Natural Baby Products

Henry is now 12 weeks old and is settling into life very well so far.  As a fairly neurotic Mum I like to keep a strict eye on what Henry is exposed to.  He's exclusively breast fed (only the best for my boy!), wears cloth nappies and washes in chamomile tea!

Throughout the pregnancy I was very careful about what I was eating and exposing him to and it makes sense that this care should also be applied once he's been born.  For the first 6 weeks I used nothing but cooled boiled water for topping & tailing, as recommended by my midwife.  Once he was old enough I started very gradually adding things for his skin, but I was careful to only use edible substances for the first 3 months.  My thinking is, if it's mild enough to eat, it's mild enough for delicate baby skin.

So I add a cup of chamomile tea to his bath which makes his skin lovely and soft.  If he's suffering with dry skin I also add a teaspoon of olive oil and swish it into the water, but you have to be careful as it can make him a bit slippery.

I also use washable wipes for nappy changing.  I keep a thermos of chamomile tea by the changing table which keeps it warm for his little bottom and is easy enough to grab for the change bag on the way out.  I have some great wipes from www.babykind.co.uk which are terry on one side and lovely soft fleece on the other, but you could just as easily cut up an old towel.  I just wet them in the tea and use them just like a wet wipe before throwing them in the nappy bucket for washing.

Recently I've  also started adding 1 drop of lavender essential oil to the tea as it has anti-bacterial properties.  

I'm sure this policy of only using edible baby products has helped Henry - he's not had any nappy rash at all.  Wet wipes are a bad idea in my opinion for many reasons, not least because they are a chemical substance that you put on baby's skin and unlike other products you don't even rinse it off afterwards, it just sits there drying the skin out!  

Originally I chose to use washable wipes so that I wasn't putting disposable wipes into landfill, but I've been so impressed with how gentle they are on Henry's skin and how easy they are to use alongside the cloth nappies that I'm a real convert!

I'll also be doing a series of posts about natural baby products with recipes and comments on how effective I've found them to be.  Enjoy!!

Eco-cleaning for lazy people: Removing stains from the sink

We have a stainless steel kitchen sink and as I'm so lazy often it'll go quite a while (too embarrassed to say exactly how long!) without a good clean.  So it starts to turn a bit brown in a way that looks like tea stains, but is probably more gross than that!

Here's a no-fuss way to remove these stains and have your sink looking silvery-new again:

• Sprinkle a generous covering of either Borax or Bicarbonate of soda over the sink.  I've found Borax works best, but Bicarb also does the job and is easier to get hold of.
• If the stains are really bad you can leave it for 1/2 an hour, but I've not found this necessary and don't have the patience for it!
• Take a damp cloth and rub the borax/bicarb over the sink.  Watch in awe as the "tea" stains simply wipe off!
• Rinse the sink well to remove the borax/bicarb.
• Wash your hands (or use gloves) as it'll really dry your skin if left on.
• Stand back and admire your handywork!
  

Eco-cleaning for lazy people

I am a self confessed lazy person, but with aspirations of being the perfect eco-housewife.  I don't think I'm alone in this - probably most people would like to live a greener life these days.

I started off by buying eco-friendly cleaning products like ecover in an attempt to reduce the amount of chemical nastiness that I was putting down the drains and exposing my family to.  Unfortunately I found that they just didn't do the job as well as the stronger products, which meant far too much scrubbing for my liking!

So I started to look around for the old fashioned natural cleaning tips on the internet and found that these natural remedies were not only more effective than the eco-friendly products, but also more effective than the chemical based ones!  

Arm your cleaning box with a few simple and cheap tools and your scrubbing days are over!  Of course the laziest thing to do would be to employ a cleaner to use them for you, but for those of us who are full-time Mums and housekeepers and don't have this option, this new old-fashioned way of cleaning is the next best thing.

There are a few things that I recommend keeping in your cleaning cupboard, all of which I have managed to find in various supermarkets.  Sometimes they're under the "natural household cleaning" section, as in Tescos, but often they're just food items that can also be used for cleaning.

• White Vinegar - I've yet to find a supermarket that has big enough bottles for my liking
• Olive oil - just cheap, light stuff, the extra-virgin has too much colour in it
• Bicarbonate of soda - in the baking section, but Tesco also do bigger packs in the cleaning section
• Borax - Spent quite a while looking for this until I found it in Tesco amongst the natural household cleaning products
• Lavender essential oil - I got this from Holland & Barrett but I think it's cheaper online
• Tea-tree essential oil - you can get this in the medicine section of most supermarkets or in Boots or Holland & Barrett or online from aromatherapy retailers.

You don't have to have all of these things to get started on your eco-cleaning.  This is all stuff I've collected over about a year.  You can do loads with just the white vinegar & bicarb, so I recommend starting with that and see how you get on.

This is the first in a series of posts about eco-cleaning for lazy people.  The rest will have recipes and tips for how to manage day to day cleaning tasks.  I hope you find them useful!