I just read an excellent blog posting I wanted to share with you!   Safbaby.com just uploaded this new article on 12 ways to keep your baby and kids toxin-free in 2010.  Many of the tips will be a refresher for some (avoid the dreaded BPA is by now hopefully familiar advice for all parents), and some may be new issues you may want to consider for your family (avoiding corn syrup and food additives etc.)

Safbaby.com is run by two moms who provide great info on raising your baby in a toxin-free environment.

The article is nteresting reading for sure, with lots of links to more in-depth articles for further research. Hope it helps make your home and life more safe for your little ones!

Today we have a guest post from Barbara Nyke, a Toronto interior designer who specializes in eco-friendly design:

Children have been experiencing an unprecedented rise in chronic disease and illness such as cancer, autism, asthma, birth defects, ADD / ADHD, and learning and developmental disabilities. The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada has linked many of these outcomes to unregulated toxic chemicals that we use in our homes.

The benefits of choosing a sustainably-manufactured product for your home are numerous. The top three reasons are:

1. the product has been made by not depleting the earth’s resources 
2. the company is practicing responsible manufacturing methods 
3.   the product can help to improve your home’s indoor air quality; particularly of importance for a newborn and children. 

Indoor air quality can be, and typically is, many more times polluted than outdoor air because of the hundreds of items we bring into our homes.  The important sources of air pollution in the home include, but isn’t limited to: furniture, vinyl flooring, new carpets and carpet adhesives, paints, vinyl wallpapers and household cleaning products.

Some products contain VOCs, volatile organic compounds, which are chemicals like formaldehyde, styrene, toluene, formaldehyde, and a variety of benzenes found in carpeting, dyes, pesticides, fungicides, fire retardants and anti-stain coatings; These are frequently released into the air indoors.  Considering that we spend 90% of our time indoors, this is an important element to address.

All consumers would be better off to avoid chemicals like these that are known to be carcinogenic, toxic to reproductive organs and endocrine disrupting.

Decorating green on a budget

We all want to save money.  When it’s time to decorate a nursery, there are ways to save money, but there are also areas that we shouldn’t scrimp on.  Earlier generations relied on hand-me downs for cribs, clothing and toys.  I don’t think this sharing has ever waned in popularity, primarily for the sake of saving money, because children grow out of these items quickly and due to the benefit of recycling clothes and items.  Nowadays, there are plenty of stores that have taken this idea commercial and resell used products.

Visit  garage and antique sales to find lamps, rocking chairs and dressers to refinish and repaint.  An environmental and cost-effective paint would be a mid-cost, good quality eggshell, low-VOC, water-based paint, approximately $40.  Going this route is a an inexpensive way to have a non-odorous room, that with standard paints and oil paints can take up to a couple of months to off-gass depending on the level of ventilation.  Naturally-made milk paint is another alternative, but is costlier.

For flooring, an economical way to get broadloom on a budget is to choose an end-of-roll piece that has already off-gassed and is cheaper than buying a new cut.

-Barbara Nyke, Eco-Designer, NIKKA DESIGN, www.nikkadesign.ca

For more information on designing healthier rooms for kids, visit the Kai Kids Fall Trunk Show in Toronto this Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. At 11:30 a.m. Barbara will be doing a free half-hour session for parents with time for questions afterwards.

We recently had our third baby, another precious life to nurture, sustain and protect. Back when we had Kai, our first son, almost five years ago, I was just starting to become aware about the toxic load carried in most common paints and household building materials.

When my helpful mother-in-law painted Kai’s room for us, I bought her a low VOC, fairly non-toxic paint to use that wouldn’t off gas hazardous chemicals into the air my baby-to-be was about to breathe. I recall it was called Eco-Spec and I had to hunt high and low to find it. However, just a few years later,  there are now many easily available lines of chemical-free paint and greener reno supplies on the market.

If you are adding a new addition to your family of either sort – a beautiful baby or a new family room, there is a lot you need to know if you truly want to make an interior non-toxic and healthy for your family and the planet.

Over the next week, we will have a guest blogger writing about how to Design Healthy Rooms for Healthy Kids. Barbara Nyke of NIKKA DESIGN in Toronto is an interior decorator who specializes in eco-friendly design.

Barbara believes that incorporating green and healthy living into our lives on a daily basis affects every aspect of what we buy, the products we use, how we dispose of items and the air we breathe.

Check back, as she will be addressing:

•  
  

  What makes a healthy room?

• How do you know the products you’ve chosen are eco-friendly?

• What does eco-friendly mean?

• Can you have it all? What are your environmental priorities when selecting products for your children’s bedrooms?

• Are you finding the style of furniture you want that’s also eco-friendly?
  

I get all kinds of newsletters from various parenting and eco sites and blogs to try to stay up to date on new products, and to keep learning while I’m home with my kids. Some days I feel like they are just cluttering up my inbox, but other times I come across something that really hits home with me and makes me glad I didn’t just hit Delete.

