Natural Pacifiers

Our newest addition is quite a persnickety little fella' in comparison to our first child. We've never used pacifiers, in fact, my mother never used one with me. Considering what we know about plastics today I'm extra grateful to her for choosing against one, whatever her reason was.

Uninterested in adding any further plastics to our home, let alone putting it in our childs' mouth we planned on not bothering with pacifiers again. Pacifiers are a great place to find:
- polyvinylchloride (PVC), which creates dioxins which cause neurological, reproductive, developmental, and hormonal health problems
- latex, which many babies may have allergies or hypersensitivity towards
- phthalates, also found in teethers, have been linked to numerous health problems, including cancer, endocrine disruption, development delays, and reproductive system damage

NO THANKS

You see, I am my sons current lovey and as wonderful as that is, being his natural pacifier as often as he wants me to be is very difficult. His fussiness over this matter even had my poor husband feeling like his little boy didn't even like him. The "use of a pacifier" talk was once again revisited.

Still uninterested in adding plastic to our home or our babies body I decided to search for a more natural alternative and found that my options were:
- natural rubber
- silicone
- pthalate-free PVC

I chose to go with natural rubber. The rubber is taken from a tree without causing any harm to it and is made into a totally biodegradable pacifier. On Amazon.com you can get a 2-pack of Natursutten natural rubber pacifiers for your little person for $16.50.

As much as I'm disinterested in having to break my son of the use of his "paci" down the line and fighting my daughter all the way to not steal or adopt his as her own, it looks like this is journey we'll be embarking on as a family.

Plastic Wrap Alternative - DIY Cotton Beesewax Wraps

Plastic is everywhere and it's so daunting that most people seem to decide, "What's the use?" and not bother trying. For a lot of people plastic wrap is an item receiving every day use in their household. How can you kick the habit of using something that has become so integral? By using beesewax cotton wraps.

I learned about this source post from My Healthy Green Family for todays craft while I was perusing the My Plastic Free Life Facebook fan page.

Although I can happily say that we do not use much plastic wrap in our house I can't say that we don't have a regular use for it. How can that be? I've never really bought it so there's never any in the house, but my husband tends to be a lot of leftovers in the fridge completely uncovered. By creating a plastic wrap alternative to provide a man that I sometimes have a hard time getting to put things in our recycled plastic containers I stand a better chance of not finding a bowl of baby cereal/food all dried out on the top shelf of our refrigerator.

I started off with some fabrics that this seemed like a good job for.

The directions say to pre-heat your oven to 185F, but I had to cope with 200F.

Place pre cut fabric on cookie sheet.

Sprinkle evenly and lightly with grated beeswax.  You don’t need a lot!

Place in preheated oven.  Watch carefully!  This should take 5 minutes or less.

As soon as the beeswax is just melted, remove from oven.

Spread wax evenly with paintbrush to cover over any spots that are not yet coated.

The directions say to hang on makeshift clothes line with clothes pegs, to dry. That wasn't really much of an option for me so I laid them out dry on some foil.

They ended up pretty stiff. The author says that once cooled, you can use these wraps. I felt a bit compelled to wash mine before use to see if that loosened them up a bit.

The results after washing were not positive. The wax was piecy, uneven, and cracked. I actually considered throwing what I had left away! But that would go against my feelings about needless waste. I'll have to find another use for this fail.