Britax car seat chemicals

Jack asleep in his Orbit non-toxic car seat

I was excited to see that last year, Britax said it was phasing out brominated and chlorinated fire retardants from its car seats. However, I emailed them last week to get an update because I couldn’t find anything online, and I was disappointed to receive the email below (after following up due to a previous vague email). They said that they are reducing the chemicals, which could mean anything, and is far from the Orbit brand which removed them completely. It’s a shame that such a large car seat manufacturer is continuing to use chemicals which have been linked to lowered intelligence, hyperactivity, and hormone disruption in children.

Here is the full email I received:

Thais,

Last year we announced we would be revising our internal chemical compliance specifications.  These revised specifications require all Britax suppliers to reduce and/or where possible, eliminate the use of all chemicals containing bromine or chlorine from all components used in our car seats and all other products — while still ensuring their ability to pass federal government standards for flammability. We set a target for our suppliers to be compliant to this new standard by the end of 2012.

 

We are pleased to report successful progress. Our suppliers have worked very diligently toward meeting these more stringent chemical compliance specifications and have successfully reduced and/or eliminated the use of all chemicals containing bromine and chlorine in all components. Britax remains committed to working closely with our suppliers to ensure continued leadership in the area of chemical compliance specifications.

 

In Britax’s ongoing continuous improvement efforts, we have been phasing in new components as quickly as our suppliers have been able to comply.  This approach has and will continue to ensure Britax products fulfill our pledge in providing parents and children with the best and safest child mobility products.

 

Our commitment remains to keep you current on our progress and new products.  Please check our website for any future updates.  And thanks for your continued interest and support.

Tracy Thompson

Customer Service Administrative Lead

800-893-2447

 

Britax Child Safety, Inc.

4140 Pleasant Road

Fort Mill , SC 29708

Our organic baby budget

I know that we could have save even more money (we made some mistakes as first-time parents), but looking back on how much we have spent over the past almost 9 months on Jack, I’m pretty proud of us resisting a lot of unnecessary baby items and spending more on non-toxic high quality organic things.

Here is our total expenditures on baby things for about the first 9 months. I forgot to add some things I’m sure, and didn’t have totals for other things like the small number of health supplies like baby Tylenol etc.

big items	734
clothes	219
diapers	277
eating	168
other	205
	1603

Specifics from each category:

Big items:
mattress	170
2 sheets	30
crib	200
changing pad	107
pad cover	27
high chair	200
	734
Clothes:
hat	7
swim diaper	14
green hat	8
long cat T	14
socks	9
bibs	14
sun hat	23
blue long T	14
blue pants	14
blanket	8
long T turtle	16
green pants	12
2 short T	31
long white T	11
green legwarmers	11
brown legwarmers	13
	219
Diapers:
prefolds	84
fleece	18
2 imse covers	32
2 thirsties covers	24
wool wash	5
blue newborn wool cover	39
wet bag	25
tree diaper cover	25
orange diaper cover	25
	277
Eating:
place mat	18
4 sm bottles	40
2 pumps	60
ice packs	20
large bottles, 2	30
	168
other
laundry detergent	15
toilet chair	13
beach tent	36
outlet plugs	4
baby scale	40
night light	7
potty	20
2 pack snappi	20
2 spare car seats	50
	205

We also got a lot of generous gifts from family. This included about half the clothes we used, all the toys, part of the money towards the extra car seats, and maybe 1/3rd the diaper covers. The big gifts were:

stroller	200
bouncer	167
car seat	400
moby	60
beco	130

Hopefully we can have another child, and since we already have so many one-time purchases like the cloth diapers and furniture, I bet if we had another kid or two we could only spend a couple hundred dollars on a few things like clothes and maybe another baby carrier or double stroller.

I’m sure we could have spent a lot less if we had known how everything would be beforehand. For example, we could have done with just a smaller umbrella stroller I think. We also didn’t need the changing pad, although I definitely do use it for large poopy messes sometimes. I also could have done without a pump (I find hand expressing more comfortable) and with a few fewer bottles. I also haven’t used the ice packs yet. Oh well, I feel good about how much we did save though! And we still have a happy baby who doesn’t care that he wears a lot of the same shirts all the time.

Disana diaper cover

I ordered a Disana cover in orange size 2-3T a few weeks ago for Jack who is 8 months and 19 pounds. So far it’s my favorite cover for evenings/nights! Since we do elimination communication I like to have Jack in prefolds without a snappi or anything so we can easily let him go to the potty. I’m sure the Disana would work well with snappis or fitted diapers, but I was thrilled that the trifolded prefold stayed put just fine during the night.

What I like about the Disana cover so far:

• It was fairly inexpensive compared to other organic wool options
• It’s really easy to put on and to pull the wet prefold out because it’s very stretchy
• It got poop on it and it was easier to lean than the interlock covers I have
• It’s colorful so it seems like you won’t be able to see stains
• It is so soft and snugly and seems completely comfortable (no velcro digging into his tummy)
• No leaks at all so far because it comes up over their tummy and down the legs
• It looks like little shorts when I have him in the carrier and walk outside, so I don’t feel like he looks like he’s wearing a diaper

What I don’t like:

• It took a LONG time to dry compared to my other covers (about 2 days when soaked!)

The easiest natural deodorant that works!

 

I have been trying different natural deodorants since college when I found out that normal antiperspirant has aluminum which may be linked to breast cancer. This really easy and cheap recipe is the one that works best for me, and I’ve been using it for I think about 2 years now. The alcohol kills the bacteria under your armpits and they are what make your sweat smell bad.

I used the CVS brand of rubbing alcohol (which we also mix 50/50 with water to clean our counters with since it’s safe for granite) and added several drops of this orange essential oil since I like the smell. It doesn’t prevent sweating since it’s just a deodorant, but it generally works most of the day for me. I find it easiest to spray onto my hands and rub it under my armpits.

