Things your baby does and doesn’t need
If you bought all the products advertisers seem to think you need for your baby, you’d spend an absolute bomb every week. But do it the old fashioned way and you might find you are both happier. Here’s a list of baby stuff you can do without:
- you don’t need a changing mat. Use a soft old towel laid on top of black bin bag instead
- you don’t need baby wipes. They’re full of unnecessary chemicals and cotton wool or a flannel and warm water will do the job just as well, if not better
- a wooden spoon makes a brilliant teething ring
- there’s no need to buy ready-made baby food. When you eat healthily yourself it’s perfectly OK to mash up and freeze batches of your main meal for your baby, and it won’t contain all the preservatives and colours in jars of ready prepared food
- second hand toys and books are perfect for little people who grow out of things frighteningly quickly, as are second hand baby clothes
- you don’t need a baby bath, just use your regular bath or the sink
- you don’t need a new pram, pushchair, stair gate, travel cot or buggy. Buy second hand at Ebay or your neatest charity shop, or from friends and relatives whose babies have grown out of them
- Pampers and so on are all very well but they don’t bio-degrade and they’re expensive. Imagine a future when every landfill site is stuffed to the brim with poop and nappies that just lie there for hundreds of years…. not nice! Eight million nappies end up in landfill sites every day, and old fashioned towelling nappies are fine. Or no nappy at all. Apparently people in the wealthy West are the only ones who habitually stuffs our kids into nappies when going without is much more comfy and hygienic…. unless you think it’s fun for your baby to sit there with a nappy full of poop until you notice it’s time for a change. In fact many experts recommend if a baby is ‘fussy’, take their nappy off and let that little bum breathe!
(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/milan6 for the totally cute free image!)
Published April 17, 2012 & Filed in Mother & Baby