Wooden play kitchens have gone mainstream! Just a few years ago, I couldn’t find a wood child’s play kitchen for under $250. (I’ll admit I didn’t look too hard after my initial search proved so disappointing.) So what did I do? I picked up something similar to this Alex Toys In My Kitchen Set at a consignment shop for $12, tricked it out with some IKEA pots and pans, and voila! I had an inexpensive little play kitchen for my child. (Here’s the original post I wrote about this slap-dash effort at creating an affordable wooden play kitchen.)

This year I looked around and found several darling wooden kitchens, many of which were under or around $100!

Alex Toys in My Kitchen Set $53.85

Melissa and Doug Cook’s Corner Wooden Kitchen $74.99

Maxim Wooden Kitchen Center $98.98

Kidkraft Vintage Kitchen in Pink $99

Classic Wood Kitchen – Stove/Sink Combo $99.99

Educo My Creative Cookery Club $104.64

Kidkraft Suite Elite Kitchen $109.99

Kitchen Center Play Set $117

Wonderworld Eco-Friendly Cooking Center $147.75

Guidecraft Kitchenette $165

KidKraft Silver Retro Kitchen $169.99

Melissa and Doug Classic Deluxe Kitchen $198

Kids All In One Play Kitchen in Multi Finish $299.99

A Simple Hearth (Childs Wood Kitchen) $344.95

Does your child play with any of these wooden kitchens? How do they hold up in real life?

Looking for more wooden gift ideas? Check out last year’s post: wooden toys for babies and youngsters.

Too tired to haul yourself out into the shopping scene this year? If you’re lugging small children or a baby bump, you may want to pick out some thoughtful items online and save yourself time, hassle, and a few gallons of gas. (Not to mention the temper tantrums that can be avoided.)

Melissa and Doug wooden toys are great quality and undeniably green. Our house is filled with puzzles, blocks, and even wooden food that have stood up to years of active play. I would heartily recommend any of their products and you’ll save nearly fifty percent off by buying them online!

We love My True Nature baby eco-friendly baby bath products, and their holiday gift set bag is no exception. I can attest that plentiful bubbles and lovely smells are produced from these small bottles.

Green Toys has created quite an assortment of inexpensive, aesthetically pleasing playthings that are crafted from 100% recycled milk jugs. My son adores his recycling truck and it holds up to his daily play extremely well.

Check out The Daily Green’s Gift List for much more inspiration beyond toys.  Perhaps you’ll be buying from local boutiques in an effort to support local companies instead of buying online.  Whatever you do, I hope you find just what you’re looking for in this last pre-holiday scramble!  If you have already smugly crossed every name off your list, please share your recommendations for great green gifts with the rest of us!

Ah, good old Chinese prefolds with diaper covers! Your basic workhorse of a diaper system. Over the years we’ve written almost 100 diaper posts. Here are the most informative posts about prefolds.

Prefold diapers with simple, affordable diaper covers are the reigning champions of diapers everywhere!

First check out how to choose an eco-friendly diaper system to make sure prefolds are right for you. (And remember, you don’t have to be monogamous with your diaper system. Playing the diaper field is not only allowed—it’s encouraged.) More of the marrying type? Perhaps you will be interested in my emotional ode to the humble prefold, in which I swear my love and devotion to this absorbent wonder diaper.

Once your baby is born, you’re going to want to know how  you put on Chinese prefolds. If your baby’s bottom resembles a basketball, do not panic. Soon you will beat the cloth diaper bulk or learn to accept it. Then you’ll need Joy’s overnight cloth diaper solutions, which involve—you guessed it—prefolds.

Stay tuned for a round-up of our best pocket diaper posts!

Pregnant women need pampering.  Why?  Because when their feet are massaged, when their tongues are bathed in dark chocolate, and when they are immersed in honey bubble bath, their babies are enjoying an atmosphere of relaxation and contentment as well.   Those bambinos will be getting piles of presents in the months to come, but new and expectant moms deserve some special thought as well.

After trolling the Internet for the perfect gifts (and remembering my own pregnancy cravings), here’s what I came up with:

The Microwaveable Flax Seed Filled Neck Pillow or Momma Earth Herbals Aromatherapy Packs are perfect solutions for driving away winter chill while luxuriating in relaxation.  (Please consider a few free foot massage coupons to accompany these lovely gifts!)

