When the rain hits around here, cabin fever quickly descends unless we seek creative indoor entertainment.  Luckily we have a huge supply of cozy kid-friendly fall activities for those chilly afternoons indoors.

If you’re still waiting for that first baby to arrive, you can while away the time with our DIY baby mobile made of beautiful paper birds.  Or, you can whip up a few homemade hemp diaper liners to fill out your cloth diaper layette.  Don’t forget to buy or use your library for free access to books! Check out our practical little publication, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide for some entertaining and eco-friendly reading.

Those of us who already have a few little helpers will enjoy our homemade Play-dough recipes. You can even combine playtime with snack by making Edible Play-Dough!  While you’re mixing up play clay, make some salt dough for Baked Dough Christmas ornaments that can be slipped into stockings in just a few weeks.

Clove oranges are another great craft that can later be used for homemade seasonal gifts.  You’ll enjoy pomanders as all natural air fresheners that will bring those spicy scents into your home before the holidays hit.

Even if it isn’t quite time for snow, you can make some elegant paper snowflakes with your children on those long cold afternoons and then string them in the windows!  And one of our favorite creative recycled playthings is the DIY Cardboard Dollhouse made of a box and a few furniture catalogues.

And when this list runs out, you can always get the kids outfitted in PVC-free children’s raingear and hit the puddles!  Have you had any cold weather fun yet this year?  What is the temperature at this time of year where you live?

Also, don’t forget that our Sealy Naturalis Crib Mattress with Organic Cotton giveaway is coming to a close soon.  Go to our organic mattress giveaway post and enter multiple times!

We like the emphasize that most babies will be utterly content receiving a cardboard box this holiday season, but if family and friends insist, we do have some excellent ideas for green gifts.

If your child is old enough to interact with bigger playthings, there are plenty of wooden toys for babies and kids and other types of eco-friendly toys for babies and young children.

Looking for stocking stuffers for baby?  Baby Legs are inexpensive, adorable, and long lasting.  They come in just one size that can potentially be worn from infancy through the preschool years.  And there’s no need to take them off when changing your tot’s diaper or setting your babe on the potty. Natural teething tablets are also a great addition to baby’s holiday loot.

The best present you may be able to give, is a full night of sleep for a newborn baby’s parents. And it costs nothing, has no packaging and requires no shipping or handling.  We hope you find the perfect gift for the baby in your life this year!

The Eco-nomical Baby Guide

Over the years we have reviewed some fabulous products that just might be a perfect find for the pregnant mother on your holiday gift list this year.

1. The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is the book that we both wish we would have had while pregnant.  It emphasizes going green by reducing, reusing and recycling (saving you thousands!) and provides loads of insider tips on cloth diapering.  Plus it’s packed with reviews of quality green gear for every price point. Did I mention that we wrote it? We may be a tad bit biased, but this is a beautiful and very helpful gift!
2. The Ergo Carrier is a gift that will keep baby close to mom while protecting her back.  We’ve had rave reader reviews that attest to the Ergo’s versatility and usefulness over several years of baby’s life.
3. Although most new moms are showered with dozens of receiving blankets, none of them will have the feel and quality of the Bambu Baby Blanket. It’s ample size and fleecy surface will quickly make it her favorite of the bunch. My child drags hers through the dirt on a regular basis, as it has become her official comfort object, and it survives almost daily laundering quite sturdily while remaining soft.
4. A quality Nathan Stainless Steel Flip Straw Bottle is a fabulous gift for someone who is constantly being reminded to hydrate.  Its flip top makes it easy to sip while driving and its wide mouth accommodates ice cubes quite nicely .  It also comes with three extra straws just in case.  Plus, she’ll appreciate it even more if she’s in the extreme thirst of breastfeeding.
5. BONUS!  How about a Sealy Naturalis crib mattress with organic cotton?  You can win one of these for your favorite mom in our organic mattress giveaway! There are only three weeks left and several ways to enter, so jump right in!

Short on cash?  Why not put together your own gift basket, or offer to deliver regular meals during those early weeks with baby?  What were your favorite gifts as an expectant mother?

Note to readers: I did not receive payment for any of these products, but I have to say that I have personally used the water bottle, the baby blanket, and the Ergo carrier and loved them.  As for the book, I can only say that it’s my new favorite baby shower gift!

My True Nature makes organic bath products for babies and kids. This San Francisco-based company’s mission is to “offer top quality natural bath and body products that are rich in organic ingredients and perform like mainstream products.” Each shampoo and body wash features cute little cartoon characters from TubbyTown to interest your little ones in the art of bathing.

My daughter was excited to try out her My True Nature products. She loved the pictures on the bottles and enjoyed smelling each product and choosing which one to use during her bath. They shampoos and body washes we tried all smell natural and citrusy. They appeal to kids without reeking of bubblegum or harsh chemicals. The bubble bath foams up nicely (a rarity for natural bath products), and the shampoo cleaned her hair gently.

