Cute kids!

I joke that Ben and I are gonna have the coolest kid on the block. I mean, just look at all the cute sustainable kids-wear that's already out today. Imagine what the selection will be in a few years!

UglyFish Organics has adorable music-themed tops made from organic cotton. Shirts say: "Listen," "Strum Something" (my favorite), "Old Soul," and "Find Your Bass Line." Perfect for your own little grunge star!

Under the Nile offers organic Egyptian cotton clothing, cloth diapers, toys, blankets, etc. Nothing too funky on this site. Just lots of healthy, organic choices in pastels.

Chapter One Organics has really fun, colorful clothes for infants and toddlers. It also offers blankets, bibs, and even a children's book about factory farming vs. organic farming. This brand is a member of Co-Op America, whose "mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society."

Swell Foop also has organic, co-op cotton. They make clothes for infants, toddlers, and adults that feature adorable animals on 'em. Plus, they donate 10% of their proceeds to environmental organizations that can help you help them save the world.

Bebop Baby Shop features cute clothes in organic cotton, including the innovative kimono style onesie. Footwear, hats, leg warmers, too. Organic slings and baby carriers. Bamboo products and natural toys. Really, quite a selection to meet many of your baby needs.

Little Chickie Wear sells 100% organic cotton onesies, tops, and hats with cute, simple designs.

Shoes are no problem either! Check out Satch & Sol for some adorable, eco-friendly, fair trade shoes. Much, much better for humanity than the normal sweatshop-made varieties.

So, next time you go to a baby shower, or a little one's birthday comes around, think sustainable!

More Diapers!

This weekend we visited our parents' homes, and my in-laws mentioned my blog. I think they've absorbed a thing or two from it, which is great. But my father-in-law actually ridiculed our view about cloth diapers, saying that he bets we will change our minds when we have our first baby. Sure, a funny joke, but a little insulting, in light of all the changes we have already made and those that we will continue to make in the seven to ten years between now and when we have children. I cannot imagine using disposable products now, let alone in a decade!

But on the way home from our trip, Ben and I discussed the diaper issue again. We said that no matter how strongly we feel on the issue, it would be irresponsible to claim that we know we'll use cloth diapers for our children. We can, however, know that we use rags instead of paper towels, cloth napkins instead of paper ones, cloth menstrual pads instead of disposable products. In other words, we have an ever-improving track record on very comparable issues.

However, as on many issues, we believe that in ten years there will be a completely different range of products and options from which to choose. Maybe we would use disposable diapers if they were biodegradable, compostable, and made from 100% post-consumer materials. [Check out Nature Babycare for a pretty good disposable option like this.] We don't know what our set of options will be then. In 2008 though, cloth is our best choice.

Enter Earth 911's article "Another Player in the Diaper Dillema." The article introduces a third option: flushable diapers. They combine a cloth outer diaper with a plastic-free, flushable insert. Pretty good option, eh? Check them out!

Diapers

An important question all environmentally-aware parents face is what type of diapers to use for their children. You have two primary options: disposable or cloth. The first thing the anti-cloth crowd will argue is that, in a study done by Procter and Gamble in 2000 claimed that cloth diapers had similar environmental impacts to disposable diapers after you take laundering them into consideration. Right... Procter and Gamble who *gasp* makes disposable diapers! Trust this study completely, don't we?

But let's pretend for a moment we do believe this study. If there is any validity in this study, it is nonetheless a quite flawed study. First of all, if you are already using environmentally responsible laundering methods, laundering your cloth diapers should not make nearly as big an environmental impact as the study supposed. Secondly, if you choose organic cloth for your diapers, the impact of creating the diapers plummets once more. Third, many children who wear cloth diapers learn to potty train earlier than their disposable-wearing counterparts because they can feel the moisture against their skin. Thus, you'll be laundering your diapers even fewer times than the study supposed. Overall, you can see, the Procter and Gamble (cough, cough) study had the chips stacked against cloth diapers.

Read what the revered No Impact Man has to say about his experience with cloth diapers and his daughter here.

And for some darn cute cloth diapers, check out Blueberry's website.

Update: Green Is Sexy has an amazing post on diapers. Please check it out for excellent analysis, tips, and recommendations.

Image from http://ecofabulous.blogs.com