No matter what strange cravings your pregnant pal may have, chocolate is always a good bet.  Endangered Species Rainforest has a line of chocolates that sound smooth and lovely–and they’re eco-friendly!  If you want to make a bit more of an investment in the hard core European stuff, splurge on a box of Leonidas Belgian Chocolates.

Deep Steep Organic Honey Bubble Bath blends the scents of grapefruit and bergamont with thick, abundant bubbles.  Afterwards, she can slather herself with Earth Mama Body Butter just to soften that skin and prepare her for a relaxing snooze.

Most of us spend the first few days or even weeks after baby’s birth in pajamas. Aimee Bra-less nightgowns have gotten rave reviews and make a nice transition between maternity and early motherhood. Belabumbum also has some lovely empire waist nightgowns that are specifically designed for maternity and nursing.  If she loves flannel comfort, go for the basic Frankie and Johnny Pajamas, Sleepyheads, or Nick and Nora sets in larger sizes that will accommodate a post-pregnancy shape.

I would have LOVED any of these gifts in the tired last stretch of my pregnancy, but I also would have enjoyed restaurant gift cards or meal deliveries.  Now that I have made it through two pregnancies, I am passionate about supporting women as they transition from pregnancy to motherhood.  What do you do for pregnant friends?  What were some of your favorite gifts as an expectant parent?

Congratulations to the winner of our Sealy Naturalis Crib Mattress with Organic Cotton giveaway!  Catherine Alley will soon be receiving a very large package in the mail thanks to Kolcraft, our giveaway sponsor.  We hope your baby enjoys the unexpected holiday gift Catherine!

How do you like it? We’ve written before about this electronic reading device: The Kindle for Breastfeeding Mothers: Is It Green? We never reached a perfect conclusion. While conventional books are made from trees and travel hither and yon before they reach the reader, the Kindle takes energy to produce–and one day, it will need to be recycled (or thrown in the trash).

If you have a Kindle, how do you like it? Do you think of it as a green alternative to regular old books?

Sulfate-free shampoos that are good for the planet and great for the hair: do they exist? As I mentioned in my post about using baking soda instead of shampoo, I have been searching for a good sulfate-free shampoo for ages. What’s so bad about sulfates? Read the scoop about sulfates in shampoo over on Eco-friendly Daily to learn more about what to look for in an “eco-friendly” shampoo.

The Reincarnate Solid Shampoo Bar from LUSH

I have to say that regular shampoo (the bad kind!) works very well on my hair. Whereas others say that traditional shampoos irritate their skin or make their hair dry and frizzy, it’s never given me any trouble at all. So really, I wanted to make the switch for the planet, not my own hair care desires.

Unfortunately for my hair, the eco-friendly shampoos I tried didn’t work at all. After washing my hair with the organic, natural shampoos, it looked like I’d just doused my head in olive oil. I actually looked worse after shampooing than before shampooing. I tried the 365 brand from Whole Foods, a few Trader Joe’s kinds, and even paid extra for the Avalon Organics shampoos.

Avalon Organics shampoo

Has anyone had good luck with a natural shampoo? Back in the baking soda as shampoo post, Lindsay recommended the Lush shampoo bars, which sounds intriguing. I ended up switching over to baking soda, but it would be nice to know that a natural, organic, sulfate-free shampoo that works is out there!

You may have savings on hand for heirloom green gifts, but if money is tight this year, consider some creative thrift store gifts that any child would love. (They’ll be just as cherished and even more eco-friendly!)

1. A Dress-Up Treasure Chest: Fill up a wooden crate with lovely secondhand ensembles.  Costume jewelry, scarves, purses, vintage hats, and princess dresses are all easily found while hunting for thrift shop treasures.
2. A Real Tool Box: Find everything for an older child’s toolbox secondhand including a real hammer, screwdriver, wrench, screws, and nuts and bolts.  Throw in a few pieces of scrap lumber and a promise to help build a birdhouse sometime soon!
3. A Stationary Set: Have you ever noticed how much kids adore paper clips, post-its and rubber bands?  Pick up an old tackle box secondhand and stock the sections with office supplies.  You can even throw in a hole punch and stapler for fun!  (For younger kids make it an “Art Box” and limit it to crayons, erasers, and other objects that are safe for little ones.)
4. A Sporting Kit: Fill a plastic crate with all sorts of thrift store loot such as frisbees, soccer balls, bats, and whiffle balls.  If you’re athletically gifted, throw in some coaching coupons along with the gear.
5. A Doll Bed: Pick up a secondhand basket, line it with a pillow case, and fill it full of whatever you can find in the thrift store toy aisle including stuffed animals, beanie babies, or baby dolls.   Make little cards telling the name and care instructions for each of the toys you include in the basket just for fun.
6. Toys: Don’t underestimate what you might find in the toy aisle!  We have scored some amazing gifts for our son as people begin to purge their shelves to make room for incoming holiday presents.

