6 Ways to Green Your Nursery
We invented the best sleep sack for babies because baby health and development is important to us!
You may have fallen in love with those Pinterest nurseries, but the truth is that many are put together with products that contain harmful chemicals and toxins. These substances can affect our children’s development and prevent them from living a fun, healthy life.
Safety first! Here’s how you can “green” your baby’s nursery.
1. Bring in some nature
Plants are Mother Nature’s best way to cleanse the air. You can remove chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene with some baby-friendly plants. Set up some bamboo, peace lilies, or green spider plants. You should also open windows regularly to allow fresh air to circulate (this will help baby sleep all night too).
2. Buy an organic mattress and bedding
Your little one will spend more time in the crib than anywhere else, so it’s imperative that the mattress and sheet they use are made from 100% organic materials. Even “eco-friendly” options have small amounts of toxic materials, so make sure it’s certified organic.
I knowing buying everything organic isn’t always practical, but this should be on the items you do.
3. Clean with eco-friendly products
No matter how many organic, natural or eco-friendly products you buy, it will all be for naught if you slather them with dangerous, chemical-laden cleaners. There are plenty of all-purpose, eco-friendly cleaners on the market today designed just for babies. Our favorites are Rockin’ Green and Dr. Bronner’s.
4. Use safe paint
Paint can leach toxins into the air and nearby furniture long after it has dried. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are dangerous. They can cause respiratory and reproductive problems in developing children.
Use a paint that is odorless and VOC-free when painting baby's nursery. They even have organic paint. Harmony paint at Sherwin Williams is amazing. Within one hour (after keeping windows open) you can use the room but it's good to wait 24-48 hours before baby is in the room just to be safe. Also, keep any furniture or clothing or toys out of the room while painting.
5. Opt for safe flooring
Eventually your baby will roll, crawl and walk on the floor, so you’ll need safe flooring materials. Bamboo, cork, organic carpeting, and natural linoleum are great options. They’re also extremely durable (especially bamboo).
Some green options for area rug materials are sea-grass, coir, hemp, sisal and jute – all natural fibers.
6. Offer eco-friendly furniture
You’ll probably have a crib, dresser, changing table, and maybe a chair in your baby’s room. Processed materials like pressed wood, laminated wood, fiberboard and particle board are made with formaldehyde, which can spread from the object.
Make sure all furniture is made without formaldehyde, flame retardants, 1,4 dioxane, propylene glycol, or fragrance, and there are no VOCs in the paint.
We’d love to hear how you keep a “green” nursery!
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Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventors of the Zipadee-Zip
The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.
When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.
Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!
To date, tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!
Interested in writing a guest blog for Sleeping Baby? Send your topic idea to pr@sleepingbaby.com.
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