Who knew sunscreen could be so complicated? After slathering Audrey in sunscreen all summer long during her first year, I read that it’s dangerous to do so until she reaches her first birthday. Then I found out that only certain sunscreens were safe. Yes, that cancer-preventing lotion was–get this–carcinogenic! The good news is, you don’t need to keep your baby covered from head to foot in loose-fitting robes or hide under a gigantic umbrella all summer long.

Check out the Environmental Working Group’s list of safe sunscreens.  After  studying thousands of sunscreens, they found that “4 out of 5 contain chemicals that may pose health hazards or don’t adequately protect skin from the sun’s damaging rays.” Here are the top four safest ray-blockers on the market:

Fretting about all the potential toxins I’ve exposed myself and my daughter to over the years doesn’t do me any good–but switching sunscreens seems like an easy way to block the rays without going into summer lock-down.

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday, a blog carnival at We are THAT Family.

While environmental concerns are important, you also don’t want to be forcing your baby to suffer in the name of green living.  Can you keep your little one cool without resorting to canned air? None of my baby cool-down ideas will win any prizes for originality, but sometimes it’s good to remember the low-energy, low-cost alternatives to sitting around in an air-conditioned room:

Popsicles and other frozen treats. Even babies as young as six months old enjoy frozen confections every now and then. Make your own and they’re practically free. Here is my recipe for a strawberry spinach concoction.

Shade.  Spread out a blanket, sip an iced tea, and read baby books to your little one.

Mist. Try a spraying your baby with a bit of water to keep him cool. Warning: some babies do NOT find this amusing!

Grocery shopping. Nothing like pacing those air-conditioned aisles to cool you down on a hot summer’s day. Plus, you’ll cross an errand off your to-do list.

Sprinklers and baby pools. Some parks in our city have wading ponds and sprinklers for little ones–and even young babies have a great time with their parents.

Cool baths. No yard, and no park featuring sprinklers and wading pools? There’s always a nice cool bath for your baby.

Wet wash cloths. My daughter used to love sucking water  out of a wet wash cloth on hot days. It seemed to keep her calm and cool.

Ice chips. When I was just a few months old, my parents took me on a cross-country car trip without air conditioning. Supposedly iced chips kept us all sane.

Any more cool-down tricks I’m missing? Let us know!

All these ideas have worked for me. For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head on over to We are THAT Family.

I’ve heard rumors of parents hunched over boiling cauldrons of water, sterilizing everything from bottles to rattles. I’ve also listened to working moms who pump at work complain about the fifteen minutes they spend each day sterilizing their equipment. Now I have to ask: Is this necessary? If you have a dishwasher, you can use that to sterilize your gear. But is hand washing really so bad? I worked part time during my daughter’s first year and used a manual pump that I just rinsed out afterwards. We had a bottle, which we hand-washed along with everything else. Is sterilizing essential to your baby’s health–or is it just a waste of time and energy?

Some parents go all out by installing bamboo flooring, using eco-friendly paint, and buying only organic cotton bedding.  Others tend to think that the lightest carbon footprint involves keeping the room as simple as possible by buying less or investing in used gear.  What route did you take?  How did you maintain your green values and your budget?  

Ahh the glory of potty training–no diaper pail, no wet wipes, and the freedom to leave the house without the dreaded diaper bag.  Besides its convenience, early potty training is also tremendously earth friendly since you no longer have to deal with diaper laundry.  All is sunny and happy until your child declares a desperate urge to pee while you’re parked at a dingy gas station. 

Do you pack your toilet seat with you wherever you go?  Do you line the toilet seat with several layers of toilet paper and try to balance your toddler on the edge? 

Here is our family’s shocking solution that may just horrify some of our readers: We bring a small plastic yogurt container with us wherever we go.  When our son needs to urinate, we just pull down his pants and let him go in the cup.  Then we dump out its contents in the toilet and rinse it in the sink before we leave the restroom. Urine is sterile so it’s not a horrible health hazard and it’s quick and easy to rinse. I used to worry that people might look at us weird for cleaning out our container at the sink but really no one seems to notice.  If we’re far from a sink, we just place the lid on the cup and clean it out when we get home.  (Sorry if this sounds totally gross.  We are meticulous about making sure we clean it out ASAP so it hasn’t ever been a problem.)

Apparently, this isn’t a new idea.  My husband’s family is Thai and had a cup that was specifically made for this purpose when he was little.  I did find a similar American product called “My Pee-Pee Bottle” but it appears that our yogurt container works just as well.

