parenting

Like most parents these days, I'm very concerned about the toys I bring into my home, and even more concerned about the toys other people bring us as well-intentioned gifts. We don't actually have very many toys (less is more...) but I try to mainly buy wood, largely unpainted, and from small companies that disclose where they manufacture their goods. If I'm in the market for something only available from a new-to-us brand, I always research it on HealthyToys.org as well as Consumer Reports before I shop. And I never, ever go into a toy store with an I-want-it-all-now toddler. If I happen to have her with me when I'm toy shopping, I explain very carefully that we're only in there for something specific, usually a gift for someone else. But, as with all of my best laid plans, they're just plans. We live in the world. Not everything is controllable.

The fact that my daughter has fallen madly in love with Calico Critters falls squarely in this realm. ...

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Some green-leaning parents who are concerned about effects of vaccines, but convinced enough of their safety by current science that they do not want to forgo them altogether, take other, much less drastic measures. They stretch the timeline of when the shots are given, so their children are a bit older for the brunt of them. And they split up the MMR (measles mumps and rubella) vaccine into three single-dose shots instead of giving all three at once.

But on parenting boards across the internet, there has been a bit of a panic lately as families who have gone the split-them-up route are finding themselves two/thirds done with no sign of the third dose available anytime soon. In the New York area, I'm hearing, the rubella component is on backorder at many pediatricians' offices and in neighboring pharmacies known previously to carry it. This comes at a time when schools are asking for forms proving students are up to date with their vaccinations. This creates quite a conundrum.

Parents are now facing the possibility of having to give their child the combined shot they worked to avoid, on top of the two individual dose shots they've already administered, in order to be up to date....

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This week a reader asked about finding non toxic balls:



Hi,

I was hoping to find some help. My very young boy (14 months) is stealing balls from other kids in the playground. Time to get him one I guess. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that this might be an impossible task. He still likes to chew on everything. A ball for a child, you'd have thought someone would be making a big bouncy ball intended for young children that actually wasn't full of chemicals that could harm them.

So I thought I had found one at least five times only to discover that either the product was no longer available, or "green" by heresay only -- but nasty when tested, or even better ... good for the environment, but not for the baby. Sigh.

Please do you have any recommendations for me. Not interested in Crocodile Creek, or the Fair Trade Sports Ball.

I would have thought a big inflatable bouncy rubber ball, or even a leather one using leather cured in less toxic way would be best. Not sure if they exist.

Don't care what it looks like.

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it. I have officially given up. ...

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The cool weather is coming and my mother asked me the other day if she could buy my girls some winter pajamas. This was obviously a great offer, but the pajama question is complicated, and as I started in on my spiel I could practically see the wind coming out of her sails. Okay, so maybe it’s not that complicated, but there are a couple of things to consider when dressing little ones for bed.

In 1971 the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) standardized children’s sleepwear specifying that garments exposed to an open flame for 3 seconds must self extinguish. You might remember a stifling pair of polyester pajamas from your youth; polyester was a popular bedtime fabric because of its inherent flame resistance -- most polyesters anyway, including modacrylic (Verel, SEF, Kanecaron); matrix (Cordelan); and vinyon (Leavil). Flame retardants are woven into the fabric during manufacture and become part of the fabric’s molecular composition. The resulting polymers are very stable, so you’re not compromising your child’s health, just their comfort. (There is an environmental negative in that polyester is made from non-renewable petrochemicals however.)

Cotton clothes treated with chemical fire retardants were approved by the CPSC, but untreated cotton ...

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When my daughter was very young, I didn't let her in the sandbox at our closest local playground. Sometimes she would come home from a grandparent-initiated visit to said playground with telltale grains in her shoes and I'd try to grin and bear it. (My own mother would get an earful!) But my gut feeling was the thing was a cesspool of germs, roundworm eggs, pesticide and car-exhaust residue, lead dust, general city filth, old Band-Aids, rat shit, and worse. Why oh why would I willingly allow my kid to dig into that, then stick her filthy little adorable fingers in her mouth!? I get that sand play can help intellectual development, but, um, I'm pretty good about making up for what she might lose out on in the sand. I remember an article in The New Yorker that came out right when I was in the not-allowed-in-the-box phase that helped put me off. I cringe when I see very young children in the sandbox, or kids romping around in there with their shoes off - who knows what sharp matter is buried in there?

