Like some cloth diaper users, I assumed that disposables were the best option for nights, but felt conflicted about chucking them into the trash just to buy us a bit of rest.  I posted about the battle between my exhaustion and my eco-guilt here.

A few weeks ago Roscoe solved the problem himself by wetting through his disposables two nights in a row.  Erin, Wendy, and Alissa all submitted comments to my “Nighttime Diaper Dilemma” post that recommended using a pocket diaper with extra inserts.  In sleepy desperation we gave it a try.  The result was blissful slumber and a clear conscience!

Although I was originally a staunch supporter of prefolds with covers, I have come to love our pocket diapers for their convenience and aesthetic appeal. A pocket diaper consists of a diaper cover lined in a moisture wicking layer.  There is a pocket between the outer cover and the liner where you insert a long terry cloth pad to soak up moisture.  Since you insert the pads while you’re folding the laundry, it makes for a more convenient diaper change than prefolds. 

The only downside is that you have to wash the entire diaper every time.  With prefolds you can often just rinse the cover so that it can be used again.  Since we’re trying to lighten the laundry loads we do around here, we use prefolds during the day and save our pocket diapers for nighttime use.

We use three main brands of pocket diapers, all of which I love for varying reasons.

Fuzzibunz: These are legendary among cloth diaper users and have gained increasing popularity in recent years.  My favorite features of Fuzzibunz diapers are their snaps.  Roscoe can’t pull them open himself and they adjust for a variety of waist sizes.  These are a hot item at resale shops and can earn up to half their retail price when sold used.

Happy Heiny’s:  This innovative diaper design adjusts with snaps in the front so that it fits baby for a variety of ages.  You can use the same diaper for babies from eight to thirty pounds and the Velcro is tough enough to prevent my son from being able to take off his own diaper. Happy Heiny’s pocket diaper in cow print is beyond cute!

Bum Genius:  These diapers also adjust for babies from 8-30 pounds and use Velcro for the waistband.  They are great quality and would have a high resale value. They come with two inserts: one for daytime and thicker one for nighttime use.

There are many, many more pocket diapers out there but these three are the only ones I’ve tried so far.  I’ve been impressed with their effectiveness, but mainly I’m just happy to be getting a bit more sleep and feeling a bit less guilt.  We’d love to hear about your nighttime cloth diaper victories!

The “Dirty Duds Bag” by Bumkins was an impulse purchase for me.  I was tired of packing plastic sacks into Roscoe’s daycare bag and relieved to see that someone else had thought of an easy solution.  After I bought it I almost headed back to the store.  $12.95 for a bag that I could easily sew myself?  (If I had a sewing machine and any extra time.) Plastic is free!  Still, it seemed unsanitary to recycle plastic bags after they had been filled with Roscoe’s poopy diapers and I didn’t want to take the time to wash them out and wait for them to dry. 

I’ve actually found our wet bag to be incredibly helpful.  We rinse it out in Roscoe’s leftover bathwater each night, hang it up in the bathroom and find that its extremely lightweight, waterproof fabric is dry by morning.  It never smells and its fun print is easy to find in the depths of his diaper bag.  The bag can hold about ten cloth large cloth diapers, which is just right for our needs. 

The only complaint we have about our “Dirty Duds Bag” is that the drawstring doesn’t close as tightly as I’d like.  I’m not sure if this is unique to the bag we have or if it’s a design flaw.  We end up cinching it as tightly as it will go and then wrapping the string around the top to ensure that it stays completely shut.

Rebecca came up with a thriftier solution by using a dry bag that she found at REI for less than ten dollars.  Her bag is waterproof, holds over a weekend’s worth of diapers, and closes shut by rolling the top over and clasping it with a buckle. She takes this bag to her daycare and even on weekend trips, easily storing her daughter’s diapers without stinking up the car.  The dry bags at my small, local REI were all around $30, but you can find the cheaper versions at larger stores or online.  If you can, check out fabulous used outdoor gear shops like Next Adventure in Portland, Oregon, to find pre-owned dry bags.