So far our “pee-pee cup” has toured the state and has even made it to San Francisco, where it served valiantly in airport bathrooms, public libraries, and restaurants for our four-day trip. My son just had one accident during the whole vacation.  He likes being able to pee standing up instead of being perched precariously on the edge of foreign toilet seats and we like the convenience of simply pulling down his pants rather than having to take them off so that he could balance on the seat. 

Our next child, due to be born in just a few months is a girl.  I’m already grieving the loss of the pee-pee cup convenience.  Any ideas on how to use public restrooms with girls would be greatly appreciated!  

Skip this post if you live in Canada, Denmark, Australia, France, or any one of 163 countries worldwide with paid maternity leave.  We’ll try not to think about the fact that in those nations mothers and fathers get months and sometimes even years of paid time to raise their children.  Here in the U.S., it’s tricky to be able to maneuver our maternity leave, but there are always ways to creatively find more time to spend with your baby.

Why try to take as much time as possible?  It’s not only critical to your sanity, but it often ends up being far more eco-friendly as well. My husband and I found that when we were both working we ended up using more jarred baby food, eating take-out more often, and generally spending more money on convenience items just to survive. Staying home means you’ll have the time to experiment with washing and drying cloth diapers.  Plus you’ll end up buying less and just enjoying this phase of baby’s life.

Of course the type of leave you’ll be able to take depends on what type of benefits your job offers, but here are some ideas for making the most of the system:

• Use vacation or sick leave: One of easiest and most convenient ways to extend leave is to use up your stash of accrued time off.  If you’re pregnant or planning on being pregnant soon, try to save up as much time as is humanly possible so that you can get an extra month or two in addition to your maternity leave. 
  
• Have your spouse take family leave: Although it’s is usually unpaid, you can get as much as possible if you involve your partner’s leave time as well.  If your spouse is eligible for leave or has a bit of extra vacation saved up, you can arrange your months with baby back to back so that you get the first three home and while your spouse stays home the next three.  Then you don’t have to consider daycare for at least six months and you both get some individual bonding time with baby.
• Spread out your time over baby’s first year: Depending on your job, you can get creative with part time work.  With my first son, I had saved up almost six months of sick leave time after working for over ten years.  I took six weeks off right when he was born and then went back half time after that for a few months.  When he was six months old, I worked three half time and two full time days for the rest of the year.  I blew through all of my sick leave, but never had to take any unpaid days.  Although it was tough going back at six weeks, it was worth it to get to have that much time with him over the course of the year.  

If you’re looking for more advice, read last week’s post for tips on how to negotiate with your workplace, present a plan to your supervisor, and hold onto your family time.  Some of you ended up never going back to work. We’d love to hear what you’ve found to be the best part of staying home or negotiating a work solution that’s ideal for your family.

Thanks for joining us week for Thrifty Green Thursday!  If you have an idea about how to save money and the planet, please read this page to see how to add your link below.  

After a long weekend trip to San Francisco, I truly understand just how liberating the car-free concept is with kids.  We flew—which honestly isn’t the greenest option,(see Rebecca’s post about it here) but then traveled by subway, bus, streetcar and trolley all through the city. 

For my two-and-a-half-year-old, riding public transport was as much of a thrill as any of our destinations.  He could fall asleep on our shoulders, look out the window and even wander the aisles without having to worry about being strapped into a carseat.  It cost just $18 for each of us to have a three day Muni Passport, which covered almost every form of transportation available to us in the city.  That’s far less than a rental car, gas and parking!  The picture below of our son on a vespa in his Aunt Pauli’s garage was the closest he ever got to car travel.

I realize that this trip wouldn’t have been as easy with a newborn in tow.  Since my son is potty trained and can sleep with us in bed, we just brought carry-on luggage and easily managed to take trains from the airport to get to my sister-in-law’s apartment (with her as our guide). We proudly let his potty seat dangle from our backpack as we strode through the airport–classy!  

If we had tried this trip a year earlier cloth diaper changes throughout the city would have been challenging, but we had such a great time we’re already trying to strategize about how to go again after the upcoming birth of our second child. 

In our own hometown being totally car-free would be a bit more difficult, but we have several dedicated commuters who successfully manage it with ease.  Rebecca’s family gets by with just one vehicle—in fact, she never even drives!  Read about her adventures here.  Also you might want to check out a great blog on the very same subject: Carfree with Kids.  

It was heart-wrenching to go back to my career after my baby arrived, but luckily I had worked out a solution that gave me as much time off as possible over the course of his first year.  It required some creative thinking, some begging, and some negotiation, but it was worth it!

As you may have read in my last post, I found that the time I spent at home increased the quality of our lives and the quality of the environment. We were able to prepare homemade meals, hang cloth diapers out to dry, and generally spend less money. 

