GREEN NURSERY IDEAS

These green nursery ideas are affordable and will give even low income families some tips on how to reduce their baby's exposure to toxic chemicals that tend to sneak inside our homes when we aren't looking. If there is one piece of information that I want you to get from this article it’s that when it comes to baby's room, green is always better in all your purchasing decisions.

ARE GREEN NURSERY IDEAS TOO EXPENSIVE?

It's true that some designer brands are playing the eco-friendly card in order to market their brand. However, there are many conscientious manufacturers that are working towards providing the average consumer with baby safe products available at your local discount store. Your responsibility is to refuse to buy items made from questionable materials.


PAINTING THE BABY’S NURSERY GREEN
Just so you know, while I love nurseries that have a green color scheme; what we are talking about here is eliminating dangerous toxins in your baby’s environment by using "Zero VOC" paints that have no volatile organic compounds. If you live in an older home please check to be sure that your baby will not be exposed to lead based paint that was used before this nasty stuff was taken off the market.


THE BEST NURSERY FLOORING

Our home had hardwood flooring when we move the info of course I didn’t replace it. And even though I have fond memories of wall-to-wall carpeting and miss it’s coziness and cushion, we only have small washable area rugs because the flame retardants and petrochemical stain repellents are not something that I would ever want in my house even if my babies didn't suffer from asthma.

SAFE BABY FURNITURE

The only thing that I have against buying cheap baby furniture is that it is often made of pressboard and plywood that may include toxic resins in its construction and cheap nursery furniture made from synthetic materials may compromise the air quality of my baby‘s room by off-gassing. Thankfully, my father is they would work for that builds natural wood furniture from reclaimed wood. For those of you who are not as fortunate I highly recommend giving your local woodworking guild a call to see if there is someone that would be willing to build your furniture to your eco-friendly specifications. I’m also a big fan of looking for stuff to recycle so if you can find good, used solid wood furniture to repaint with baby safe paint, go for it!

SAFE BABY BEDDING

Investing in organic cotton fabric to make your own crib set, buying a set of used organic baby bedding and an organic crib mattress are the best green nursery ideas ever! Your baby will spend most of his or her time snuggled in the crib that you provide and it just makes sense to be sure that there are no questionable chemicals coming from dyes or synthetic fabrics going into your baby’s lungs or being absorbed into your baby’s skin.

SAFE BABY TOYS

I realize that this article is primarily to provide green nursery ideas in terms of painting and decorating but what is a baby’s room without toys? Once I became educated regarding the dangers of BPA plastics, phthalates and other chemicals our kids’ toy box became almost empty. After the scare I decided that I would eliminate plastic toys from our household for awhile and started to make my own baby toys using 0rganic fabrics and my dad came up with some amazing homemade wooden toys that he made from reclaimed wood in his workshop. There are safer plastic toys available now, but if there is one thing that Thomas the tank engine toys , contaminated baby formula and BPA plastics remind us is that we should not let our guard down.

These green nursery ideas should put you on your way to keeping baby safe by improving the air quality in your home and reducing everyone’s exposure to toxic chemicals. Just because the immune systems of adults are stronger than an infant’s doesn‘t mean that chemicals in the home are OK . This is why it is important to check for hidden toxins no matter what the demographics of your home may be.

Our goal should be to ensure that all products that we bring into our home are eco-friendly and have the least amount of chemicals possible.
To achieve these goals we should look for stuff to recycle to reduce household waste, resist the frenzy of consumerism and buy fewer items and ALWAYS watch for organic tags and choose non-toxic products over items that are manufactured using chemicals that we are trying to avoid therefore putting pressure on the companies that want our business to develop more earth friendly merchandise.

CARDBOARD BABY HIGH CHAIRS

I'm really excited about finding and buying a couple of the cardboard baby high chairs I've been reading about! Nope, I'm not trying to sell the things and NOPE again, the cardboard cribs that were all the rage about a year ago didn't strike me as something to get all up in the air about. In fact, (other than they were made from recycled cardboard which is a better option than buying NEW nursery furniture for sure) they left me yawning because HO HUM we co-sleep with our babies.

But now, I can get behind reusable, portable baby high chair big time! I'll tell you a little bit about one that I'm thinking of buying in a minute. First, I want to tell you why a high chair made of cardboard is blowing my hair back much more than a cardboard crib other than the reason I listed earlier...oh, and no this is NOT a review in case the FTC wants to know. I've never used either product and would, in fact, like to hear from any of you who have opinions on the Belkiz Feedaway if you have experience or alternatives if you know of one that is better or cheap.

