“Organically Cute is all about bibberizing your baby.” So reads the copy on Organically Cute’s website. If you want organic bibs made from vibrant designer fabrics, this is where you’ll find them. All of their bibs are made from 100% natural, organic cotton that is grown without the use of insecticides or synthetic fertilizers. To top it all off, five percent of every sale gets donated to charities that benefit children in the U.S. or the environment.

Here’s your chance to win a set of four Organically Cute bibs for your own fashion-forward tot! The winner gets to choose from all of these great designs.

You can enter twice! Here’s how:

1.      Simply post a comment here.

2.      Visit Organically Cute’s website. Come back and tell us what your favorite bib design is in the comments.

We’ll choose a winner September 29^th. United States addresses only, please. Good luck!

Eco-friendly diaper creams abound these days, but which ones really work?

We were big fans of Boudreaux’s All Natural Butt Paste. It was widely available and seemed to clear up any issues we had quickly and without a sticky mess.

Method’s Squeaky Green Diaper Cream comes in wonderful scents, but I never had a chance to use it with my babies.

Friends of mine have raved about Weleda Calendula Diaper Care and their whole line of products.

Nature’s baby Organics Organic Diaper Ointment Cream is part of a series of organic personal care products for mothers and babies.

Angel Baby Bottom Balm has a luscious lavender scent that we loved. It’s made here in Oregon and their whole line of products are fabulous!

Bio-Bio Baby’s Zinc Oxide Paste also looks pretty promising. Has anyone tried it?

Perhaps you’ve tried swabbing a bit of olive oil on baby’s bottom or even using some Lanosinoh Lanolin. (Most breastfeeding moms discover that the stuff is wonderful for those early days of cracked and sensitive skin, and unless your child has a wool allergy, it’s great for use as a diaper cream as well!)

Let us know what your favorite solutions are for diaper rash and don’t forget to enter our Eco-nomical Baby Guide and What to Expect When You’re Expecting giveaway!

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a thorough guide to pregnancy that has been tremendously popular for over twenty years–and this week their website, What to Expect, is sponsoring a giveaway! We’re throwing in a few copies of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, to sweeten the winnings for two lucky readers. There are multiple ways to enter so get in on the action!

Prize #1
What to Expect Before You’re Expecting (+ a copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down to Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet)

For women who are planning conception and pregnancy, What to Expect Before You’re Expecting is a great resource. It provides tips on everything from nutrition to medical care for women (and men) in the months before you get pregnant. And it will help you make the good choices that will lead to a healthier newborn. For couples hoping to conceive quickly, Murkoff educates readers about how to pinpoint ovulation cycles to raise your odds of getting pregnant.

As for our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, we’ve spoken to many women who received it late in their pregnancies only to wish that they would have read it months earlier. Why not learn about cloth diapers and used baby gear before you’re dealing with morning sickness and exhaustion? We hope that having the book far in advance will allow you to gather up the new and used green gear you need while saving thousands of dollars.

Prize #2
What to Expect When You’re Expecting(+ a copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down to Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is read by over 90% of pregnant women who read pregnancy books and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for decades. So what can you expect from the book? The book is organized into monthly chapters which provide information about how you may feel, common questions, a week-by-week guide to baby’s fetal development, and information about what your midwife or doctor is likely to say during that phase of pregnancy. The book also addresses childbirth plus the emotional and physical issues that couples face in the postpartum period. The question and answer format helped me pick out sections that were relevant to my pregnancy. I was too overwhelmed and exhausted by growing a fetus to actually read any book cover to cover so I appreciated being able to easily reference what I was looking for.

We wish every newly pregnant woman could get a free copy of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, just to have access to humble, humorous, hands-on advice for gearing up green on a budget. Since we can’t just stand on the corner and hand these out to pregnant passers-by, we’ve decided to send one to accompany What to Expect When You’re Expecting in this giveaway. We hope you can win!

Whether you’re lucky enough to win one of the prizes or not, you should know that What to Expect online now offers heaps of free information for expectant women and new parents. You can pick up a copy of many What to Expect books on Amazon for less than nine bucks and The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is currently on sale for less than eight dollars. (And it will save you much, much more than what you pay for it!)

Enter the What to Expect When You’re Expecting (and the Eco-nomical Baby Guide) Giveaway!

Each comment counts as an entry. You can enter up to four times. Here’s how:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like the Green Baby Guide on Facebook (then tell us you did it in a separate comment)

3. Visit the What to Expect website and comment on what you learned.

4. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on Thursday, August 11th, and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!