Today was one of those days. I get an e-letter from a newish Canadian site called Everythingmom.com. It’s a gorgeously-designed, fun, useful social networking site for moms and bloggers featuring advice, reviews, product directories, community, blogs, printable meal planners etc. I haven’t spend enough time on there yet since giving birth has kept my focus away from my computer for the summer, but I keep meaning to add myself and Kai Kids to their directory of mom-owned businesses.

As I quickly scanned it my eyes tripped across their Mothercraft Tip of the Week, and it really hit home with me so I thought I’d share it:

 Moms are often praised for their multi-tasking abilities. But for all our “doing” throughout the day, many among us go to sleep feeling like we’ve accomplished nothing at all. More and more research shows that multi-tasking only gives the illusion of productivity and efficiency. Replace your multi-tasking with the discipline to return your wandering attention to what’s happening right now. Sometimes it’s not about what you’re getting done, but rather what you’re missing when you’re on the phone, folding the laundry, watching Oprah and checking email all at the same time. (HINT: Your present moment!)

As a mom of now three boys under 4.5 years old, like many mothers, I’m a whiz at multi-tasking!  Nurse the baby and read to my two-year-old while coaching my eldest to clean up his spilt milk . . . you’ve got the picture. Throw in housekeeping, trying to be a supportive/fun wife and run a successful online business, and it’s juggle, juggle, all the time.

But I realize I can get too caught up in trying to accomplish multiple tasks and crossing items off my endless list of daily to -do`s. I’m a do-er, and sometimes I try to do too much, and I think I miss out on a lot along the way. Having another baby has added to my load, but it’s also made me realize my limits. There is only so much I can do, if I want to do things well.

Plus, having a soft-cheeked, twinkly-eyed two-month-old who is fascinated by the wind rifling the leaves in the trees has made me stop and enjoy more moments, more often. It has slowed me down, and instead of letting that frustrate me, I`ve decided to try and embrace it! This is most-likely my last baby, and these special moments go by oh so quickly!

Just looking at this page makes me feel guilty for not having written for so long!  But I have a good excuse: I had another baby in July (that makes three boys for us)!  His difficult birth, my recovery, and just getting used to a household of three boys under 4.5 years, plus running the business, has set me back a bit.

But with September around the corner, the back to school feeling has put me in the mood for new beginnings and getting back to my regular schedule, so here I finally am!

There is so much to catch up on, so tune in over the coming weeks as I write about:

• new non-toxic products for packing a litterless lunch
• 7th Generation eco products ( a review)
• how to select a tree to plant in your yard
• how much has changed on the organic/eco-friendly front since I had my first baby 4.5 years ago

Any suggestions for topics you’d like me to explore in this blog are always welcome; same for product suggestions for our online eco store, kaikids.com.

Kids love painting, drawing and colouring, and even if your little ones spend a lot of time creating at home, they probably are also bringing home several masterpieces a week from school or daycare. We have a magnet board in our kitchen where I post the latest works of art from our two boys, but they do tend to pile up.

I used to sneak old paintings and those that weren’t my favourites into our recycling bin when my sons weren’t looking. But then I realized that their colourful, abstract (they are ages 2 and 4) paintings would make excellent wrapping paper for gifts!

This reuses their paintings (and gives them a thrill to see their masterpiece adorning a present for a friend’s birthday party etc.), reduces the amount of wrapping paper we consume (I haven’t bought any in two years!) and saves us money. And friends and family love the personal touch and think it’s quite fun to receive a present wrapped in children’s artwork.

Plus, I no longer have to feel guilty about not keeping every “unique: canvas they bring home!

Do you have any good ideas for reusing items around the home and encouraging your kids to reduce, reuse and recycle? I’d love to hear them.

For a year now we’ve wanted to add a gift registry to our online store, Kai Kids, so that our green-minded parents/customers could register for some of our amazing natural and organic products for new baby showers, birthdays, Christmas etc.

It’s been a long time in the works but I’m happy to announce it’s finally here!  The Kai Kids Gift Registry is now up and running and ready for action!  Just click on the Registry link at the top right of any page on our site, or  on the green Add to Registry button on any product page. You can create your own registry, or search to see whether any of your friends or family are also registered.

We And please let us know how you find using it.  We always enjoy hearing from our customers, and your feedback is important to us.

If you know of any expecting couples who might be interested in eco alternatives to regular baby gear available on most registries please pass the info along. We really depend on, and appreciate word of mouth from our customers to grow our business!

Modern families have become reliant on liquid shower gels and plastic-pump dispense liquid hand soaps. But really, is all that plastic packaging necessary? And think of how often the average family goes through these products, only to have to buy yet another container. Much of that plastic gets thrown out and ends up in a landfill, depending on your municipality’s recycling program.

A better option for the environment, and cheaper for your wallet, is a return to good old-fashioned bar soap. It is usually wrapped in paper or recycled paper, or you can cut the packaging altogether by  buying it  loose in natural food stores.

It’s a little messier, and can be slippery for little fingers, but it’s much better for the planet. And bodywash and liquid handsoaps usually cost about four times as much as bar soap!

I don’t have the stats for Canada, but if every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of shower gel with a bar of soap, roughly 2.5  million pounds of plastic bottles would be diverted from the waste stream! That is staggering.

