Because my daughter was born just two weeks before Valentine’s Day, I can’t say we had a very romantic celebration on the year she was born. We went out to sushi with my mom . . . and ended up rushing home because she (the baby, not my mom) started to cry. As inexperienced parents, we had no idea how to handle this crisis. What about you—any grand plans for Valentine’s Day this year?

I am not sure if anyone actually celebrates Valentine’s Day by buying Baby some heart-print training pants, but just in case, here are our gift ideas:

Heart print training pants by Diaperaps.

SwaddleDesigns Organic Ultimate Receiving Blanket

Argington Organic Crib Bedding Set, Heart And Flowers Print

Argington Organic Crib Quilt, Heart And Flowers Print

What’s next—St. Patrick’s Day burp cloths?!

The moonlit diaper changes, the pureed yam smeared on your clothes, the endless laundering and folding of tiny garments.  Let’s face it––parenting isn’t always romantic.  This Valentine’s Day you deserve chocolate for your unsung parental heroics.

Thanks to Abe’s Market, you just might win some!  This natural product online shop is going to give one of our readers a box of vegan organic dark chocolate truffles.  Yum!  Simply post your comment below by February 14th and you’ll automatically be entered to win.

If you’re unwilling to take your chances on the contest, you may want to check out Abe’s Market to try a few of their other Valentine gift ideas. You can pick up white chocolate pear chardonnay sauce, victorian fragrant foaming bath oil, or organic cacao chai tea all for fifteen dollars or less.   (Better yet, give your valentine a detailed wish list.)  I hope either way you end up with a decadent treat this Valentine’s Day!

Have you been asking yourself lately, “What do Joy and Rebecca have to say about celebrating an eco-friendly Valentine’s Day?”?  Well, you’re in luck because today’s post highlights some of our fascinating thoughts on this very subject.

First, there’s Joy’s Valentine’s brownie recipe. Not only will it woo the health-conscious chocolate lover in your life, these treats are guaranteed to cost less than a foil-covered box of chocolates.

Would you like to celebrate without shelling out hundreds of dollars for tickets, dinners, and diamonds? Readers weigh in with cheap, green date ideas.

Finally we have a few ideas for homemade Valentines. Potato print valentines are perfect if you need to mass-produce some cards for a child’s class. In our last-minute eco-friendly valentines post, we discuss how to make Valentines out of organic materials . . . such as rocks. Or perhaps you would like to know how to make a paper heart valentine—we reveal our paper-cutting secrets. (Strange fact: That post happens to be our most popular post of all time!)

Here’s to a happy Valentine’s Day!

After months of interrupted sleep, my husband and I were longing to having full REM cycles, dreams, and several hours of slumber.  Our baby is nearly eight months old.  Shouldn’t she be sleeping through the night by now?  Never mind that our son didn’t snooze a full night until he was nine months old.  Never mind that our parenting peers were having the same problem.  We were determined to find out how we could possibly get her to let us rest.

First we tried the food.  We loaded her up with pumpkin and pears right before bed, resolute in our determination to slumber.  Her response?  She woke up three times that night with diapers encrusted with orange-tinged poo.  Ugh.

Then we tried a different meal schedule and longer spans between her feedings during the day.  Our wise pediatrician reminded us that if she couldn’t last more than three hours during the day, how could she make it through the night?

Right!  We tried the new routine with some success but Jovi was still up every night at exactly 1am.  Why was she so precise?

We tried warmer pajamas, a fan for background noise, a slightly later bedtime… All of it in vain.  At 1am on the dot we were greeted by her desperate screams. Every. Single. Night.

Until last night.  My husband was up late and went in to watch her sleep before he hit the sack.  It was 12:55 and as he watched her snooze in perfect slumber, he heard a sudden loud beeping.  Yes.  The travel alarm clock we keep in her room has been set to go off at 1am for months.  It only beeps five times so it was never going off when we went in to get her.

Our poor, pumpkin stuffed babe!  We’ll see how it goes tonight…

Most pocket diapers are made from polyester or some other man-made material. If you use 100% cotton or hemp prefolds, you probably use nylon or vinyl covers. However, other options do exist. Wool diaper covers are soft, absorbent, and all-natural. Did anyone find a cloth diapering system that didn’t rely on man-made materials? What brands do you recommend?

An Imse Vimse wool diaper cover

Are cloth diapers more convenient than disposables? Probably not. Are they better for the environment? We think so! But are they cuter than their paper & plastic counterparts? No contest. Check out these adorable specimens of cloth diaper couture:

Thirsties Fab Fitted Cloth Diaper ($13.75)

Kushies Reusable Ultra Diaper ($12.99)

Happy Heinys Cow Hide cloth diaper ($23.45)

Fuzzibunz Pocket Diaper Daisy print ($17.95)

Mommys Touch One Size Snap All in One Cloth Diaper Safari Print ($21.99)

(Grammar disclaimer: For some reason the link would not work with the apostrophe in “Mommy’s”!)

Bummis Flower Print cloth diaper ($12.25)

Take that, disposables!

One of the first natural baby food cookbooks to hit the mainstream, Super Baby Food, is still enjoying relative fame.  I was thrilled to find the first edition in its purple cover in a pile of garage sale books and happily paid a quarter to make it mine.

