If you have a new baby on the way, now is the time to start thinking about designing a ” green” nursery. Simply put, a ” green” nursery is completely devoid of harmful chemicals of any kind-including chemicals found in composite woods, plastics, paints, stains, etc.

One way to ensure your nursery is filled with eco-friendly furniture is by purchasing some modern nursery furniture from brands like ducduc, Ouef & Stokke. Many companies take pride in the fact that their products are certified organic or that they only use sustainably harvested wood. Do some research and don’t be afraid to spend a little more-after all, shouldn’t this be about the health of your baby- Here are some helpful tips to consider!

• Cribs: Make sure you choose a crib made of solid, sustainable wood, treated with non-toxic paint, finishes, or stains.
• Crib Mattresses: It’s recommended by experts that you pick a natural mattress made of wool, organic cotton or 100% natural latex. Natural mattresses tend to be more expensive, so if you do select a conventional mattress, purchase an organic mattress protector to help protect the baby. Also, air the mattress out for a couple of months before placing it on the crib.
• Crib Bedding: When choosing your baby’s sheets, bumpers and other bedding, seek products that use natural fabrics-organic cotton for instance. Look to see if the product is OTA approved (Organic Trade Association).
• Changing Tables & Other Furniture: The same criteria used in selecting the right crib should be applied when searching for a changing table. Choose a table made of natural solid, sustainable wood.
• Toys: Since toys will inevitably end up in your baby’s mouth, choose toys made with natural fibers, or wood toys created with non toxic paints. If you want to go plastic, look for toys made without PVC (polyvinyl chloride).

Other things to consider when creating your ” green” nursery-choose paints with low VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) and invest in an air purifier for baby’s room. Hardwood floors treated with a non toxic sealer is the best option for a nursery; however area rugs made of natural fibers with no synthetic dyes are acceptable.

While not everyone can afford modern nursery furniture, there are slightly more affordable options out there-just do your research! If you’re not quite ready to invest in an eco-friendly nursery, that’s OK. It’s important to use non toxic cleaners whenever you clean your baby’s room. Here’s to a healthy, happy baby!

Jamie Sward has a BA in Journalism from Indiana University. As an expert in Modern Decor and Nursery Furniture, he is dedicated to sharing his expertise with customers on All Modern Baby, a website dedicated to modern nursery furniture, decor and other top-of-the-line products designed to be both functional and stylish.

Loving parents attempt to do their very best for their baby and children in every area of their young lives. As parents, you are their protectors and guardians. Parents have the innate desire to gain as much wisdom as they can and apply it for the greatest good of their babies’ and children’s care. Come to know that your child’s baby skin care and natural hair care is a topic of importance. Your decisions in buying baby skin care products can affect your child’s health. Your baby needs not suffer from skin irritations nor lose his or her beautiful natural glow he or she is born with.

Baby Skin Care Research

A current report in Clinical Pediatrics reveals that more than seventy-five percent of newborns suffer rashes within the first few months of birth. Researchers suspect that contributing factors include the very products that promise to soften, clean, and moisturize children’s skin. They note in their research, ” Newborn skin is relatively more permeable to topically applied agents than adult skin. Therefore, the risk of systemic toxicity is much greater in newborns.” If parents stop to read labels of supermarket and drug store baby skin care products, they will find that:

Many contain ingredients likely to be contaminated with formaldehyde, 1,4-dioxane, and possibly even nitrosamines, all of which are cancer-causing, highly irritating or both. Baby talc-based powders contain tiny particles that irritate the skin and may contain perfumes, a leading cause of allergy and irritation. Parents would be wise to avoid baby powders containing talc. Although baby powders are most frequently applied to diaper rash, there can be better ways. Allowing fresh air to get to your baby’s bottom whenever you can reduces the likelihood of diaper rash. Also, most pediatricians specializing in natural skin care warn parents to avoid petroleum jelly, which traps moisture against the skin and is also a common allergen. If your baby has developed a diaper rash, Baby Cakes diaper rash cream & Baby Cakes diaper rash ointment formulas take care of baby’s skin irritations gently and quickly. Baby Cream, Baby Ointment, Baby Lotion and Baby Massage Oil can relieve irritation. However a parent would be wise to use baby skin care products & natural hair care products free of artificial colors, synthetic fragrances and petrochemicals, which are themselves irritants.