How many of you have taken your babies out to eat and ask for a high chair only to have a nasty, sticky wooden baby high chair delivered to your table? Not to mention that the safety harness was either missing, damaged or tied in knots? Well, this has happened to me often enough that I'm considering carrying my own high chairs (I have more than one baby) when we go out.

What do you think about this plan? Is it worth it to carry our own cardboard baby high chairs with us when we go out to eat to avoid using those less than clean ones in the restaurant? Or would you just rather stay home, use your own high chair and eat a hot dog because flat pack or not...it's just too much trouble?

I'm all for going green, baby, but there are times when doing without an item completely is preferable to dealing with the hassle if you know what I mean.

BEST GREEN BABY WIPES

After a round with baby rash, I did a little research on the best green baby wipes. I've had concerns about the cheap store-bought brands for a long time. With my baby's sensitive skin, allergies and eczema I'm very particular about all products she comes in contact with and wipes appeared on my radar when I read that some brands have materials that have been bleached with chlorine and contain alcohol or other irritants that might cause diaper rash.

A few common brands are Huggies, Pampers and Luvs so I decided to see if I could find a list of ingredients for each and here's what I found:

PAMPERS BABY WIPES INGREDIENTS LIST


Pampers "One Ups" Ingredients List
Water
Propylene Glycol
Aloe Vera Gel
Sodium Coco PG Dimonium
Chloride Phosphate
Cetyl Hydroxyethylcellulose
Methylparaben
Propylparaben
2-Brono-2-Nitropropane-1,3-Diol
Fragrance

HUGGIES BABY WIPES INGREDIENTS


I couldn't find a list of Huggies Baby Wipes Ingredients but I found a statement on their FAQ that stated that they contain Vitamin E and natural Aloe Vera. No information on what else they had in them which I found kind of fishy...but I didn't actually go to the store and check out the container to see if their was more info on the label.

The reasons that I put Huggies and Pampers first on my list to review were price and the fact that Huggies Natural Care Wipes and Pampers Baby Fresh Wipes were mentioned in an article discussing the best baby wipes of the year. But after reading some of the baby wipes reviews, I am somewhat less than impressed.

So, moving on to the more expensive but highly rated brand, Bum Boosa Bamboo baby wipes. And when I tell you they are not cheap...believe me.
The cost averaged out to .07 cents per wipe (on the bumboosa website) even if you spring for the 960 count package! Who can afford that kind of money for each and every wiped face, hand or butt? I can't imagine paying that for the best green baby wipes on the planet!

I'm all for utilizing bamboo as a replacement for traditional fibers. From what I know, the theory behind its use is spot on. But when an eco-friendly product is so expensive that only the very wealthy could ever afford to use products made with it that's not so helpful.

Another thing that caught my attention with this brand (rated the best green baby wipe by many) is that some of the reviews reported an orange essential oil smell that was strong. The idea of a fragrant smell of oranges that might do a little to overpower the smell of baby poop is appealing to me but guess what? My youngest is allergic to oranges.

Here's a list of ingredients in Bumboosa Baby Wipes from their website:

• Purified Water (98%)
• Organic Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera leaf)
• Lavender Essential Oil from France)
• Sweet Orange Essential Oil (Brazilian no less but my babies are just as allergic)
• Tocopherol (Vitamin E) – Natural Preservative, Skin Softener
• Vegetable Glycerin – Soothes and cleanses skin (so does water)
• Potassium Sorbate Preservative – Preservative (Sorbate is the metabolized form of the sugar Sorbitol)
• Polysorbate 20 used as an Emulsifier
• Citric Acid pH a Stabilizer that provides stability (what the heck does that mean)

I admit a certain amount of frustration after gathering these facts and
I'm about to come to the conclusion that the best green baby wipes that will work with my budget are homemade from scraps of cotton flannel. I challenge the visitors to Family Recipes, Babies and Parenting Issues to tell me how much more trouble can it be to pack moist flannel wipes in a ziploc or to store them dry and moisten them for use! As for myself, I feel kind of silly for obsessing over this issue when the best green baby wipes are right under our noses and even my five year old can sew a straight seam!