The whole thrift store gift idea may seem downright depressing to you if you’ve never cruised through your local secondhand shop.  But used gifts offer an opportunity to give something that’s more personalized, less expensive and greener than just about any other option.  Plus, you’ll be able to purchase more on a limited budget. Have you braved the aisles of your local thrift shop lately?

Ever since Joy’s baking soda in the bathroom makes an eco-friendly shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste post, I’ve been curious about replacing shampoo with baking soda. Traditional shampoos contain sulfates and other ingredients that can be harmful to our health as well as the environment. But the bigger issue, for me, was the number of plastic bottles I was tossing in the recycling bin. Those take energy to produce and recycle.

For several months I used dry baking soda in the shower. I’d leave some in a little dish, scoop some out, form it into a paste with the shower water, then work it into my hair. It cleaned my hair really well, but it was somewhat of a mess dealing with powder in the shower. I eventually gave up this practice and started using a sulfate-free shampoo from Trader Joe’s.

After about half a year of using this shampoo, a strange thing happened: it suddenly stopped working. It simply refused to clean my hair. I’d wash it with the shampoo, dry my hair, and it would end up looking worse than before I’d shampooed. Back to the baking soda. And this time, I stumbled upon the perfect solution that was less messy and used less baking soda (as if this weren’t cheap enough!).

I simply mix 1 tablespoon of baking soda with 8 oz. of water. I happened to have a bottle just the right size to keep it in. In the shower, I pour about one fourth of the mixture on my head and massage it through. This is strange—of course it doesn’t lather at all, so it feels like you are doing nothing. I rinse my head, then follow with a conditioner. Afterwards, my hair is squeaky clean!

Have you experimented with using baking soda in place of a shampoo? What’s your technique? How does it work for you?

You could be the lucky winner of a Sealy Naturalis Crib Mattress with Organic Cotton! Go to our organic crib mattress giveaway post to enter multiple times. We are looking forward to randomly selecting the winner after midnight PST tonight and emailing them with the news. What a fantastic holiday gift for you or someone you love. We’ll post the winner’s name in the next few days. Great luck!

Washable nursing pads save money and cut down on waste. How many disposable pads does the average woman toss before her breastfeeding days are behind her? There’s really no “average woman” in this case. Some women don’t leak at all between feedings, and therefore have little need for nursing pads. Others leak the entire time they are breastfeeding, even once the child starts eating solid foods and the constant need for nursing dies down.

The LANAcare wool nursing pads review was one of our earliest Green Baby Guide posts. If you’re considering washable nursing pads, there are three main options: cotton, wool, and silicone. I chose wool for its absorbent and antibacterial properties. Unlike cotton, wool doesn’t feel cold and wet, so there’s less discomfort while wearing the pads, even if they’re soaked.

Another issue to consider is lumpiness. The wool pads were somewhat lumpy, but I combined them with a thick bra. Some of the ones I found on line appear to have visible seams–wear them at your own discretion!

Here are a few reusable pads to consider:

Medela 100% Cotton Washable Bra Pads $6.29—High ratings from Amazon reviewers

Natural Organic Cotton Washable Nursing Pads $8.95—an organic cotton option

BabyKicks Nursing Pads – Jersey $10.75—popular with reviewers

Green Sprouts Eco-friendly Organic Cotton Nursing Pads $7.48—another organic choice

Lily Padz Reuseable Nursing Pads $17.11—silicone pads with an average rating of 4 out of 5

Imse Vimse Silk and Wool Nursing Pads $10.95—an affordable wool pad

Nursing Pads Original Style from $26—the LANAcare  wool nursing pads I reviewed and recommended.

What nursing pads have you tried? Which do you recommend or anti-recommend? Let us know!