Healthy Baby Skin Care

Look for baby skin care products that are pH balanced with healing herbs such as Soy Calendula Oil which has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties and stimulates cellular regeneration of healthy skin. Other baby friendly healing herbs to look for in baby bath, baby lotion and baby massage oil include:

Borage: one of the richest sources of gamma linolenic acid, and it also contains important vitamins and minerals. It is typically used in high-end cosmetic formulations to nourish and hydrate the skin. Use Borage oil in facial blends for maturing skin or in blends for damaged skin where regeneration of new skin cells is needed.

Avocado Oil: Easily absorbed by the skin and scalp. A good source of vitamins A, D and E, amino acids and sterols. Herbalists traditionally have used avocado oil in natural hair care and scalp preparations. It is very soothing and calming for skin and scalp.

Vitamin E: Vitamin E is a powerful anti-oxidant that helps retard cellular aging associated with free-radical damage. Protects the skin against UV-induced inflammation and maintains skin hydration. Vitamin E regulates abnormal proliferation of the superficial skin layers. (Vitamin E is derived from soy.)

Green Tea: is a potent extract used primarily for fighting free radicals. Green tea extract contains potent antioxidants which are intimately involved in the prevention of cellular damage.

Now available to parents are Baby Cakes Body Lotion and Baby Cakes Baby Bath & Massage Oil which is free of cancer-causing chemicals and irritants and creates a soothing layer of protection for baby’s tender skin. A gentle massage with Baby Cake’s Body Lotion or Massage Oil can be a loving experience for you both!

When using baby shampoo, a mild baby shampoo is best. Parents can recognize a good natural hair care baby shampoo by what it does not contain: synthetic fragrances, artificial colors, highly allergenic and irritating preservatives including quaternium 15, imidazolidinyl urea, and parabens. Baby Cakes 2-in-1 Baby Shampoo & Baby Cakes Therapeutic Baby Shampoo are excellent products enriched with organic aloe juice, organic green tea distillate water, organic botanical extracts and essential skin care vitamins A, C & E. This product is much safer than other supermarket or drug store products.

So what is the most sensible approach when it comes to baby skin care-

Overall, in the beginning months of life, let Mother Nature do her job without your newborn baby having to cope with chemicals. Although plain water on newborn skin is usually good bet, occasionally a small amount of baby bath and baby shampoo may be required. If so, use Skin Care Baby’s Baby Cakes natural skin care products & natural hair care, specializing in All Natural, Organic skin care, which are made with safe and healthy Natural Botanicals, Herbal Extracts and Essential Oils for your baby’s delicate skin. They avoid toxic preservatives, foaming agents and other potentially hazardous ingredients. These products may be a little more expensive than the drug or supermarket brands, however they are completely safe, truly natural and nontoxic.

Also, pediatricians recommend avoiding antibacterial soaps.

Baby Skin Care Tip

Parents, your basic baby skin care common sense message is: use small amounts of all natural skin care products for at least the first couple of months of your baby’s life. It would be best to consider this baby skin care principle when you use any other types of products in your baby’s environment as well. By doing this, your baby will have a chance for its own immune system to develop and come to be strong and healthy. I don’t believe you will go wrong with this very simple baby skin care message. For more great tips about baby skin care visit our website: www.SkinCareBaby.com where you will also find more ideas and great award winning baby skin care products, which are wonderful for adults too!

Here’s to your family’s good health!

Diane Cuesta (Owner of SkinCareBaby LLC ). Consider this article as opinion only. Seek the advice of your own physician in connection with any questions or issues you have regarding your baby’s health.

Scientists have discovered another reason why breast is best. Already associated with increased intelligence, greater social mobility and protection against ill health, breastfeeding may also help babies develop a more sophisticated palate.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen conducted tests on breast milk to see how the flavor changed with the mother’s diet. They found that different foods caused subtle shifts in the flavor of breast milk, which appear to prime babies for the wide range of foods they are likely to encounter once they are weaned.

Helene Hausner, at the Centre for Advanced Food Studies at the University of Copenhagen, decided to investigate the influence of diet on breast milk after reading a study that showed how babies enjoyed a meal of carrot-flavored cereal more if their mothers drank carrot juice while breastfeeding.

Hausner recruited 18 breastfeeding women and gave each of them edible capsules containing distinctive flavors, including banana, liquorice, caraway seed and menthol. To see if the flavors came through in the mothers’ breast milk, she tested samples provided by the women before and up to eight hours after taking the capsules.

Her tests showed only around 1% of the flavor compounds were detectable in the breast milk, although some persisted for longer than others. Banana flavor peaked within the first hour, while menthol persisted for eight hours.