As my daughter has gotten older, it has been harder to keep her out of the sandpit. Especially if we're on a playdate and her friends are hopping in. The powers that be recently put new sand in my local box and so that made me feel better for about 24 full hours. In general, I still avoid it like the plague (maybe there's plague in there?) without really resisting it out loud for fear she will (oppositionally) fall madly in love with it. But from time to time she goes in. So when someone asked me recently if sandboxes are safe, I relished the opportunity to research my gut feeling.

Turns out I'm in good company when it comes to telling parents to keep the kids out of the box. ...

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My biggest fear in the weeks leading up to the birth of my first child wasn’t missing movies, or fifty hours of labor, or tearing horribly (that was my second biggest). All I kept thinking about, with the kind of dread I used to feel for math finals, was the loss of daily sleep to come. I figured if so many hard things about a new baby never even get mentioned, the amount of talk sleeplessness gets must mean it applies to 99% of parents. And I guess this is because sleep issues are never one-sided. If your baby isn’t eating you still manage to get some dinner, and if she’s crying her eyes out you’re probably mostly just watching her, but if she’s not sleeping peacefully, there’s no way around it, neither are you. I wasn’t into a lot of pre-baby parenting advice and didn’t read a lot of books, but my ears definitely pricked up any time conversations veered towards sleep and sleep tricks. Instead of taking a wait-and-see approach, we adopted the philosophy of Gina Ford, who wrote a book called The Contended Little Baby that freaked any friends who saw it on my table because she’s British and strict.

Ford believes in black out curtains for the nursery, and won’t even consult with parents who don’t have them. Maybe we were being defensive to the point of dramatic, but my thinking was that if I hadn’t tried absolutely everything to make sleep easy for the baby, if she didn’t sleep I wouldn’t know why. I realize now ...

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There is no melancholy quite like the ache of when summer turns to fall. So. Depressing. Thankfully, this is exactly when my CSA farmer hosts a yearly farm visit. I have been a member of Stoneledge Farm in South Cairo, New York for eight years now, but (no) thanks to work, countless weddings, births, and infants (in that order), I haven't been able to make an autumn pilgrimage in seven or eight years (parenthood makes memory foggy). My daughter has had so much fun picking up our weekly veggie and fruit deliveries at the local Y this year that I was determined to show her where, exactly, her food comes from. So I cleared the calendar. And we went. My fingers are still stained with dirt and raspberry juice as I type. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to write happy -- for the first time in a long time I'm feeling elated. 

It's not an easy time to be an organic mom (or anyone else for that matter). In this pre-election frenzy, I find myself worrying about the fate of the earth my daughter has inherited more than ever. If certain people get in office, what will her future look like? There's so much focus on motherhood and babies suddenly but will she even have the luxury of having her own baby? What will the world be like then? Usually I curb these fears by throwing myself further and further into the green movement, research, and trying to educate and indoctrinate as many people as I can.

Attempting to live green can be a Wild West experience. But my food has never felt questionable. For almost a decade now during growing season (mid-June to Thanksgiving), my weekly CSA deliveries of fresh, local, seasonal, sustainable, organic produce have truly been the highlight of my life. As odd as this sounds, I feel honored by the bounty, proud to be a part of a farm, delighted to have this access. Knowing where my food comes from and who grows it in this day and age has always felt like a miracle. Sacred and necessary. ...

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This week I’d like to ask readers for some help. If you’re interested enough in organic pregnancy to read this blog, I’m wondering what questions or concerns you might have that aren’t being answered here. Or, if you don’t have specific questions, what topics you’re interested in that I haven’t yet discussed.