Whatever solution you choose, don’t do what I’ve done on more than one occasion.  It’s no fun discovering that you’ve forgotten to empty the bag the night before, leaving the diapers to “ripen” overnight.  Pew!  Please let us know what eco-friendly solutions you’ve found for storing soiled cloth diapers on the go. 

Ever since Audrey started on solid foods at six months, she’s loved oatmeal. We spoon-fed oatmeal to her for months, and now she asks for her “oats” and feeds herself. I was happy to find a cheaper, more nutritious alternative to the typical rice cereal, which many parents are now avoiding as a first food. (Read an article about how to choose baby and kid cereals here. Learn more about the oat porridge I made Audrey in the early months here.)

I had a harder time finding a dry cereal that Audrey could enjoy as finger food. Cheerios, a common baby finger food, contain both wheat and sugar–two ingredients doctors say to avoid during baby’s first year. Plus, they’re not organic. My neighborhood stores offered plenty of organic Cheerio-like cereals, but almost all of them also contained wheat and sugar (sometimes disguised as organic cane syrup). 

Finally I found the perfect solution: puffs. Both Nature’s Path and Arrowhead Mills make puffed grain cereals that are perfect for babies. The only ingredient is the grain itself–no sugar, no salt, no additives or preservatives. I’ve seen puffed corn, rice, millet, wheat, and kamut. Kamut is the preferred puff in our household. Although it is a larger relative of wheat, many people with wheat allergies or intolerances can digest kamut. If you are really worried about introducing wheat or its cousins, I’d recommend the corn puffs instead.

What about the price? I try to buy the six-ounce bags when they are on sale for $1.50 ($4/pound), but the regular price is $1.90 ($5.06/pound). Yes, this is more expensive than a jumbo-box of Cheerios, which can be had for 22.2 cents an ounce ($3.55/pound). However, I think the extra price for an organic, whole-grain cereal is worth it. And most importantly, kamut puffs are one of Audrey’s favorite foods!

This week’s Works for Me Wednesday is all about what doesn’t work for you.  Cheerios weren’t working for me, so I’m glad I found an alternative.  For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Right around when Joy wrote her post about diaper-friendly detergent I was in the process of phasing out my conventional laundry soap. I hadn’t switched over to an eco-friendly brand because I kept getting hung up on the price. Imagine my shock when I discovered that eco-friendly detergent can be cheaper than conventional detergent! I no longer have any reason to use a mainstream brand.

Laundry Detergent–from cheapest to most expensive

T.J.’s powder  / $5.49 / 40 loads / $.137 per load

Biokleen laundry powder / $13.99 / 100 loads / $.139 per load  BEST DEAL

T.J.’s liquid HE  / $8.99 / 64 loads / $.14 per load

All (not eco-friendly)  / $14.00 / 96 loads / $.145 per load

Biokleen liquid laundry detergent / $9.49 / 64 loads /$.148 per load

T.J.’s powder  / $10.00 / 64 loads / $.156 per load

Biokleen laundry powder / $8.29 / 50 loads / $.165 per load

Planet laundry powder / $10.00 / 32 loads /  $.31 per load

Ecover laundry powder / $9.00 / 20 loads / $.45 per load

Seventh Generation laundry powder / $8.00 / 16 loads / $.50 per load

 

Some Notes on the Eco-friendly Detergents

• Even though T.J.’s 40-load box is cheaper than Biokleen’s 100-load box, Biokleen gets the “Best Deal” award because it uses less packaging.
• Trader Joe’s larger box of detergent (64 loads) is a worse deal than their small box (40 loads).
• Biokleen is often on sale. I got my ten-pound box for $11.99 (.119 per load). Trader Joe’s prices stay constant.
• If you read the text on the Biokleen box, it says you’ll get 100 loads by using three-quarters of the scoop provided. With a high efficiency machine, the box recommends using just half a scoop. That means I’ll actually get 160 loads out of my Biokleen box. The actual price per load on my $11.99 sale box will be just $.074. That’s half the price of many other eco-friendly brands and the cheap conventional brand.