We recommend My True Nature and would like to offer this gift set for one of our lucky readers to try! The set includes a naturally scented shampoo-body wash and bubble bath.

FOUR WAYS TO ENTER:

1. Simply leave us a comment on this post.

2. Email friends or family and tell them about the giveaway (and comment)

3.  Like us on Facebook (and comment)

4.   Link to this giveaway post on Facebook or Twitter–tell all your friends to stop by (and comment each time)

***The contest ends on Tuesday, November 23, 2010***

The winner will be randomly selected from the list of comments so don’t forget to note your multiple entries with one comment each!

Don’t forget that our Sealy Naturalis Crib Mattress with Organic Cotton giveaway is still going on! Head on over to that post to enter!

Most of us would swoon with delight if a new, eco-friendly crib mattress showed up on our doorstep. It could happen to you!  Kolcraft (Sealy’s partner in this product) is sponsoring this month’s fantastic giveaway. If you’d like to read more about the product, check out our review of the Sealy Naturalis crib mattress with organic cotton.

You can also head over to Kolcraft’s blog to read more about our journey as green moms and also win their giveaway of a signed copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide.

Since this is such a huge prize, and we want to include listeners who are finding out about our site from the interview on Preg-tastic, we’ll be keeping this going for a full month.  (Preg-tastic is also sponsoring a giveaway of The Economical Baby Guide, so stop by and check it out!)

If your due date is sooner or you don’t win, you can rest assured that this is still a very affordable product.  The Sealy Naturalis crib mattress with organic cotton is currently available for less than a hundred bucks.

Our favorite part of this giveaway is all the ways you can enter:

1. Simply leave us a comment on this post.

2.     Email friends or family and tell them about the giveaway (and comment)

3.     Like us on Facebook and/or like Kolcraft on Facebook (and comment)

4.     Link to this giveaway post on Facebook or Twitter–tell all your friends to stop by (and comment each time)

5.     Link to this post on your blog (and don’t forget to comment!)

***The contest ends on Monday, December 6^th, 2010***

Winner will be randomly selected from the list of comments so don’t forget to note your multiple entries with one comment each!

We will notify the winner via email. Please Note: This contest is open only to U.S. readers.   Enjoy!

I love cloth diapers, and have used them since my four year old’s infancy.  Unfortunately, we had problems early on with nighttime leaking and yeast infections with cloth diapers. Finally, we reluctantly switched from cloth to disposables diapers for bedtime.

It made me so sad that I frequently revived my nocturnal cloth diapering efforts—with the same results.  Now my son is four, he is nowhere near potty training at night even though he was day trained at a little over two years old.  When we try to wake him to go to the bathroom, he begins to scream and flail and doesn’t seem to be able to rouse enough to use the toilet. After the whole ordeal he wails and flails for fifteen minutes before falling asleep.  We quickly decided that this isn’t going to work.

Most tips I’ve found on the Internet suggest that some children don’t night train until six years of age.  Ugh!  That’s a long time!  Plus Roscoe has started wetting out of his huge diapers and we’ve had to switch to pull-ups.  Has anyone had success with cloth pull ups? We’re worried about the yeast infections becoming an issue again.  Any tips?  I don’t want to be buying disposable pull ups for the next two years!

Homemade baby food became somewhat of a hobby for me. I don’t think my daughter had more than three or four jars of store-bought food, and I smiled smugly when she rejected it in favor of my delectable concoctions of ground oats, flax seeds, and kale. (That smugness has since faded: See the Any Brilliant Ideas for Picky Eaters? post!)

As obsessed as I was with making my own homemade baby food, I could have used this incredible book: Great Expectations: Best Food for Your Baby & Toddler by Jeannette L. Bessinger and Tracee Yablon-Brenner of Real Food Moms. Their guide goes way beyond my boring purees, with more than 150 recipes and snack ideas for babies and kids under three. Many of the recipes sound delicious for adults, too—zucchini cupcakes with mascarpone frosting, veggie pancakes, pasta with pesto and garbanzo beans, creamy choco-banana smoothie. And don’t worry—there are still plenty of recipes for “traditional” baby fare such as teething biscuits, grain cereals, and apple sauce.

The book also includes tips for establishing good eating routines, information on organic foods and vegetarian diets, and a comprehensive list of whole foods companies and products.

Would you like a copy of Great Expectations: Best Food for Your Baby and Toddler? I have one to giveaway to a lucky winner!

You can enter up to three times! Just post a comment for each entry by Monday, November 1st.

Three Ways to Enter the 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!)

Good luck!

Congratulations to Mary, winner of the BornFree straw cup giveaway!

