There are so many reasons to keep newly developing babies living in a welcoming, eco-friendly environment. That’s why learning how to be eco-friendly with a baby is so important, especially nowadays.
So, how can I be more eco-friendly with a baby? Using natural, eco-friendly products can keep your baby safe and healthy without forcing them to live in a bubble. The best method is to allow them to roam free in a more eco-friendly environment in your household or anywhere else.
Keeping your home and your baby’s surroundings eco-friendly is pivotal in how to be eco-friendly with a baby, but there’s a lot that comes with this responsibility. Considering that many of our household products nowadays contain ingredients we can’t even pronounce, it’s important to stay vigilant in what our babies are exposed to on a daily basis.
10 Green Tips on How to Be Eco-Friendly with a Baby
Raising a child to be comfortable exploring the world is important, but they shouldn’t have to do it in a sterile environment. It’s important that they get exposed to the natural elements of the world without the risk of artificial agents. That’s why I’m a huge proponent of the following tips on how to be eco-friendly with a baby.
1. Keep your baby clean with eco-friendly baby wipes
There are a number of chemicals that can be found in baby wipes nowadays that are difficult to even pronounce, which isn’t even considering the number of additives and dyes included in them. By using eco-friendly baby wipes that are known to be safe, you and your baby will be in safer hands when cleaning up.
Not only are eco-friendly baby wipes better when it comes to zeroing out the harmful elements exposed to your baby’s skin, but they’re also environmentally friendly. As a matter of fact, many of them are made out of bamboo, which is by far one of the most eco-friendly materials on the planet. If you’re not using eco-friendly baby wipes to clean up your baby’s skin or what they like to stick in their mouths, you definitely want to look into them.
2. Have an adventure in the outdoors
We want to expose our children to the world because no one can be properly raised in a sterile environment. By being exposed to the natural world, your baby will be able to naturally build up the most important resistances a human needs in their lives, which is why I’m a huge proponent for exploring the great outdoors.
Not only is it important to have exposure to the natural world, but it provides our babies with a better understanding of nature and what’s really important in the world. At the same time, it’s a fantastic way for them to learn new things while spending quality time with the whole family.
3. Don’t use as much water during bathtime
There’s a huge amount of water wasted every year in the world and it doesn’t help that we like to take long showers and big baths. Well, this is something that should change if we want to truly be more eco-friendly, so setting an example ourselves while also instilling this quality in our babies early on is a great start.
The average bath uses anywhere between 30 and 50 gallons of freshwater, which is equivalent to almost seven months worth of water a person can drink. That’s a lot! Well, by reducing the amount of water we use in our bathtub or even using a thoroughly cleaned sink when cleaning our babies, we can be more eco-friendly with our babies.
4. Get a glass baby bottle instead of plastic
There are many reasons why you shouldn’t be using a plastic baby bottle and should be opting for eco-friendly glass baby bottles instead. The potential risk is, in my opinion, just not worth it, especially when your child’s development is at stake. You should say yes to glass baby bottles and no to plastic.
Glass baby bottles are the best choice for your baby because they don’t contain chemicals such as BPA, PVC, phthalates, and polycarbonates. On top of that, you can safely heat up glass bottles without worrying about chemicals leaking into the liquid contained in the bottle. Even if the liquid is slightly warm, the difference in taste between a plastic and glass baby bottle can be quite big. I cannot suggest enough getting a glass baby bottle if you currently have a plastic one.
5. Feed your baby organic, homemade meals
There’s really no substitute for organic, homemade food that you know every ingredient that went into making it. Regardless of the type of diet you and your family are on, we can all agree that high-quality ingredients put together at home are far better than anything pre-made or unnatural.
Being eco-friendly with your baby has a lot to do with surrounding them in a more eco-friendly environment, but that also includes what goes inside of them. By feeding them wholesome, organic food prepared by you, you’ll be 100% sure that everything they consume in terms of food will promote safe and healthy development.
6. Avoid toxic skincare products for babies
Similar to baby wipes, skincare products can contain a number of chemicals that are just too difficult to pronounce and have origins that are completely unknown. Not only that but knowing the long term effects of some of these skincare products for babies is also unknown. For these very reasons, I suggest you avoid using skincare products for your baby that concern you.
Exposing your baby to only the best skincare products can be very important to the well-being of your baby. Whether you’re using soap, shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotions, or even detergents on your baby, they’re all worth investigating to find out whether or not they’re safe to use. In my opinion, it’s an easy choice to opt for eco-friendly skin products for babies every single day.
7. Outfit your baby with eco-friendly clothes
While ensuring you only expose your baby’s skin to eco-friendly skincare products, you also want to make sure the clothes which they wear every day are also safe. Eco-friendly clothing brands use only the highest quality materials out there that are also environmentally friendly.
When outfitting your baby with eco-friendly clothes, the best go-to materials to focus on include bamboo, hemp, organic cotton, linen, soy silk and cashmere, and cruelty-free wool. Not only do these materials promote a safer and healthier environment in general, but they also are known to be exceptionally safe for babies as well as people of all ages.
8. Reduce your baby’s exposure to plastic products
By far the largest perpetrator of pollution on this planet is plastic. Let’s face it, almost everything around us is either completely made of plastic or partially. This trend has continued to grow since it’s one of the cheapest and easiest materials to produce, even though it’s causing huge problems to our planet’s soil, water, and landfills.
By reducing plastic exposure to your baby, not only are you avoiding the potential interaction of a chemical with your baby, but you’re also teaching them to use materials other than plastic. Starting the journey of eco-friendly living begins by reducing our use of plastic, so why not get started early?
9. Compost food that’s going to go bad
One of the easiest ways to go eco-friendly with your baby is to compost the food they don’t eat that’s likely to go bad. While I always encourage my family to finish their whole meals so nothing goes to waste, that’s not always a successful campaign resulting in food that simply goes uneaten.
Composting food is extremely easy nowadays because there are lots of products out there that can be purchased to fit any household. Not only that, but they’re extremely affordable. Composting can also be a great way to reuse the food you can no longer use by feeding it to your garden, which can be another reason to go outside with your baby.
10. Clean your home with eco-friendly cleaning products
I can’t stress enough how many chemicals various household products we use on a daily basis have, especially those that we don’t fully understand. Who knows what the effect can be with a lifetime of on-going exposure to certain chemicals, which is why there’s no excuse, in my opinion, to use anything other than eco-friendly cleaning products.
By using eco-friendly cleaning products, you’re ensuring that whatever your baby touches with their hands or puts in their mouth is 100% clean and free of any scary, harmful artificial cleaning agents. Thankfully, there are a number of popular eco-friendly cleaning products to choose from that are extremely effective at cleaning the messiest of places, including kitchens and bathrooms.