Great luck!

Mom’s Healthy Market is an online resource for high quality, eco-friendly products for children from companies such as Bebe au Lait, Green Toys, Apple Park Toys, Guidecraft, Tegu, Seventh Generation, E-cloth, Pure Rest Organics, and Eco Baby. Everything on the site is organized by room for easy reference. Check out the “baby room” for some great diapering products or the “kid’s room” for an extensive organic bedding selection, as just two examples.

In addition to the toys and organic food, visit the site for parenting articles or to set up a baby gift registry. Use the code MM20 and you’ll receive 20% off your first order!

Our favorite thing about Mom’s Healthy Market? They’re hosting a giveaway! The winner will receive a Safe2Go Kids’ Harness Backpack, worth $27. Choose from three cute designs: The butterfly, puppy, or teddy. Your child can use it as a backpack, and it doubles as a safety harness in crowded areas.

Four ways to enter the Safe2Go Backpack giveaway:

1. Simply comment and you’re entered
2. Like the Green Baby Guide on Facebook, then leave another comment, and you’re entered again
3. Like Mom’s Healthy Market on Facebook, then let us know in the comments
4. Visit Mom’s Healthy Market and tell us what you think in the comments!

The contest ends on Thursday, June 23 and is open only to U.S. residents.

Good luck!

Monkey Foot Designs Wet Bags are sturdy and functional, but also sewn from rich and colorful prints that almost make cloth diapering seem, well, glamorous! We’ve loved them for years here at the Green Baby Guide and one of our readers will be winning one soon.

In case you have no idea what a wet bag is, you should know that it can be used for toting damp items  including used cloth diapers, swim suits, breast pump parts, and baby wipes.  Although I initially stuffed a freezer bag into my purse for used cloth diapers on the go, I was so thrilled to have my Monkey Foot Designs wet bag.  (For one, I didn’t always look forward to washing out that used freezer bag by hand and a Monkey Foot Designs wet bag can simply be tossed in the laundry!)

The inner part of a Monkey Foot Designs wet bag is made with ProCare, a waterproof material that keeps wetness and odor within the bag.  The outer fabric is sewn separately to avoid leakage and all seams are serged for reinforcement.  While other wet bags shut with drawstrings, Monkey Foot Designs bags zip shut to seal up odor and wetness.

I just received a lovely Monkey Foot Designs double pocket wet bag with the rich multicolored elephant fabric to review.  My first thought was, “How sad that my daughter will be fully potty trained soon.”  I think I may use it as a purse in the future simply because it’s so beautiful!   It’s incredibly reasonable (just $30!) and has two pockets to accommodate more.

Today Monkey Foot Designs is sponsoring a giveaway of one solid black double pocket wet bag. This one little item will last you through years of cloth diapering!  No one will know you’re hauling around wet gear in this sleek bag and you can use it after baby for years!

Four Ways to Enter the Monkey Foot Designs Wet Bag Giveaway:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like us on Facebook (then tell us you did it in the comments)

3. Visit Monkey Foot Designs website and comment on what you learned.

4. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on Wednesday June 15th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!

From the Hygeia EnJoye Breastpump, to a copy of Fifteen Minutes Outside, to a Smartklean Laundry Ball, we’ve been hosting fabulous giveaways in the last few weeks.  And now it’s time for a drum roll:

Juley A. from Anchorage, Alaska will soon be getting her copy of 15 Minutes Outside on her doorstep.  Enjoy!  Now that the weather is getting a bit warmer, it will be even easier to gain inspiration to be outdoors with baby.

In just a matter of days, Andrea B. from Chandler, Arizona will be able to toss a the Smartklean Laundry Ball into her washer without using any laundry detergent–for an entire year!

And, our biggest winner so far of the Hygeia EnJoye Breastpump is….Ashley B from Los Angeles, California.

Thank you so much for your comments and interest.  We have some more exciting giveaways coming up so keep coming back to see if you’ll be our next lucky winner!

Just what is a laundry ball, you ask?  It’s a device designed to replace laundry soap that lasts for an entire year.  (If you wash approximately 18 pounds of laundry per day.)  The SmartKlean Laundry Ball is a perforated plastic sphere filled with ceramic pellets.  Don’t ask me about the specific chemistry involved, but the product claims that the pellets eliminate mold and bacteria, elevate PH levels to simulate soap, and break down water clusters to reduce rust in washing machines.  Honestly, the other features of these pellets are a bit too science-saturated for me to grasp.

