Eliminating Plastics: Baby Edition

Things covered in this issue: diapers, baby bottles, pacifiers

I’m assuming that if you are reading this blog you know that plastic isn’t a healthy thing to have in your life. As you have seen from the last three posts it is everywhere, and hard to avoid while living in the current society. Slowly poisoning yourself from these contaminants is one thing, but harming your children is quite another matter. In this issue I will delve into the world of babies and try to provide alternatives to the plastic “necessities” all new parents are marketing from long before conception.

Diapers:
Disposable diapers are a bad idea. I said it, and I’m sure that you have heard it before. They take AT LEAST 100 years to decompose in a landfill. As a rule I try to avoid using anything that would take 100 years to decompose (things of this nature tend to be full of many a thing that is unnatural). The first disposable diaper was created around 1950 which means that all disposable diapers ever created are still in existence (this holds true for most plastic products). You don’t care about the environment? Well that’s just too bad and I don’t know why you are reading my blog in the first place, but let’s assume you care for your child.

Here’s a link to a WebMD article that talks about disposable diapers being linked to increased asthma rates: Link

An Associated Content article about chemicals in disposable diapers: Link

So, you are convinced. You will use cloth diapers. Now where on earth do you buy them? Here are a few places. Try to avoid diapers with Velcro as that is also a type of plastic (snaps or pins are ideal). It was hard for me to find many snap diapers that used medal snaps however, but plastic snaps are a much better choice when compared to disposable diapers.

Mother-Ease USA
Mother-Ease Europe
Choosey Diapers
Green Mountain Diapers
More Cloth Diapers

Make your own cloth diapers!

Baby Bottles:
It’s almost understandable when you think of the development of the plastic baby bottle. No newly initiated mother or father wants to deal with a dropped and shattered glass bottle in the middle of the night. I’d say, however, that they’d rather deal with that than a sick child. The chemicals that are in all plastics are also in baby bottles. The nipples of bottles are also made of latex which can cause allergic reaction, but they CAN be found made out of silicone or rubber, which is what I have tried to track down. So here are some alternatives to the plastic variety. If there are any parents reading this that have comments/suggestions let me know!

Natural Rubber Bottle Nipples:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3 (Google Shopping Search Result)

Glass bottles with silicone nipples
Glass bottles with silicone nipples and thermal hugger
A few kinds of glass baby bottles (and free shipping)

Handmade crochet baby bottle covers:
Link 1
Link 2

Make your own baby bottle cover (crochet)


Pacifiers:
Since we’ve established that giving your baby something made of plastic to suck on is a bad idea, I have provided links below to natural alternatives to the latex pacifier. In even silicone pacifiers the part that touches your baby’s face is plastic, this is why I have stayed with rubber pacifier links.

Natural rubber pacifiers:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4