• The Ecover and 7^th Generation are bad deals. Not only do they cost a lot, they also come in plastic bottles that would have to be replaced frequently. (1 box of Biokleen = 10 plastic bottles of 7^th Generation!)

Some Notes on the Conventional Detergent

I wanted to see how eco-friendly brands compared to the cheapest conventional brand and was pleased to find that Biokleen powder is actually cheaper than All. Now, I’m sure you can find cheaper detergent at a big warehouse store, but I was looking only in the stores within walking distance of my house. One huge plastic container of All costs $14 ($.145/load). That’s almost twice as expensive as the Biokleen.

My frugal friend (we’ll call him Thrifty Bob) told me that he’d just found a container of All on sale for $9 ($.093/load). Not bad, Thrifty Bob! However, if you read the fine print on the container, it says you’ll get 96 loads if you fill the cup half-way full. If you have a top-loader, you may be filling the cup to the top, so you’d actually get just 48 loads out of the container. Thrifty Bob has a front-loader and admitted that he often filled the cup more than halfway full. Not only does this waste detergent, it may ruin a front-loading machine. The guy who delivered our front-loader warned me to never, ever, ever use more than a third-cup of detergent.

I will admit that before I found Biokleen laundry powder, I was using All detergent, too. Now I’m kicking myself, because not only was I paying more, I was polluting the Earth with toxins and adding a huge hunk of plastic to the recycling bin. Even worse, I had to throw away three non-recyclable plastic parts of the container: the plastic cup, spout, and cap.

Another big advantage to green detergent is that it doesn’t contain chemicals that can cling to skin or petroleum-based oils that coat diapers and cause unpleasant smells. Thanks to Biokleen, I’ll be saving money, keeping toxins away from our bodies, and helping the planet.

When my belly was bulging with baby, I imagined my newborn gulping breast milk from the clearest, most rigid plastic bottles that I chose, thinking that the ones that appeared closest to glass would certainly be the safest.  Months later as I read through the latest research, I was surprised to find out that my instincts were wrong. 

In fact, the rigid plastics used to make some baby bottles and almost all Nalgene bottles have the highest risks of leaching toxins.  (Nalgene will be pulling their BPA-laden bottles soon.)  On Friday, Canada’s health and environmental ministries announced that it will ban the use of bisphenol-a (BPA) in plastic products because of health concerns.  Read here for further details on Canada’s landmark decision. 

Since BPA actually mimics hormones, its use has been linked to possible neural and other health disorders.  The risk goes up if the plastic is repeatedly being exposed to very hot water.  Luckily we don’t have a dishwasher (never thought I would say that!) but we were repeatedly putting hot milk into the bottle and washing it in scalding water.   

After trying more flexible plastic bottles that are supposedly safer, I became concerned when they began to cloud.  Since clouding can be another indication of leaching, I finally switched to a Born Free glass bottle. 

It took awhile for my son to adapt to the new nipple shape, but he now loves it.  The cost is a bit more than other options (around $16.00 each) and the manufacturer recommends replacing the nipple every three months. Since a two pack of nipples cost around $7.00 each, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to bring my frugal self to make the investment in regular replacements.  Roscoe just has a small bottle once a day before bed, so I think he’ll be fine.   (One side-note: Many people wean babies from bottles altogether at one year.  We’re still breastfeeding here and doing a bit of bottle feeding.)

There are, thankfully, far more plastic and glass options out there now than I ever realized that are all BPA, PVC, and Phthalate free. This link has a wonderful array of mainstream and niche brand bottles that are safe for baby with links to the companies’ websites.  Our favorite source for the latest on other non-toxic baby products such as sippy cups and pacifiers is The Soft Landing Blog. 