Skipping detergent altogether and throwing a ball into a washing machine filled with stinky socks and sour milk smells seemed a bit crazy, but I have to say that it works.  You can hear the ball bouncing around inside which must help agitate the laundry a bit more.  We even used it with our diapers, which are mostly wet these days since Jovi uses the toilet for bowel movements, and they came out smelling great!  It doesn’t do a whole lot for stain removal, but if you pretreat your clothing, it comes out just fine.  (The company also recommends adding white vinegar and sea salt to very soiled clothing to boost the cleaning power.)

Would I buy this product?  Probably not.  I simply am not a purchaser of new-fangled laundry devices and it costs $45.00.  Some people spend this much on dryer sheets and laundry soap in a year, but I don’t think we actually do.   Still, I have to say that our laundry ball stays in our machine and we use it most of the time.  It can be recycled if your local site accepts #7 plastics or it can be sent back to the company.   It does require a bit of maintenance since it should be placed in the sun to regenerate the pellets once a month.  For more information on the product, head to their FAQ page.

You shall have a chance to try it out for yourself if you’re the lucky winner of our SmartKlean Laundry Ball giveaway!

Three Ways to Enter the SmartKlean Laundry Ball Giveaway:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like us on Facebook (then tell us you did it in the comments)

3. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on Friday May 13th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Just a friendly reminder that you have until this Friday, May 6th to enter our Hygeia EnJoye Professional-Grade Breastpump Giveaway! There are multiple ways to win and the prize is pretty fantastic so make sure you get your entries in by Friday.  Great luck!

Books sit on my nightstand for weeks before they are ever cracked open, but I was aching to read 15 Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Outside and Connect With Your Kids.

Why did this little gem get preferential treatment? The title alone tells me what I wish we were doing on a daily basis around here. It’s fine to skip the paper towels and embrace cloth diapers, but what do all those things mean to my kids if they don’t have an intimate relationship with the world outside their door?

The rain has been  relentless lately and we don’t seem to take the time to slip on our boots and brave the weather. We could save a stranded earthworm or find a budding pussy willow or perhaps slosh through a dozen puddles.

This book is simply a list of 365 wonderful ideas, organized by month, to push your reticent crew out the door. When I tell my children we’re going to go outside, my son always replies (rather loudly), “but I’m cozy mama!”. He’s four and loves building blanket forts while clad only in underpants.

But if I told him that we were going to hunt for bugs or plant pansies, maybe I’d have a better chance of moving him beyond these four walls.

If you’d like the chance to win a copy of 15 Minutes Outside, this is your lucky week!

Three Ways to Enter the Fifteen Minutes Outside Book Giveaway:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like us on Facebook (then tell us you did it in the comments)

3. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on April 25th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!

What if your OB/Gyn was a mother of three who actually invented things to make women’s lives easier as they journeyed through the rough landscape of early motherhood?  The bad news is that most of you won’t be able to become patients of Dr. Somi Javiad–she’s busy enough as it is!  The great news is that  she, along with her business partner, Kim Howell, have founded a website and product line to support new and expectant mothers.  Mamadoc was developed by Howell and Javiad to offer practical, eco-friendly pregnancy products to women that can make pregnancy and new motherhood a bit more comfortable.

Some of Mamadoc‘s clever inventions include Nox, a compression bra to help nursing mothers with engorgement when weaning, Preghose to help pregnant moms prevent swollen feet,(I could have used a dozen pairs of those!)  and Bellyup to support a pregnant woman’s back and abdomen during the late months of pregnancy.

Mamadoc also carries handmade bamboo cotton diapers that we had the chance to try out with my twenty month daughter. They’re an adorable color combo of grey and pink and the two layers of bamboo fleece are incredibly soft and absorbent.  One drawback is that we did notice that the edging frayed and balled up after a few washings.  While they look a bit worn, they’re still quite comfortable and cute.

One lucky winner will be getting a bamboo soothing cloth from Mamadoc to share with a new baby.  It’s ultra soft small square of fabric with polka dots of texture that baby will enjoy exploring. (Pictured below)

Three Ways to Enter the Mamadoc Bamboo Soothing Cloth Giveaway:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like us on Facebook (then tell us you did it in the comments)

3. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on March 29th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!