Lexy and I have a top ten list we use as a first line of defense for a healthy pregnancy, but I’d love to know what worries you after the baby is born as well. Are some subjects too hard to get a straight answer about (flame retardants in pajamas, how safe are cell phones, how to see through greenwashing, wooden toys, paper or plastic), so that you end up just avoiding them?

What does this list leave out? What befuddles you? Is it how to find good foods, how to know what foods are good? Is it how to figure out what lotions or clothes are ok, is it finding out which specific retail locations or brands can be trusted? Is it determining which are the really scary things, and which are hype?

If you have questions can you write them to me as comments here, and if you see questions you can answer please do as well.

Thank you.

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It won’t come in time for this year’s holiday shopping, but it’s pretty encouraging to see our Congress take a stand against the toxic chemicals in so many plastic kid toys (the same chemicals that have been obsolete in the EU for years). California led the way last year, the first state to ban even trace amounts of the plastic softening chemical in toys that’s been proven responsible for reproductive problems in boys and girls. According to the Washington Post, the growing scientific evidence that chewing on a plastic toy that includes a hormone-mimicking phthalate can cause problems was at last convincing enough to spur some legislative change.

President Bush opposed the ban, but as of January 2009 the shelves of Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Babies R Us will be phthalate-free. According to the Washington Post story: “… House and Senate lawmakers agreed to permanently ban three types of phthalates from children's toys and to outlaw three other phthalates from products pending an extensive study of their health effects in children and pregnant women.”

I have an eight-month old daughter and everything goes in her mouth. I’ve never figured out the evolutionary purpose behind this, but am constantly replacing paper, wallets, keys and whatever else she swipes with things like wooden spoons and damp facecloths (sounds gross, but it’s been great for teething). ..

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Trying to navigate daycare in my corner of Brooklyn is probably ten times harder than dealing with getting into college 20 years ago. My older daughter is only 21 months, but I’d like her socialize some with kids her own age come fall -- an idea much easier said than done. Her birthday is in November, so she misses the age 2 September cutoff and will probably have to wait a year to go to most of the daycares and schools that exist within walking distance. This means finding some kind of daycare-preschool alternative, usually an in-the-home situation with mixed-aged toddlers. I went to visit one such situation a few blocks away the other day and thought I’d be pretty relaxed about how organic the environment was. Then I noticed I was holding my breath and not feeling relaxed at all. A lovely Russian woman showed me around and explained how Saoirse would spend her time, but I was counting the seconds until the tour ended and we could get back onto the street. I thought about the list of questions I wouldn’t even bother asking, and that I will share here for your own daycare search. My advice is to email or get them out of the way on the phone before making the pointless schlep: ...

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I love the Internet. It really makes this whole organic mom thing a lot easier. We get a lot of questions through this blog that are more tips than questions, queries that give us greater understanding of what other trying-to-be organic moms are coming up against. Some of this information from the front lines is news to us. One such email came in recently. I have edited lightly:

Hi,

I am wondering if you are aware of a reformulation of Earth's Best Dairy Formula. I just bought three of the 25 oz cans (I used to buy the 13 oz) and I noticed the first ingredients listed are no longer Organic Lactose, Organic Nonfat Milk. The ingredients are as follows: Organic Reduced Minerals Whey, Organic Vegetable Oils (palm or palm olein, high oleic (safflower or sunflower), coconut, soy,) Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Lactose, etc. Does this mean that the formula is now predominately whey and oils rather than milk? I am a bit disturbed by the reformulation without any noticeable change in packaging. Could this be some attempt for Hain Celestial to save money while producing an inferior product? I am a little concerned about the quality of this formula now.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Stephani E. in the San Francisco Bay Area

I suggested Stephani contact them herself, and said that I'd also get in touch with them and see what I could find out. In the meantime, regarding the nutrition concern, I said she could look into Baby's Only, which is marketed as a toddler formula (mainly because the company is trying to encourage breastfeeding for younger tots) but contains what any formula should contain. Showing an ingredient list to your pediatrician before offering a formula to your child is always a good idea.

