot, I will no doubt trip on down to my local library to check out a copy.
Then there's Soleil Moon Frye's Eco Baby store in Larchmont Village (LA, not Westchester). Evidently no online store yet. Maybe GreenLAGirl will check it out for us, if she hasn't already.
Under Food, Mary Ellen mentions Safeway's O Organic formula, Similac Organic formula, Wal-Mart's Parent's Choice formula. And yes, she mentions the breast, bien sur.
Next up, travel. I never did the sling thing but I kind wish I had. Mentioned in the Post are Attachment Parenting International, The Moby Wrap, and All Natural Mommies in Vienna, Virginia. Who knew about this last one! I'll have to take a field trip! For oogling at mei tais, my favorite blog is Montessori by Hand. Ah... adorable!
Toys and Soothers is near and dear to my heart, mentioning thrift and consignment stores and our family favorite...yard sales!! Wooop!
If I had to do it all over again (and I won't, thank you very much), I would have integrated some cloth diapers into my diapering rituals. Mentioned in the Slayter article are Seventh Generation chlorine-free disposables (although the author mentioned bleach-free - are they one and the same...as in chlorine bleach?), as well as Fuzzi Bunz, Bum Genius, and Kissaluvs.
I'm a sucker for hand-me-downs, so I have bought almost nothing of the clothing variety for my children. They look pretty swanky to me. Mentioned as organic options are duds from Hanna Andersson (caught a typo there unless there is another Hanna Anderson that I'm not aware of) and Speesees (never heard of that one...will wonders never cease!?).
And finally...the nursery. I can't tell you how much money we didn't spend on our poor children in the nursery department. We didn't have a changing table!! What kind of parents are we?! Love the Ikea line (I'm linking to the British Ikea, I love them so) and now even Babies R Us is selling an organic crib mattress made by Serta, which I totally would have gotten. Yucky plastic-y out-gassing be gone! Any other options out there?
Phew, my linky thumb is getting a twitch. All in all, a nice primer for parents; on the front page of the business section, interestingly enough. Good luck with the greening!
5 comments:
Wow, thanks for all those links! I did cloth diapers for the first two and am feeling sort of regretful about using Huggies with my current baby and toddler. I'm thinking about going cloth part time, but it's so expensive!! Also, I'm a huge Moby Wrap fan, if anyone is thinking about that. It's perfect for the newborn stage. Now I use the Ergo much more.
Prior comment forgot to mention thanks for all these links which The Washington Post neglected to include. The resource list they had after the article did not have working links either. I just read the WP article yesterday and was surprised to see that they show NO bloggers linking to their article. Clearly that's wrong since you linked to it. What is up with The Post?
I just read your profile and see you like coffee. Have you tried Altura Organics? My husband is the ultimate coffee snob and he LOVES this stuff. We use the espresso beans. I need three lattes to get going in the morning, otherwise I make no sense whatsoever!
Hi Lynn! No, I have not Altura...but I think the caffeinator in me feels a fairtrade/organic coffee test taste coming on! :) Regarding the Post, I have seen a few blogs mention that article, so I'm not sure what the deal is...is the blogger responsible for alerting the blogee re: the post? I'll have to investigate...
I used Kushies AIO's with my first and for a while with my second - but they are very differently shaped kids and I finally realized that I was washing diapers, plus the clothes that were dirty from diaper leakage and had to give up. I still regret it and worry about the landfill that has my child's name on it.
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