Ironically, now that I’ve finally figured out a solution to our bottle-feeding woes, I’m about to start weaning.  Knowing what I know now, I would have bought the glass bottles in the first place and avoided several unnecessary purchases. What BPA-free bottles do you use, where did you find them, and how do you like them?  Thanks for filling us in on the best bottles for green babies.  For more tips from Rocks in My Dryer’s Works for Me Wednesday blog carnival, click here. 

Green Babies, Sage Moms will appeal to eco-curious types living on the Upper East Side in their Jimmy Choos rather than the canning-mung beans-in-their-Birks set.  Author Lynda Fassa takes readers through pregnancy, the baby’s arrival, and the subsequent years with baby, identifying harmful toxins and replacing them with organic products.  So while there isn’t much on reducing your baby’s carbon footprint, there are many great product recommendations for getting started on your household detox mission.

Fassa looks at pregnancy and early motherhood as times when we have a heightened awareness about our bodies and the world around us.  We all know we should watch what we eat when pregnant.  But what about the toxins lurking everywhere, ready to taint the very world we live in?  Page after page we learn about the toxins in everything around us.  Toxins in cigarettes, soft cheeses, sushi.  Nail polish, nail polish remover, hair products, pesticides, milk, fruit, vegetables, grains, wine, blush, mascara, foundation, lipstick, hair dye, perfume, drain cleaners, air fresheners, antibacterial soap, oven cleaners, furniture polish, rubber duckies, plastic toys, teethers, baby wipes, lotions, creams, crib mattresses, disposable diapers, conventional cotton, fertilizers, ground water, fish, deodorant, vaccines, drawer pulls, paint, floors, school buses, park benches, and playground equipment.

Despite this rather daunting and exhaustive list of no-nos, Fassa maintains a cheerful tone, somehow avoiding fear-mongering or paranoia.  Perhaps it’s the liberal use of exclamation marks or the disclaimers she adds before some of the more terrifying discussions: “Warning! Scary Information to Follow.”

At times I longed for less reminiscing on Fassa’s career as a model or her husband’s childhood Alpine ski trips and more advice relevant to my life as a mother trying to make greener choices.  Case in point: She includes just six pages discussing diapers but devotes thirty-six pages to organic beauty treatments we can enjoy during pregnancy without harming ourselves or our “beautiful baby bump.”

Still, Green Babies, Sage Moms is an excellent resource for eco-friendly products.  As the founder of Green Babies, an organic cotton clothing company, Fassa has years of experience with organic baby gear.  The end of each chapter contains “Evergreen,” “Pea Green,” and “Spring Green” options for greening your life in baby steps.  There is a small list of “Green Goods” at the end of the book, but no index, which makes using this book as a resource guide difficult.

I remember the day we made our first eco-friendly Trader Joe’s detergent purchase. We loved the smell of our fresh laundry and basked in the green glow of our new standby.  While the large plastic container was an environmental downside, the price was reasonable and the lavender essential oils gave it a crisp, clean scent.

 Roscoe helps with the laundry

We wanted to switch to a greener detergent for our family’s health and the environment. Green brands don’t contain optical brighteners, chemicals which bond to the skin with traditional detergents. We also liked the fact that scents are often plant-based rather than petroleum-based, which tends to cause less skin irritation. As if that weren’t enough to convince us, natural detergents biodegrade easily in water and don’t contain phosphates, which are very harmful to aquatic wildlife.

Overall, we were utterly thrilled with ourselves for our ethical and thrifty laundry detergent decision.  But that was until we noticed the smell. Even when Roscoe had wet diapers, they reeked of rotten garbage.  At first we thought he had been sneaking asparagus in at snack-time, but then our daycare provider noticed as well.  She recommended stripping our diapers by washing them in several loads of hot water without laundry soap to remove the residue causing the foul odor.