Before I had a chance to call Earth's Best, Stephani had already written me again. She had spoken to a customer service rep who said she didn't know of any reformulation. When Stephani read her the label ingredients, the rep confirmed that there was a change made in June. Odd. ...

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After yet another mini tussle with my building's management over asking them to use green materials for work that genuinely needs to be done, I found myself surfing the website for The Riverhouse, a new LEED-certified gold building in New York's Battery Park City. Imagine living in an eco building!? It has twice filtered air, a wastewater treatment plant on site, solar-powered energy, and will even boast a highly organic outpost of City Bakery (a personal favorite) plus a New York Public Library branch. I love to swim but don't often - I'm not comfortable in highly chlorinated pools. Their "green" lap pool beckons me from its online rendering: dive right in. I'm gushing. I don't care. It's a fantasy.

It's so ecofabulous, Leo DiCaprio is said to have bought an apartment. But he's not what entices me. I have the site bookmarked because it's the ultimate family building: from the no to low-VOC finishes to the filtered water to the City Bakery snacks, living there would really take the guesswork out of being an organic mom. My life would be so much easier, I thought as I drooled over various floorplans, if I didn't have to lie in bed smelling the heinous fumes from the cleaning product being used to mop my hallway floors. After a while, asking management to switch the products to greener versions to no avail gets exhausting. There would be no such requests at The Riverhouse!

This surfing isn't entirely recreational/masochistic. We are in the market for a bigger place, as most New Yorkers always are. But their prices, sadly, are out of our range. Still, I really wanted to see this Mecca in person. I figured it might be tortuously jealous-making so put it on the bottom of my endless to-do list.

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My organic babe is no longer the only child on her father's side of the family. She's now, at the ripe age of two and a half, the oldest cousin. Her new playmate arrived late last week and we spent the weekend visiting and cooing over him. She's quite smitten.

His parents, like most new parents, are becoming more and more interested in all things green. I have tried not to butt in too much, or be too obnoxious with unsolicited advice (there's nothing worse) but rather to remain available as a resource should they want to come to me. I admit that I have failed on a few occasions. Like the time I offered my services in response to a baby shower registry list they emailed around. They were quite lovely about it though, and their nursery now contains an organic crib mattress so it was a win-win situation for the baby. And it was great to be with them on site this weekend, talking about the specifics of organic versus natural chicken as we looked in their freezer, and chatting about how best to sterilize the glass canning jars they'll use to store pumped breastmilk.

I did mouth off uninvited once over the course of the weekend. I saw a big thing of Roundup in their foyer and spoke before I thought. I don't even know if it belonged to them (their building has two apartments). I thought better after I blurted out that they needed to find a better product. But no one seemed to mind. Click here for more information on why not to use Roundup:

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My apologies for writing about toilet training twice in a row but as I mentioned, it’s all potty all the time around here. While visiting grandparents in upstate New York this past weekend, we had a portable seat with us. Mere moments after arriving, my daughter let us know that there was no way she was going to use the portable seat, that she much preferred – and required – a real little potty. It’s amazing how demanding someone so small can be. We tend to spend a fair amount of time upstate during the summer, and she’s not the only grandchild who visits, so it felt like a wise idea to buy the house a potty.

My parents’ home isn’t located near a wealth of stores and so, on a swelteringly hot day (why so boiling so early in June? scary!) I found myself in exactly the sort of monstrously huge big box store I avoid as if it were my religion. I’m talking a Kids 'R' Us. The offgassing plastic toy chemicals hit us like an anvil when we walked in. But I digress. I’m not-so-secretly fascinated by the shocking amount of crap in these kinds of stores -- does any kid actually need or ask for a fake Barbie laptop? -- but also amazed by how quickly even the most suspicious consumer (ahem) can be drawn in. Life would be so much easier if only I were allowed to just go ahead and buy everything in this store, I found myself thinking after 3 minutes of inhaling the fumes. Imagine the luxury of not knowing or not bothering to read labels!? ... Need a stepstool? Get a stepstool! No research, no looking for unpainted hard wood versions. Oh, the simplicity!

Back to reality ...

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