Does the Sealy Naturalis crib mattress live up to its green claims–or are we being greenwashed? We’ve raved about this mattress a couple times on the Green Baby Guide. Not only does it use soybean foam rather than petroleum-based materials, but it comes at a much lower price than other organic mattresses. While neither Joy nor I have actually purchased an organic mattress (as we’ve admitted in The Eco-nomical Baby Guide as well as on this site), we believed the Sealy Naturalis crib mattress was a great green deal.

Then last week we received an interesting comment on the 5 New Baby Things in 5 Years post. One great new thing, I wrote, was the fact that organic crib mattresses were so affordable compared to just five years ago. I didn’t consider an organic mattress when I was pregnant, just because they were so outrageously expensive. A reader advised us to not recommend the Sealy mattress, as it contained toxic fire retardant chemicals. She had called Sealy and been told that that the soybean mattresses did contain these chemicals, despite their claims to the contrary.

I called Kolcraft today and asked about the Sealy Naturalis crib mattress. The customer service representative assured me that there are no fire retardant chemicals on the mattress–the mattress is non-toxic, as advertised. Of course, there is always the possibility that any product we write about is not what it claims to be, but in this case, we do feel like we can stand behind our recommendation.

According to the Kolcraft website, here are the features of the Sealy Naturalis soybean foam core mattress:

Features

Are you tired of keeping up with the never-ending hunger of pregnancy or breastfeeding?  Are blood sugar spikes exhausting you beyond the usual pregnancy fatigue or sleeplessness of early motherhood? Having just a few substantial foods on hand will help you fight that exhaustion while healthily nourishing your body and your baby.

1. Nuts and nut butters are packed with protein, flavor, and healthy monounsaturated fats.  Along with the impressive list of nutrients nuts provide, you’ll get fiber as well.  Of course, if you can swing the higher prices eating organic nuts and nut butters is preferable.  There is some nut consumption controversy for pregnant and nursing women, but we happily munched on handfuls of these little healthy gems during our pregnancies with no negative outcomes for our kids.
2. Oils can be drizzled on salads or steamed vegetables and will keep you fuller longer, while supplying valuable calories that you need to build a baby or produce breastmilk.  Again, remember that monounsaturated fats are your friends!
3. Dark chocolate is packed with antioxidants and gorgeous flavor and yet is low in saturated fats.  It’ll make you feel sinful and indulgent while being actually rather healthful.  My favorite is a handful of dark chocolate chips mixed with chopped almonds or shelled pistachios.  Bliss!  For a more exotic experience, try Green and Black’s Organic Maya Gold Dark Chocolate with Orange and Spices. Nursing mothers may have heard that chocolate contributes to colic, but dark chocolate is better than milk or white chocolate which contain far more milk products.
4. Rich, buttery avocados are an indulgence that aren’t always planet friendly, but are packed in healthy fat.  Unless you live in California, these little gems have to be shipped in from miles around, but I have to confess that I regularly purchase them for their gooey green scrumptiousness.  (I try to make up for it by eating less meat and buying organic and local when possible)
5. Cheeses, especially those that are a bit lower in saturated fats, are a simple handheld snack that satiates without having to be prepared.

So where did most of the items on this list come from? The Flat Belly Diet.  (Read about my Flat Belly Diet success, which has continued for two months now!)  I would NEVER suggest that you should try to lose weight during pregnancy or breastfeeding, but I’ve found that incorporating monounsaturated fats into our diet has been tremendously helpful for our family. What were your favorite snacks during pregnancy and breastfeeding?  Do you remember that insatiable hunger?

Oh, how things have changed! These five items weren’t on my radar back in the dark ages of 2005:

gDiapers. Technically, gDiapers were available in some markets as early as 2004. However, I don’t remember knowing about them when I was researching diaper options. I went with Chinese prefolds and cloth diaper covers instead!

Glass bottles. Now obviously glass bottles existed in 2005, but back then, they hadn’t worked their way back into favor. Then reports of dangerous chemicals such as BPA started coming out, steering people away from plastics. Soon everyone was jumping on the glass bandwagon.

Born Free Glass Baby Bottles

Affordable organic crib mattresses. Yes, I had read about organic mattresses in Baby Bargains–but they cost so much compared to a conventional mattress back in 2005. Now you can get one for under $100! (Such as the Sealy Naturalis crib mattress with a soybean foam core.)

Bumbo seats. Well, supposedly the Bumbo was invented in 2001, but I don’t remember seeing them during my baby shopping spree five years ago. It’s just as well–they’re made out of non-recyclable foam.

The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Where was this revolutionary book on green parenting back when I was expecting a new bundle of joy?! I could have used its wonderful advice on cloth diapering, green baby products, and secondhand baby gear. Thank goodness it’s 2010!