Category: ages 0 to 3

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Photo Tutorial: How to make a mei tai doll carrier

Children love to pretend, and do just like their parents. Seeing mommy and daddy with a baby on the back is something usual for my children, and soon enough my daughter requested for a ring sling so she can carry around Victoria, her waldorf companion doll. This spring, I’ve checked on my longtime to-do list one item I really wanted, a mei tai. Both children wanted one, their size. I made two of those while they were naping at the same time…It doesn’t happen often, but today they did so I’ve jumped on the occasion and thought you might like to see how I did them.

First find 2, 3, 4 fabric you like, your child like and that goes well together.

Cut two rectangle that would be around the size of your child’s front. The bigger the easier to carry a big 18″ doll, the smaller the easier to wear for a child. This one is smaller 9×12″, I suggest to go bigger. I have an easy trick for the top strap angles later.

Cut the straps. The longer the better. I first went with 20″. This is okay for the bottom ones, but I’ve added 16″ after trying it on my boy. They are about 4″ large, so I cut them 8″ and folded them. Right side facing, sew/serge on top and the side, and flip them right side up.

Take your rectangle and place one strap in a corner. Cut. Fold vertically (on the longer) and cut the excess corner.

Take one rectangle, facing right side up. Roll your straps, it’s so much easier. Pin your longer ones at the angles.

And pin the short ones at the bottom. Leave an inch or so at the bottom.

Place the other rectangle (right side must face!) and pin around. Sew/serge the sides and top, but leave the bottom open.

Flip everything right and unpin straps. Enter the excess fabric at the bottom in and over stitch it.

If you realize, like me, that the top straps are too short, here’s how I manage to add on without unsewing anything; make straps like you first did, and tuck in a half inch inside the strap.

Inside end of strap in and overstich.

There you go! A beautiful, playful doll carrier for your little person to take his/her doll everywhere!

My son’s been carrying Albus ever since I tried it on him. He only took it out to get in the car twice and promptly asked it back both times. He also took it out to sleep, but I’m pretty sure he’ll ask for it tomorrow.

Hoping I made some of you try to make some! It’s very easy and takes no time. It’s a really good way for your child to carry around his/her doll everywhere while optimizing the chance for it to stay clean!

Please come back and share if you make one, we’d love to see it!

 

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5 Harmful Effects of Disposable Diapers and Training Pants

Because Super Skivvies is an eco-friendly and sustainable company we feel that it is necessary to help people make an educated decision when it comes to choosing which products to use for their children. This is for the benefit of you and your child, as well as the environment.

(Super Skivvies Convertible Cloth Potty Training Pants – click photo to visit shop)

It still amazes us how many people out there give no thought or regard to how the products they use are destroying the very Earth that we all call home, even after being educated and shown the truth about harmful products. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to sweep these problems under the rug and forget about them. However, I think we can all agree that we need Earth in order to survive and give future generations the basic necessities of clean air, clean water, and healthy food. Simple right?

Take a look at some of the information we found about disposable diapers and training pants:

  • 18 billion disposable diapers end up in landfills every year in the U.S. alone, adding 5 million tons of untreated human waste to the soil. And did you know that it is illegal to put human fecal matter in your household garbage? The American Public Health Association and American Academy of Pediatrics have advised parents that “fecal material and urine should not be allowed to be co-mingled and disposed of as regular trash. This contaminates ground water and spreads disease.” Yes, you must remove all of the fecal matter from disposables before you throw them out. (Click here for information on disposing of disposable diapers)
  • Sodium polyacrylate is a chemical that makes disposable diapers so absorbent that it can absorb up to 100 times its weight in water. However, it can stick to children’s genitals and cause allergic reactions. In the U.S., this chemical was removed from tampons in 1985 when it was linked to toxic shock syndrome. And when this chemical was tested and injected into rats, it caused hemorrhaging, cardiovascular failure, and ultimately death.
  • 500 years! This is how long it can take each disposable diaper and training pant to decompose in a landfill. That means that every disposable diaper and training pant ever used in the world is still decomposing in a landfill somewhere. And almost 30 percent of each disposable diaper and training pant consists of non biodegradable products such as absorbent vinyl layers, Velcro, absorbent gelling material, and plastic packaging that will never break down.
  • Dioxin is a by product of the paper bleaching process used in the manufacturing of disposable diapers and training pants. It is the most toxic of all the cancer causing chemicals and causes birth defects as well as liver disease in laboratory animals.
  • As many as 100 viruses can survive in soiled disposable diapers or training pants for months. This includes the live polio virus and hepatitis excreted by recently vaccinated babies. These viruses constitute a potential hazard to sanitation workers and garbage handlers. No to mention the critters that will crawl into the landfill to find a meal and the birds that will pick through this garbage and fly to who knows where.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list of harmful effects. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

