Review: The Eco-nomical Baby Guide

After I decided to switch to cloth diapers, I started reading up on "going green." One website I found and came to love is The Green Baby Guide. The women who run the website, Joy Hatch and Rebecca Kelley, are releasing a book called The Eco-nomical Baby Guide and I was lucky enough to receive a copy to review here on my blog.

First things first- this book is beautiful! It features illustrations by someone with the alias woolypear, and they are just plain wonderful.

Most importantly, however, is the information contained in this book. It really is a great guide for someone with a young baby who is open to the idea of giving their baby a "green" start in life. I'll start with all the info on cloth diapers, since that is a major focus of the book. I assumed it wouldn't teach me much since I had been using cloth diapers for 4 months or so. I was dead wrong. And even if you don't use cloth (I know many of you don't), these work as general laundry tips as well. I had been following the directions I received when I bought the cloth diapers- to first run a rinse cycle in cold water and then a full cycle in hot water. Well, that has now stopped. In fact, I don't wash hardly anything in hot water anymore... I wonder why I did so often. And I'm going to attempt skipping the extra rinse too, unless a diaper is really bad. The next step I'm going to take will be harder since I am in a condo, but I'm going to try to put a clothesline up on my balcony to dry some of the diapers and use the sun to get rid of stains. See, these are tips anybody could use!

One statement the book made hit me hard: "Our lifestyles have turned parenthood into an industry like anything else." Seeing as when I read this, I was beginning to plan Brayden's first birthday party in my mind (yes, the birthday that is still over 4 months away and that he won't even remember). I so fall into the materialistic trap. It's one way I'm a major hypocrite and I know I need to work on that. This book had some great and simple ideas to help the environment, your wallet and ultimately your child. Some of the ones I'm going to work on are:

buying things secondhand whenever I can
keeping our thermostat at better temps
get one of the houseplants that reduces household toxins
make my own cleaning solutions (I already do laundry detergent)

I only wish I had read this book before I had Brayden. I may have started using cloth diapers sooner, but more importantly I could have worked on being a less materialistic parent.