Best tips for eco-friendly pregnancy and baby

Cmkrd

Nappies & wipes are a great start. Other things to consider:
- Separate set of wipes for hands / face (I love grovia, softest line dry ones I’ve found)
- cloth kitchen ‘paper’ towels
- secondhand everything. I always look secondhand first, they’re either wearing or playing with things for a hot second!
- ethical wooden toys - all things eco I love babipur as a shop. They also have a great FB hangout group with ethically minded families. wooden toys also tend to be more open ended and last a lot longer in play value plus keep some resale worth
- batch cook your own puree’s. I also got secondhand some refillable squeeze pouches (like the posh yoghurts for kids), brilliant way to keep mess to a minimum when eating out but not need single use plastic. 

Congratulations & enjoy. It’s a blast!! 

AmberPick

Hello, thank you for a good question. The biggest problem was gifts from friends and relatives. A lot of identical and unnecessary toys, blankets, clothes that we don't use. So we agreed with them there would be no more of that, and when our second son was born, they asked us what we needed. 

TomokoAdhami

I think you can include breastfeeding, organic food, charity, fewer paper toilets and wipes in your list. 

Siebrie

Tell people that you are happy to accept secondhand; I now have a few mothers from dds' classmates who give us bags of clothes that they get from family members. It's all really nice stuff, and we pass it on if we don't like it or after dds have outgrown it. Especially when children are older, other people are hesitant to pass on clothes, I have found; they are afraid you will be insulted or that you think that they will think you are poor.

Sapindus

I bought loads of second hand stuff and sold on things we had grown out of of or never even used, at NCT nearly new sales.  Made lots of good friends through NCT as well.

Bluegreen143

Not buying anything you don’t need - eco friendly products are OK but it’s better not to buy at all. 

If it’s your second child you already know that babies don’t actually need toys (can chew on older sib’s blocks/cars etc or safe household items). Books can be had from the library, Covid-permitting. 

An awful lot of the gumph they sell for babies is totally unnecessary. 

For me, that includes things like infant seats/swings (don’t flame me, I know some people love them and that’s fine!). My babies liked being on a blanket on the floor or held by an adult. 

If you have a reclining bath seat (I think more useful than a baby bath) to wash them in the big bath you can also use this on the floor as a general seat to prop them up to see things (though the most eco friendly or minimalist thing is to bathe in the sink, but if you are getting a bath seat anyway then make good use of it instead of also buying a bouncer!). Of course your child won’t be strapped in to the bath seat like they would in a bouncer, so you’ll need to supervise.

Do you need a huge big plastic travel system? If I’m ever lucky enough to have a third child (not an eco friendly choice but I would love it, if husband ever agreed which is unlikely 😆) I would probably not bother and carry in a sling until 6-8 months then get a lightweight (second hand) folding stroller. Both my kids preferred being carried so tbh the big pram probably wasn’t necessary. Of course you may have a pram still from before or you may have a very small age gap and not being able to cope without one - everyone is different.

Clothes-wise, you can get everything second hand which is obviously better for the environment, and you might have hand me downs downs from the elder child.

Feeding - always feeding direct from the breast without pumps or bottles obviously cuts out a lot of plastic needs. If you are mainly breastfeeding and just wanting the odd bottle for a break then you don’t need a full set of bottles, sterilisers, electric pump etc- a hand pump, 1-2x bottles and boiling them to sterilise would work fine. If you are bottle feeding you obviously need more.

Re baby food, just giving normal food whether cut appropriately or mashed up (I only did baby led weaning aka solid stuff with eldest, youngest I did a mix of our food mashed up which she spoon fed herself, plus always giving her finger stuff to hold too, as she very much preferred mashed textures). And obviously avoiding pouches as much as possible as like any single use packaging they aren’t the best. If you do like to do the puree/mashed route you can buy reusable pouches you fill yourself which would be much better environmentally.

Cloth wipes & nappies you mentioned - I admit I did use these but always had disposables on hand too so we kind of part time did cloth (50% with eldest, 80% of the time with youngest). Controversial to some, but I’m a huge believer in early potty training which then negates the need for nappies - between 21 and 24 months has been the sweet spot for both my kids - please don’t flame me if you believe in a very child-led approach with this as I totally respect we all parent differently (I have been very aggressively told off on parenting groups about this topic!). I’m not suggesting everyone parents the same way as me, simply mentioning it as an option people can take or leave. I used the oh crap potty training method which is very respectful and non coercive.

One thing that was NOT eco friendly with my second is I found myself driving everywhere because she was so colicky and I felt very anxious walking in case I got stuck far from home with a screaming baby + 3yo and not able to get home quickly. It was a bit of a psychological crutch I had to wean off. So that wasn’t so good! But hopefully offset by the other stuff I did and now she’s 2 and quite happy to go in the pushchair or walk along with us.

Bluegreen143

Just seen this is a slightly older post! Have you had your baby yet? 

JGB1955

If you're thinking of 'baby wearing', how about looking for a local sling library?

Clouds88

Totally agree with your post blue green. 

A lot of people think I'm mad that I'm not buying a travel system for my third on the way. Sling lover here.

Mickey666

Clouds88 said:

Totally agree with your post blue green. 

A lot of people think I'm mad that I'm not buying a travel system for my third on the way. Sling lover here.

Someone talking about their THIRD child on a thread about 'eco-friendly pregnancy' . . . . oh the irony!