In our household, we went back to the bar a few years ago with no regrets. We still use liquid handsoap at our bathroom sink for quick cleanups, but we refill our plastic container with a natural handsoap we purchase in bulk from our neighbourhood natural food store.  We just take our container in, have it weighed, and refill when necessary.

Our online eco store, Kai Kids, also carries some excellent bar soaps:

• Organic Baby Soap, by Bare Organics, which we use for the whole family
• Avocado Cleansing Bar, by Dimpleskins (very gentle and great for babies)
• French-Milled Vegetable Soap, by South of France (lasts for months, and comes in two lovely scents: Honey and Lemon Verbena)

Happy washing!

I just received a new shipment for our Kai Kids eco boutique today that I’m very excited about!  I finally found some reusable colourful, funky organic cotton training pants that kids will actually want to wear.

If you and your toddler are tackling potty training, then have a look at our new Little Beetle Learners.  They are made of two layers of 100%  organic velour cotton, with a third layer tucked into the wet zone and hidden by some very sporty stitching! Happily, these training pants are also Fair Trade, so no little children overseas sweated to ensure your little one could wear them.

I must confess, even after cloth diapering,  I went through my share of disposable pullups with our Big Boy a few years ago, but felt guilty about all of that paper and gel heading for the landfill.

Our second son, Baby Boy is now two, and I’m hoping he’ll soon start showing signs he’s ready to start potty training (especially before Baby #3 arrives this summer! ) And when he does, I’m going to try these oh-so-soft,  organic training pants.

Pull them on, snap them off, and you and your little one will enjoy the soft velour material on his bottom, plus he’ll feel the wetness from accidents and hopefully be motivated to stay dry!

After an inevitable accident, just rinse out or shake any feces into the toilet, then wash in hot water (to kill any bacteria) and dry at a low temperature, or better yet, line dry.

If any of you parents out there still haven’t made the switch to natural, chemical-free shampoo, soaps, bodywashes and lotions for your families, a new study should help convince you.

A report by the  Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, released yesterday, found major brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Baby Magic, Huggies and Mustela to be contaminated with cancer-causing carcinogens formaldehyge and 1.4 dioxin. Formaldehyde can also trigger skin rashes in some children.

Babies and children are far more vulnerable to the harmful effects of toxins and carcinogens ingested and absorbed through the skin due to their small size.  Their organs are still developing, and their bodies are less able to detoxify and excrete chemicals.

These substances are contaminents that get into the products during the manufacturing process and as such, are not listed on ingredient labels. 1.4 dioxin is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique that makes products bubbly and formaldehyde is released in the bottles and containers over time from preservatives used to prolong shelf-life.

In Canada, both formaldehyde and 1.4 dioxin are on Health Canada’s cosmetics hotlist, which means they cannot be used as ingredients in personal-care products, but are allowed in trace amounts in levels higher than those detected in yesterday’s study. There are a few exceptions for formaldehyde, which is permitted as in ingredient at low concentrations to provide antimicrobial preservation.

For the study, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test 48 common children’s products for 1,4-dioxane; 28 of those products were also tested for formaldehyde. The lab found that:

• 17 out of 28 products tested – 61 percent – contained both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane
• 23 out of 28 products – 82 percent – contained formaldehyde at levels ranging from 54 to 610 parts per million (ppm).
• 32 out of 48 products – 67 percent – contained 1,4-dioxane at levels ranging from 0.27 to 35 ppm.

More than 60 percent of products tested contained both toxins, including Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, L’Oreal Kids Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Fast Dry Shampoo, Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash, Gerber’s Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash. Bubble bath products branded with popular children’s characters also tested positive for both chemicals, including Barbie, Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street, Hot Wheels and Tinker Bell.

Here are some tips to ensure what you buy for your family is non-toxic and safe:

• Use natural and organic products. (Kai Kids carries some excellent chemical-free lines: Dimpleskins, TruKid, Bare Organics, Little Twig,  and Earth-Friendly Baby)
• Look for ingredients you recognize: jojoba oil, coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax,  glycerin, rosemary extract (a natural preservative), grapefruit oil, calendula, cocoa butter, Vitamin E oil, etc.
• Read labels carefully and avoid products you can’t pronounce and those containing: parabens, sodium laureth sulfates,  polyethylene glycol, phthalates, petrolatum/mineral oil/paraffin, glycols, MEA/DEA/TEA, PVP/ acrylates, DMDM hydantoin/ diazolidinyl urea/ methylisothiazolinone

Obviously, the price for all-natural, chemical-free and organic shampoos and lotions is higher, as the ingredients and manufacturing processes are more costly. But what I’ve found as a parent who switched to natural skincare products back when I was pregnant with our oldest son, now 4, is that natural skincare products seem to be more concentrated and last a lot longer. That means you definitely get your money’s worth. One small tin of Bum Bum Balm lasted me almost nine months of mulitple diaper changes a day, and one bottle of Organic Chamomile Shampoo & Body Wash got me through six months of bathtime for my two children!

I think it’s because the ingredients are quality and pure and there are no fillers, but I’m starting to suspect that aside from being full of toxic chemicals, conventional drugstore products are made so that you go through them quickly and will buy more!