After further research, I found that eco-friendly detergents with essential oils or mainstream brands with petroleum-based scents can coat cloth diapers, making them non-absorbent and causing them to smell, even when wet.  There are several suggested remedies for this stinky conundrum, including using vinegar in the rinse cycle, adding baking soda to the laundry soap, and doing an additional hot rinse after each load.

The problem with all of these options is that they require more time and/or effort from our already busy family.  Instead, we’ve looked into switching to a diaper-friendly detergent and saving the rest of our Trader Joe’s stuff for our non-diaper laundry.  The list below includes some recommended choices. 

I’ve heard that Charlie’s Soap is the ideal diaper laundering product. According to the company, each load of laundry requires just one tablespoon of soap and leaves no deposits on clothes.  Many cloth diaper aficionados have informed me that there is no stripping required with Charlie’s Soap and you can buy it at some natural baby stores, such as Mother Nature’s in Portland, Oregon. 

Since Portland is two vast hours away and I’m too swamped to order Charlie’s Soap online, I opted for Biokleen’s Free and Clear Laundry Powder.  There’s no plastic container, it’s safe for high efficiency washers, it’s fragrance-free, and it’s available at my local grocery store, a mere five minutes from home. 

It’s amazing how something as simple as laundry soap can be such a challenge for a busy family trying to go green.  Then again, solving that dilemma has been a huge triumph and relief.  We’ll keep you posted as we set our eyes on future eco-friendly hurdles.  They may not be overcome with grace, but we’ll keep stumbling greenward!  For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, go to the blog carnival at rocksinmydryer.com. 

Joy and I have been friends for over fifteen years, and even back then we were budding environmentalists (not to mention accomplished penny-pinchers).  In writing the Green Baby Guide, we’ve discovered many other green mom bloggers.  Some have years of experience with green parenting and others are just starting out.  Holly writes in her first Ecobaby blog post that she doesn’t consider herself an environmentalist–and she’s not even pregnant.  She says, “There is something about the prospect of having a baby that compels me to live a more natural life, and in the process, work towards creating a better environment for my children and future generations.”  The Ecobaby blog is a great resource for others beginning their green parenting adventures.

A few of the blogs have some innovative ideas for raising older kids in an environmentally-conscious manner.  Tiffany over at Nature Moms is one of the green mom blog veterans who has been dispensing advice since 2005.  We have also become dedicated fans of Treehugging Family, written by co-bloggers Jennifer and Peggy.  Treehugging Family is updated almost constantly–every time I log on I learn something new about raising a little treehugger, like Good Places to Go Visit Trees  and 60 Eco-friendly Ways to Celebrate Spring.  Jennifer also writes the Pregnancy and Baby Blog and devoted an article to praising the Green Baby Guide! 

Here’s a list of blogs we’ve added to our blogroll since we posted our “Best Green Baby Blogs” article a few weeks ago:

• Eco Child’s Play.  Recent articles include Eco-friendly Finger Paints and Top Ten Healthy Snacks for Kids.
• Gray Matters.   Alana is out having a baby at the moment, so she may need her own Top 13 Green Picks for Baby.
• Mom Go Green has a helpful post about Bad Plastic Baby Bottles.
• Not Quite Crunchy Parent offers some tasty suggestions for Healthy School Birthday Treats, such as popcorn and fruit skewers.
• Pregnancy and Baby Blog.  Read about the pros and cons of being a work-at-home mom. 
• Treehugging Family, mentioned above.

We have combed the Internet for all the best green parenting blogs, but we may have overlooked some.  Is anyone missing from our blogroll?  Please let us know.  And in the meantime, happy green reading.

Don’t forget to enter our green cleaner giveaway!   Just a few days left!  It is now easy to post a comment on the Green Baby Guide–you no longer need to log in to tell us your thoughts.