In a second series of experiments, Hausner checked whether breastfed babies were more likely to eat certain meals than babies fed on formula from a bottle. She found breastfed babies were happier eating meals laced with caraway flavoring than babies fed on formula.

” Diet does change the flavoring of the milk, but it’s not like if the mother eats apple pie, the infant thinks, ‘Mmm, apple pie’, and gets to like it,” Hausner said. ” It seems that breastfed infants get used to small flavor changes and so they become more accepting of a variety of flavors compared to formula-fed infants.”

” It seems that breastfeeding itself does prime the infants to be more accepting of new flavors when they start to eat solid food,” she added.

Hausner, whose research is reported in New Scientist, also examined the flavors of different formula milks and found that they varied between manufacturers.

” If women are feeding their babies formula, it might be best for them to vary the type of formula to get their babies used to changes in flavors,” she said.

Gill Rapley, a nurse with more than 20 years’ experience of postnatal care, said the research could help new mothers who find their infants are sometimes reluctant to eat. ” Mothers often talk about whether something in their milk may have upset their baby, but within eight hours, most flavors will be gone,” she told the magazine.

Last year, researchers at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess medical center in the US reported that people who were breastfed as babies went on to have a lower risk of heart disease, while a team at King’s College London found that breastfeeding raised the IQ of children by an average of seven points, if they had a particular version of a gene.

The studies followed other research which found breastfed babies had a better chance of climbing the social ladder than those raised on formula.

When the blessing of God comes in the form of baby, it cannot get any better for anyone. However, when the baby is unhappy, the entire home will be an unhappy place. Dealing with a new born is not that easy as it seems. Proper guidance is required for newborn baby care. Here are some important tips which would help you in dealing with newborn babies:

Sleep
The main requirement of the baby is abundant of sleep. If you are unable to provide it to them, be sure you won’t either. With the new born baby, it is extremely hard to plan a schedule. Newborn babies will sleep anytime they want. Make sure you are staying at home as much as you can so that the baby doesn’t get disturbed or distracted while sleeping.

Food
Another requirement of the babies is good amount of food. If baby is on breastfeeding, be patient. Just like sleep, babies get hungry any moment and you should be on call to tune their needs. You can get a helping hand from the baby’s father in assisting you to feed the baby. Remember, no matter how big or small the family is, all should work together for baby health.

Interaction
Babies need constant attention towards them. Singing, touching, glaring at objects are important stimulants for the new born. It will also help in creating a bonding relationship in the family.

Changing
Make sure your baby don’t stay wet that longer. It will create diaper rashes on the skin of the baby which will annoy the baby. Frequent check and changing is necessary for baby health as well.

Health
Baby health is definitely important to everyone. However, at an early age, they won’t be able to convey their message whether they are feeling well or not except when crying. Observe subtle changes in the baby carefully.

These tips can be really helpful to all parents even it is their first baby or not. Taking care is the key essence of healthy and happy baby.

Raising healthy baby is always a big responsibility, probably more these days as wealth of information is available to us. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to categorize things which are good for baby health. Some of the major categories which should be looked carefully are food, water, clothing, baby products and air.

Select foods which are organic, not those termed as natural. Label of natural has different meanings in companies which are unformulated in terms of pesticides, genetic engineering and chemical exposure. The organic food has the certified label of being not genetically engineered, no antibiotic use and no involvement of chemical in between process. Organic foods are generally better in taste which will encourage the baby to eat their food.

For drinking water, selecting a water filter is essential, particularly when you are living in older home where supply pipes are most probably made of lead. By cautious approach, it will lessen baby chances of damaging newly developing system and ingesting lead into their body. Water filters are easily accessible in market at a reasonable price.

Choose natural fibers fabrics which are chemical free for clothing, towels, diapers and bedding. Online organic stores and stores in the community is a wonderful starting place. Furthermore, large chains and stores are carrying baby clothing and bedding nowadays. To attain organic products at good price, consignment shops are recommended.

For proper newborn baby care, it is necessary for the parents to read labels on product like soap, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, laundry detergent, insect repellent, sun screen lotion and baby wipes to make sure they don’t contain additives which might harm your baby health.

Make sure baby is kept in clean environment where atmosphere is not bombarded with usual airborne pollutants which are found generally at home. Dust, mildew spores and mold, smoke, dust mites and many other airborne chemicals which are released by general products and household building products.

Ensure that your baby health is in safe hands and you are taking every possible measure to make sure they are living a healthy life.