Congratulations Rebecca! As you know from the book, furniture is the biggest polluter in most homes and a new baby’s bedroom is likely already the most polluted in the home. Luckily, yes, there are cheaper alternatives than a new wood crib. Furniture Furniture is the most significant source of formaldehyde exposure in your home. In…
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A truly healthy, green mattress might be the most important investment you make in your home. Certainly, it is in your child’s bedroom. Why get a truly natural mattress? Because conventional mattresses are toxic and the toxins they release (and continue to release throughout their entire life) have been found in the blood of newborn…
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Sleep. Ah. It can seem so allusive for parents of young children. Yet, increasingly we are understanding just how important it is. Sleep is a time of regeneration and growth for all humans and a time of great brain plasticity and development, especially for babies. Sleep is also a particularly vulnerable time. As one doctor…
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Thank you Chris for being such a thoughtful green papa. I can relate to the difficult leap from going from a crib (or co-sleeper) sized mattress to a child (i.e. adult) size one and the corresponding price jump. In my experience, it is possible to find a truly natural (READ: nontoxic) crib mattress for around…
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When Money Matters More: DIY Mattresses The last thing my mom was thinking about when she had three kids while on welfare was whether to get a natural mattress. And, when our daughter was ready for a “real kid” mattress, we couldn’t afford it at the time. So, what costs almost no money and does…
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Background on the Issue The quality of air inside our homes can be many times worse (on average, 2 to 5 times worse, according to the EPA) than outside air. And because on average we spend 90% of our time indoors, most of that time in our homes, we are quite susceptible to the air…
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Dear SUE: Congratulations on your new baby!  Becoming a parent is a transformative time: everything is changing. Making those healthy and cost-effective is actually the easy part! Feeling good about these things can hopefully de-stress some of the harder aspects of parenting too. Three “starter” tips that make getting started easier: 1. Start with the…
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Dear D.: Carseat recycling is possible and of course it is preferable to throwing the plastic, metal, and material into the garbage where it takes landfill space and can leach flame retardants, plasticizers, and even heavy metals.  Unfortunately, the alternative is recycling and there are few places that recycle them.  I called one of these…
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