I love that my baby can fall asleep tucked under my arm and I don’t have to worry about him breathing any chemicals!

Nursing with teeth

Jack got his first tooth a few weeks ago (a front bottom one) and it’s been growing in really slowly. That’s fine with me since I’m so scared of getting bitten while breastfeeding! He clamped down several times before when he had no teeth and that already hurt, so I’m not looking forward to it happening with teeth.

The good thing about his bottom tooth coming in first is that while he nurses his tongue covers his bottom teeth, so I don’t feel anything sharp while he’s actively eating. He is growing in his top two teeth now (I can see them under the skin) and has bitten me a little three times in the last few days, and it’s scary to have a little pointy thing pressing onto your nipple! Luckily he didn’t bit down too hard, so I was able to do what the pediatrician said and stop feeding him and try to avoid eye contact or positive reinforcement for a little while so he learns nothing good happens from biting.

It’s sad because now I’m really nervous while he is breastfeeding during the day, and I watch his mouth like a hawk to try to tell is he’s going to stop eating and get bored and bite. At night it seems fine luckily. He also bit once when I offered him my breast but he wasn’t hungry, so I’m trying to be better about only offering if it’s been a while or he definitely seems hungry. I’m worried he won’t eat enough, but since he’s at the 50% percentile for weight I think he is getting enough food and hopefully can make up for it at the next feeding if I’m a little late in offering him my breast.

I’m not looking forward to feeling his little top teeth when those grow in though. Hopefully I won’t have the same experience as my friend who said her baby bit down and wouldn’t let go!

So to summarize what I do to avoid bites:

• Remove my breast when it seems like he’s done eating
• Don’t offer him my breast all the time
• Keep my finger near his mouth so I can unlatch him quickly if he bites
• If he bites, unlatch him and put him down and avoid any reinforcement (no eye contact, cuddles, talking) for a few minutes

10 ways attachment parenting helps you lose the baby weight

1. Walking around with your baby strapped on to you in a carrier for hours is good cardio! You wouldn’t just let your baby cry, and holding them and carrying them around is free exercise!
2. Breastfeeding burns 400-600 calories per day! (Doing cloth diaper laundry burns even more!)
3. If you try to eat meals with people, the baby cries if you sit down for longer than 10 minutes so you automatically can’t eat dessert.
4. Never using a stroller means you burn more calories babywearing. Squatting down to pick things up is even more exercise!
5. Breastfeeding not only burns calories but seems to mean that your baby decides he wants to eat as soon as you heat up your food. Therefore, you eat less because your food gets cold and unappetizing.
6. You don’t own a baby swing, bouncer, walker etc, so instead you get extra exercise by rocking your baby, bouncing them in your lap, and holding them.
7. If your baby cries a lot and therefore possibly has allergies, instead of trying hypoallergenic formula you go on an elimination diet. It’s basically impossible not to lose weight if you’re avoiding dairy, gluten, nuts, and soy. Soy is in almost any processed food, so you have to cook everything from scratch which is great for weight loss. Also, you can only eat salad with no dressing or cheese at restaurants!
8. The fact that you don’t nap train means baby naps at random times, so by the time you prepare your food he wakes up and you don’t have time to eat.
9. Trying to eat while wearing your sleeping baby in a carrier eliminates entire genres of food from your diet like soup which could too easily spill on your baby, hot liquids, and crumbly foods.
10. Not using a crib may mean you get stuck sitting right next to your baby in your bed while he naps, so you can’t eat any foods that make noise (bag of chips etc) while he naps. You also can’t get up for seconds without waking him, so automatic portion control!

Pull on vs. wrap diaper covers

I had a hard time deciding what types of diaper covers to buy because some of the wool ones are pricey, especially for organic wool, so I only wanted to buy covers with great reviews. Now that we’ve tried a few kinds, here are my thoughts about some differences between the pull-on type which go on like underwear and the wrap types that look like normal diapers and have snaps or velcro. I keep going back and forth over which type I like best and which is easiest, so I think they both have their good points.

Pros of pull up covers:

• They don’t have any part that could rub or scratch your baby (no velcro or snaps)
• I think they are harder for the baby to remove from himself (Jack has removed velcro before)
• To change them quickly, I just pull them down to his knees and replace the trifolded prefold. It takes a minute to then pull them back up, but it’s quick overall
• I think they are easier to change on a baby who likes to be standing or rolled onto his stomach
• You can put baby on the potty for EC while just pulling the diaper down
• Slightly less leaking at night because of the part around the leg (and some styles go up high on their stomachs)
• I think they are the cutest, and you can find ones on etsy with adorable designs!

Pros of more traditional wrap style covers:

• You can change them while the baby is basically asleep with minimally bothering them if they are on their backs
• They can fit well in a larger range of sizes since the velcro or snaps make them adjustable
• Definitely possible to use with a trifolded prefold. I’ve used trifolds with the one pull up cover we have because it fits well, but a looser style might not work with that
• Easier to take off without getting poop all over it if it’s a really messy diaper
• May be easier for other caregivers to use who are used to typical diapers

I want to buy these Disana organic wool pull on covers which are really reasonably priced for organic wool and try them at night. I like our Loveybums diapers a lot, but the velcro is already starting to fray (and Jack can sometimes remove the diaper) so I decided to buy snaps from now on. The snaps can be a little annoying to do at night though, so that’s part of the reason I looked into pull on covers. We got a cute one from etsy but it’s pretty snug, so I want to buy one last type (if my husband is ok with it! I am a little obsessed with buying wool diapers!) since I think the Disanas look really stretchy and could be easy to just reach in and swap out the prefold. They are also so adorable and seem leak-proof for nights!