I eagerly rushed home and began reading, but found myself disappointed.  The book is loosely organized, full of anecdotes and often difficult to follow.  Although it’s over 500 pages long, there are really only about thirty critically important pages of information to read.

To be fair, I do love those thirty pages. Ruth Yaron challenges our ideas of traditional baby food by offering up other ingredients for home-blended meals.  She explains how to whirl up vegetables and fruits in your blender and then dump it into ice cube trays to freeze and store.  As baby gets older, she has tips for including egg yolk, beans, kale, and a variety of other healthy foods into a “super porridge” that can be inexpensively prepared.

Yager also has some fun recipes for toddler foods including tofu McNuggets, nutty millet pancakes and peanut butter pudding.   The creativity in food presentation and delivery are pretty remarkable as well.  For example, she recommends spreading a slice of bread with peanut butter and then wrapping it around a whole banana as a creative vegan hot dog.

It’s also fascinating that Yager’s children have been quite healthy based on their rich diet of whole grains, greens, and hearty proteins.  She insists that while most children are sick between six to twelve times a year, her family faces illness once or twice at most.

As a working mom with limited time, I found the book to be heavily layered with irrelevant details and tough to weed through. For example, in the middle of the arts and crafts section she goes into great detail about using zip lock bags, adult sized socks and duct tape to avoid purchasing snow boots.  On the same page she gives directions for shining patent leather shoes with petroleum jelly. I’m not sure either of those things even needs to be in a baby food book.  To be fair, I haven’t read the second edition which may have edited some of the cumbersome tidbits out.

Is it worth buying?  If you’re interested in making your own baby food for economic, health and environmental reasons it’s a good resource, but I would recommend checking it out from the library or picking it up secondhand.  I’ll be sending my copy out to a lucky reader who will be able to read the book for herself and develop her own opinion.  Simply comment by February 12th to be entered in our giveaway!

Have you read Super Baby Food?  Did you find it be a valuable resource?  Do you make your own food at home?

I won’t even go into my car seat drama, but suffice it to say I ended up going through more hunks of plastic than strictly necessary. In our upcoming book (The Eco-nomical Baby Guide), we suggest purchasing an all-in-one car seat to avoid putting a strain on the planet. These seats “grow with the baby” and are supposed to work from birth until your child no longer needs a car seat or booster at all.

Why did I not do this? My only excuse is that I just wasn’t aware of the choices at the time. My search found just three all-in-one car seats, but they all look like great options if you want to avoid buying a new seat every couple years.

Safety 1st All-In-One Convertible Car Seat

$120—83% off!

• 5-35 lbs Rear Facing; 22-40 lbs Front Facing; 40-80 lbs Belt Positioning Booster
• QuickFit Harness System allows for easy adjustments for harness height up-front
• 5 Point Harness with easy push button buckle
• LATCH equipped

Evenflo Symphony 65 with Surelatch All In One Seat

$199.99

• Side impact tested
• SureLatch technology, which installs your seat to your vehicle as easily as buckling a seat-belt.
• Accommodates children from 5-35 pounds, rear-facing, 20 – 65 pounds forward-facing, up to 100 pounds, as a booster

Safety 1st 3 Phase Convertible Car Seat

$69.98 (46% off)

• Rear facing with the five point harness form 5-35 lbs and at least one year, forward facing from 22-40 lbs., as a belt-positioning booster from 40-80 lbs.
• The child can use the car seat up to 52 inches

If anyone has tried any of these seats (or another one we haven’t mentioned), we’re all ears. Has anyone out there managed to use just one car seat? We want to hear about it!

Now some of you have children who will willingly eat the family meal, spinach and all.  Well done!  I would love to know how you did it.  My three year old won’t be receiving specialized cuisine for the rest of his life but for now it makes mealtime infinitely easier.  Simply listing out a few ideas for breakfasts, lunches and dinners and then posting it has made life so much easier.   It means that we don’t have to think in the morning after a horrid night with the baby and that we can be sure to have items on hand for kid-friendly meals.

Before we tried this simple tip, we spent a lot of time standing before an open fridge trying to think of healthy combinations for our son.  Also, we made the mistake of listing several choices for him each meal as if we were catering to a very demanding customer.  Now we put his meal before him and find that he’s far more willing to try it.

Our son helped us come up with the list and buy some of the items that we needed to have on hand.  It helps him be involved in mealtime beforehand so that he’s less likely to balk when the meal is placed before him.

Breakfast

• Homemade cocoa-oatmeal, peanut butter and banana
• Cereal and milk, soft boiled egg
• Toasted bagel with peanut butter and raisins, frozen blueberries
• Cottage cheese, apple slices and peanut butter

Lunch

• Peanut butter and honey sandwich, carrot sticks, raisins
• Tortilla roll up with cream cheese and ham, cut into slices, edamame
• Cheese slices, crackers, garbanzo beans with dipping sauce
• Cheese sandwich, dried mango slices, dried seaweed (nori)

Dinner

• English muffin cheese pizza, frozen peas, blueberry smoothie
• Whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce, garbanzo beans
• Yumm bowl, apple slices
• Cheese quesadilla, lima beans, dipping sauce

I know this isn’t gourmet fare, but it’s nice to have a list of a few meal ideas to get us going. Do you have other favorite meal choices that your child loves?  Please share!