So how do you ask your supervisor for the best solution for your family?  Here are a few tips that worked for me.

• Think of a win-win-win solution. It’s possible to come up with a situation that is best for your family, your business, and your clients.  In my case, I found that spreading out my sick leave provided more consistency to my students, less cost to my school district, and an easier job for my supervisor.  When I presented it as such, my boss was very supportive.
• Problem solve before you make a proposal.  Are you the only one at work who can do a specific task?  If so, can you train someone so that they’ll be ready when you go on leave?  Can your company bring in an experienced, retired person to work temporarily during your leave so that training won’t be an issue?  There’s always a way to solve the dilemma and it will impress your supervisor if you can come up with it!  In my case, my leave request meant that there would be a Spanish class I wouldn’t be able to teach a few days a week.  I proposed that we changed the course to Spanish Language and Latino Art and teamed up with an amazing art teacher.  My principals were thrilled and my students enjoyed the whole experience.
•  Realize that family leave time is your right.  If you end up being pressured by your supervisors to come back before your three months of leave time is up, remember that it’s your legal right to have that time off.  The only exception is if your business has fewer than 50 employees or if you haven’t worked a total of 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months.   Otherwise, they have to let you have the leave and give your job back afterwards.  

In short, there are ways to negotiate a personalized solution that works for your family and your budget. You’ll be glad you took the initiative to explore all options and be even more appreciative when baby arrives and you get the chance to sleep in!  How did you handle going back to work or how did you make staying home fit into your budget?  We’d love to hear your stories. 

Thanks for adding your Thrifty Green Thursday links below so that all of our readers can learn from your simple tips on how to save a bit of money and the planet.  Everyone’s welcome, but if you don’t know where to start, click here for directions.  Thanks for joining us this week!

What could be more natural or beautiful than breastfeeding your new baby?  Well, it may be natural, but it’s not always easy.  Erika Jones of Organic Baby Resource shares her experience with breastfeeding for our second green mom spotlight.

Green Baby Guide:  What were the challenges you faced as a breastfeeding mother?

Erika: I’d put the challenges into two categories: mental and physical.

The women I had relied on for support all my life (mom, sister, friends) could provide me with no support or even encouragement in this area. Listening to their stories had me prepared for rather nightmarish outcomes when it came to breastfeeding. I’d tell them I dreamt of breastfeeding and it was a glorious experience and they found it laughable. They meant well; they just hadn’t experienced it that way.

The physical challenges were two-fold. Number one I had larger than average breasts and getting the hang of the positions took a little extra maneuvering at first. After the first week this wasn’t as much of an issue. The other challenge was that my daughter was born with jaundice and was dehydrated in the beginning so she didn’t have time for us to get the hang of things naturally and wait for my milk to come in. We had to supplement right away. In order to prevent nipple confusion, we let her dad squirt formula in her mouth with little syringes after she was nursed. This lasted for about four or five days after she was born.

Green Baby Guide: Did you manage to stick with it despite those challenges?  If so, how?

Erika: We did and are still breastfeeding at 19 months. I think the key to success was giving birth in an environment where breastfeeding was encouraged. The doctors nurses and lactation consultants all were willing to suggest different ways to meet our child’s needs while preserving our desire to breastfeed. Once I got home, I also had a friend who had successfully breastfed three children to encourage me and assure me it would get better after a short while. Finally, I didn’t allow myself to believe I couldn’t do it.

We interviewed Erika Jones of Organic Baby Resource for this Green Mom Spotlight.  (Check out our last Green Mom Spotlight posts, in which Eileen Spillman provides a planet-saving pep talk, tackles green guilt, and shares her eco-pet peeves.)

Green Baby Guide: Have you been able to save money with eco-friendly choices?  If so, how?

Erika: We saved a ton of money by breastfeeding exclusively, making our own baby food and using food-based skin care such as olive oil to moisturize our skin. We also stopped buying expensive cleaners and detergents. We went back to the basics of vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda.

Green Baby Guide: Would you do anything differently if you had a larger budget?

The only thing I would have done differently is invest in more types of cloth diapers to see if I could find a style that really worked for us. I tried one type and got frustrated with the amount of money I spent for it not to work. There are so many kinds to try that I got overwhelmed. I know a lot more now and I’ll try again for baby number two.

Green Baby Guide: What are the benefits of going green without a lot of money?

Erika: I think you don’t fall into a lot of the consumer traps that are out there. By that I mean products with a catchy label that aren’t truly “green” , “eco-friendly” or “natural”. You take the time to become more informed because you don’t have the discretionary income to waste on false claims. Also by making more products at home you can more closely guard what goes into your family’s food, cosmetic products and consumer goods.