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.

A pinspired Post - Cloth Baby Wipes

I mentioned in the recent past that a couple of my friends (a couple has now grown to a few) are also pregnant. They've chosen to go the rout of cloth diapering and in addition to that they plan to use cloth baby wipes. The image of mountains of dirty diapers in landfills isn't unknown to those who consider themselves even remotely green. But what about those chemically treated and bleached baby wipes? They're doing the same thing I assure you.

Pintrest is full of the pins picturing cloth wipes but when you click them you rarely seem to get a very detailed description of how to make your own. I'm going to do my best to help you with that.

Today's post was inspired by this specific pin and the info found here.

Buying fabric can be so exciting for me. Having an excuse to do so only makes the experience that much sweeter. I picked up these fabrics for baby wipes.

I'm going to tell you two ways to go about this:

Place an actual baby wipe on top of some uncut fabric (I bought 1/2 yards). Cut out one piece that was the size you now want and then get to work.

I cut two long strips.

Then placed one on top of the other and began cutting the strips intended to become baby wipes. I used the first piece I cut as my template to cut the rest of the pieces.

Another way to go about all of this is to first lay out your piece of fabric.

Fold it over.

It's really your call if you want right side touching right side or wrong side touching wrong side.

Then place your template onto the fabric.

Then cut your strips following the line of your chosen measuring instrument.

I now had three strips, two I intended to use for cloth wipes and one of excess fabric.

Once you have all of your pieces cut the fun part can really begin.

On to the sewing machine!

Place two sheets of your fabric together backside touching backside. Your print should be on the top and the bottom. You should not see the plain white back.

Then use whatever stitch you most prefer to sew the two pieces together.

 This is a great time to test out different stitches on your machine.

Et viola you have a baby wipe.

In case you're wondering how my wipes looked after a trip through the washing machine with their un-serged edges.

I just snipped off the loose edges and put them into a baby wipes container.

Now to make some wipe solution. But that's another blog post ;p

Wordless Wednesday - Have I Mentioned I'm Pregnant?

What Happens I Leave My Husband Alone With Our Daughter

I came home to see his laptop open on the bed playing Elmo's potty time movie and a large, glass bowl I use for blocking knitwear in the floor, and full of the last of the Cheerios.