In case you didn’t notice, you are currently enjoying a carnival–minus the expensive rides, suspicious ferris wheel operators, and heartburn.  Today is greenbabyguide.com’s first post in Rocks in My Dryer’s ”Works for Me Wednesday” blog carnival.  ”What is a blog carnival?” you ask.  It’s a herd of bloggers all writing themed blogs on a similar subject–in this case, a simple solution that works.  On Works for Me Wednesday greenbabyguide.com will strive to provide an eco-tip that makes life a tad easier for you and a bit better for the planet as well.  

As a working mother, I sometimes long for packaged foods—but I’m not thrilled with the economic or environmental costs.  Oftentimes the nutritional content is horrid and hydrogenated oils seem to be lurking everywhere.  Plus all that packaging isn’t exactly eco-friendly.  But still, I love the idea of pulling warm homemade cookies out of the oven to share with my eighteen-month-old. Do I have a Betty Crocker complex?  Very possibly. 

Lately, I’ve taken to making my own packaged foods so that I can still fit some baking into my very full life.  My mother, a frugal green pioneer in her own right, first perfected this pre-packaged concept by using her “Make-A-Mix” cookbook back in the eighties.  It offers 67 recipes for mixes that can be creatively used to whip up 306 different favorites.

You create your own mixes by measuring out and combining dry ingredients and storing them in Zip-loc bags or Tupperware.  Then when you want cornbread with dinner or pancakes for breakfast, you can dump the mix into a bowl, toss in the wet ingredients and have a glorious home-baked product without the cost, packaging or time required from other options.  Plus, it’s much easier for me to whip up homemade muffins with my toddler when the prep time is cut in half.  You can preview the whole book here and even try some of the recipes. 

It was re-published in 1995 and again in 2007 with even more recipes and is still very popular.  My only criticism is that I would add more wholegrain flour and cut down on the sugar in several of the baked goods.  Still, with a few modifications I can spend an hour or less on the weekend preparing a few mixes, and end up with a stash of dry ingredients that will provide me with a month of homemade favorites.  Works for me!  

We are outdoors people, and therefore took plenty of walks with Roscoe tucked into his sling in our early parenting days. Even so, I always watched the bikes and their toddler trailers with a certain excitement as they zoomed by. 

When Roscoe was just eight months old, I couldn’t take it anymore and bought a used bike trailer. Our Instep Schwinn bike trailer was $100 on Craigslist and had only been used twice.  It isn’t a fantastically great deal, considering that many of them go on sale for that much new at the end of the season and cost $160 full price, but we’ve been quite happy with it.  It also seats two children so we may eventually use it as a double stroller in the years to come.

Unfortunately, when my safety-oriented hubby checked all regulations on our trailer, I found that baby shouldn’t be riding in it until one year of age.  Since Roscoe’s birthday is in September, we’d have another summer of envying family bike caravans before we got our chance.  Some parents work their way around this rule by putting a child car seat into the bike trailer, but our instructions specifically stated that it was not a safe option.  So, we waited impatiently for Roscoe’s September birthday and then headed out for our first rides.

We were happily surprised by how much we used the bike trailer in the fall. I hooked up the trailer to take Roscoe for wading pool play dates and afternoons in leaf-strewn playgrounds.  There’s enough room for a diaper bag, a raincoat, and a bag of groceries in the back, so I found the trailer/stroller to be ideal for running errands on my bike or by foot.

Besides converting to a running stroller, the trailer has a weather-proof flap that makes it perfect for rainy day walks.  (In Oregon, that’s almost every winter day). We even managed our first family bike caravan on Christmas.  Roscoe was happily impervious to the rain pelting us as we biked at full speed to make it home before the hail hit.  We laughed and sang “Old McRoscoe” as we skedaddled our damp and bundled selves homeward.  It’s a bike trailer memory that will last far beyond Roscoe’s years in it.

Biking with Roscoe is the ultimate environmental solution because it creates benefits that extend well beyond planetary health.  Every time we opt to bike we’re getting exercise, saving loads of gas money, and enjoying the trip just as much as the destination.