(Wild Coconut Wear Wool Cloth Diaper Cover – click photo to visit shop)

Steph & Anthony of Super Skivvies

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Book Review: Listen Listen by Phillis Gershator and illustrated by Alison Jay


We are a big book family.  Our daughter loves reading books more than any other activity in her life.  This means that on rainy days read the same books sometimes up to ten times a day in between other activities.  It is important to our family that we all enjoy what we are reading and I can’t recommend Listen, Listen by Phillis Gershator and illustrated by Alison Jay (our favorite children’s illustrator), enough.  It is an amazing introduction to the different seasons and each page is full of beautiful art so you can always spot something new.  The rhyme scheme in the book is clever using onomatopoeia.  For example, the book starts off:
“Listen listen… what’s that sound? Insects singing all around!
Chirp, chirp, churr, churr, buzz, buzz, whirr, whirr.” 
From one page to the next and one season to the next, the story is just as much fun to say as it is to look at for both adults and children.  A must have for children ages 1-4. 
Narina with Uncle Adam reading Listen Listen
Written by Rachel Ford Blanchard from OAST

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Here Comes The Sun, Little Darling! Sun Safety Tips for Kids and Parents

 

Photo by   Jes Anthonis

Flashback Mother’s Day 2011: My 10 year-old daughter got a sunburn. I felt like the worst mother ever. How could I let this happen? Well, it was the first sunny day of the year, and my daughter went to a friend’s house to play. I had given her instructions that if they were going to play outside she needed to ask her friend’s mom for some sunscreen. Of course, she didn’t!

Lesson learned: Don’t expect other people to be aware of your child’s needs! Maybe the other mother thought it was okay because her kids have a darker complexion and don’t get sunburned easily. You and your child alone are responsible and will suffer the consequences…

So we applied lots of aloe – freshly squeezed from the leaves of our houseplant and were glad there was no blistering, and the redness went away after 3 days. We skipped Field Day at school the next day.  Everybody knows that one shouldn’t go out and catch more sun when burned already, right?

So in order to do some penance here and to help out other parents I investigated the subject some more. I found a great site called: Healthy Child that you should visit. But here is the sum of the knowledge I gathered for those of you with little time:

Photo by Jes Anthonis

SUN SAFETY TIPS:

1. Avoidance:

  • Stay out of the sun as much as possible, particularly between the hours of 10AM to 4 PM when the sun is strongest. If you  must go outside, find shade as much as possible!
  • Check the UV index (http://www.epa.gov/sunwise/uvindex.html) when planning outdoor activities.
  • Keep infants and very young children, in particular, out of sun completely!

2. Cover up.

  • The less skin gets exposed to damaging UV rays the less likely skin will get sunburned and damaged. Protect skin and eyes!
  • Clothing: wear brimmed hats and shirts made of fabrics that are dark colored and have a dense weave! Were sunglasses to protect eyes.

There are some companies that sell protective shirts and swimwear. I have not tried them myself, but what I read on their sites made a lot of sense to me. There is a reason why I see many farm workers in Colorado wear hoodies in the midday heat while working out in the fields. I am pretty sure they are not doing it as a fashion statement…

3. The Skinny on Sunscreens. Help! It’s so confusing. What do I buy?

  •  Fact is that 85% of sunscreens sold in the US do not protect you at all. Why?

– people don’t put on enough sunscreen to begin with. People put only 1/4 – 2/3 of what they should . Of course, that stuff is expensive and who can afford to keep buying it?
– manufacturers give us a false sense of protection with claims of 30, 50, 70, 90, or even 100 SPF factors. People using the higher numbered ones tend to reapply less often and stay in the sun much longer.

4. What’s in a Sunscreen? Horrible chemicals that you definitely don’t want to eat, breathe in, or leave on your skin for too long…

•The Environmental Working Group’s comprehensive scientific review indicates that 85% of 993 sunscreen products offer inadequate protection from the sun or contain ingredients with significant safety concerns.

->A new study from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that nearly all Americans are contaminated with oxybenzone, a
 sunscreen chemical that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, cell damage, and low birth weight.

  • Use the sunscreens with SPF 30 rather than the higher ones because they have less chemicals. It’s better to apply a lower numbered sunscreen more often than to use the high numbered ones only once.
  •  Don’t use the kind that you can spray on!!!It has small particles and people inhale those scary nanoparticles when spraying the stuff on. They still don’t know what the long term health effects are. Fact is: chemicals build up in our systems.
  • Wash the sunscreen off after done playing in the sun!

5. What brands/ sunscreens?  I found the following list on the website I mentioned above:

Top Ten Sunscreens recommended by the Environmental Working Group

1. Keys Soap Solar Rx Therapeutic Sunblock, SPF 30

2. Trukid Sunny Days Facestick Mineral Sunscreen UVA/UVB Broad Spectrum, SPF 30+

3. California Baby Sunblock Stick No Fragrance, SPF 30+

4. Badger Sunscreen, SPF 30

5. Marie Veronique Skin Therapy Sun Serum

6. Lavera Sunscreen Neutral, SPF 40

7. Vanicream Sunscreen, SPF 35

8. UV Natural Sunscreen, SPF 30+

9. Sun Science Sport Formula, SPF 30

10. Soleo Organics Sunscreen all natural Sunscreen, SPF 30+

All photos used in this article are courtesy of Jes Anthonis, owner of Mosey Handmade on Etsy
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On Breastfeeding and Weaning…

Today’s wonderful article was brought to us by Rachel Ford Blanchard, a new member of the NaturalKids team. She lives and works in the UK. Her lovely Etsyshop is called Oast.
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Before I had a baby one of the biggest parts of motherhood I craved was breastfeeding. The look on a contented mother’s face while feeding was always so inspiring to me and I couldn’t wait to experience it on my own. When I gave birth, my daughter was put on my belly and she made her way up to my chest where we had our first experience of breastfeeding minutes after she was born. With blood still in her hair and her body covered in vernix that I slowly massaged into her skin, we started our external relationship as mother and daughter.

I am really glad I had such affection for breastfeeding because my daughter was a trooper. She fed all the time. Really. Many of my photos of her in the first year of her life are of me feeding her or are audio clips of the sounds she made while sucking. I loved it so much and had made the decision early on that I wouldn’t stop breastfeeding until she was ready. As she got older we decided we would do “baby-led weaning” (as it is called in the UK, child led weaning in the USA). For us this meant that her first means of nutrition would be from breast milk and she would be allowed to eat any food she wanted. No purees, no jars. She would shift into eating solids when she was ready and subsequently she would shift where she would get her main source of nutrition from as well.

Shortly after she was 6 months old she picked up a slice of apple and sucked on it. Slowly she ate more and more solids, exploring textures and flavors with vigour. Something we have found is that she still goes through phases that children who are puree weaned go through. For example, right now she doesn’t eat any vegetables but carrots. I am not worried, though, because we trust that she will crave what she needs. That concept, trusting, is what made her weaning such a graceful transition for us all. Once she was able to walk and talk, breastfeeding became a new adventure of independence. The first sign of weaning was that she stopped asking for milk. She still wanted it whenever offered, but she didn’t ask. I would say “milk time” and she would pick up the breastfeeding pillow and run over to me with it. I would put it on my lap and she would giggle with delight as I got her into the appropriate position. Then something shifted. I would say “milk time” and she would bring her pillow then run away. A game, I thought. Dan would pick her up and put her on the pillow and she would giggle and eat happily. Then I would say “milk time” with the pillow on my lap already. Dan would bring her over and she would be very unhappy about it. Finally she said “no”. And that was it. She had one more feed after that. Because the feeds and the transition was so gradual, I have had no aches or pains due to weaning. My daughter wants to stay a bit closer to me in the middle of the night but otherwise you would have never guessed such a huge transition has taken place for us all.

For more information and great support on breastfeeding:

http://www.laleche.org.uk/

For information on baby-led weaning:

Welcome to Baby Led Weaning