5 Plastic-Free Baby Essentials for New Parents
Preparing for your first child can be an equally exciting and stressful time. Especially during these crazy times, sometimes you just need a simple list. No fluffy extras, just give me the basics…because that’s all I can handle right now! So, after two kids, here are my 5 plastic-free baby essentials.
The gist of it is that babies eat, poop, and sleep. The cycle repeats itself seemingly 100 times each day when the baby is born. So, really, you just need a few items to cover these three things.
1. Glass Bottles
Even if you are planning to breastfeed your baby, I would still purchase some bottles. As every new mom quickly figures out, there can be plenty of issues with breastfeeding, so it’s good to be prepared. I breastfed both of my kids but I also went back to work after 3 – 4 months of maternity leave. So, while dad or grandma was at home with them, I had Dr. Brown’s glass bottles full of pumped breastmilk for the baby.
While there are a few plastic parts, these have been really the only glass bottle I could find. I chose glass bottles because breastmilk is really fatty and you need to warm up the bottles before feeding them to the baby. The fattiness of the milk and the heat are a perfect combination for the chemicals in plastic to leach into the milk. So, when you can, choose a glass bottle.
2. Cloth Diapers
Cloth diapers require a little bit of investment upfront but they pay for themselves considering the average baby will use 7,000 diapers before they are potty trained!
I wrote one post about the types of cloth diapers:
And another post about the basics of cloth diapering.
3. Organic Cotton Linens and Clothing
You might be wondering why I specified “organic cotton”. Why not just “linens and clothing”. Here’s why. Cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed plants in agriculture. All those pesticides get absorbed into the cotton. That’s not something you want on your babies skin. Organic cotton is grown without pesticides. So, for burp cloths, sheets, swaddling blankets, towels, and etc, I chose organic cotton.
You might be wondering what a swaddle is. A swaddle is simply a wrap that bundles a baby. Since they spent so much time cocooned in the womb, they miss some of that hugging. So, they need and liked to be swaddle.
While still in the hospital, typically a nurse shows you how to swaddle your baby with a blanket. This takes a little practice but honestly, when it’s 3am and you’re dead tired, no one wants to do baby origami. With my first child, we quickly bought a swaddle similar to what was shown above. But we made the mistake of buying one with Velcro. DON’T BE LIKE OLIVIA! Buy a zip one swaddle. Anytime we needed to open the swaddle, the sound of the Velcro would startle my baby awake.
4. Silicone Pacifier
There are lots of pacifiers available and the majority of them are plastic. Stick with a simple silicone pacifier. If your baby takes a pacifier it can be a life saver!
5. Pack and Play
With both of my kids, I never bought a full crib. Those large traditional wood cribs look beautiful in a typical nursery but I just skipped it. Instead, my babies slept in a pack and play. These are play pens that are normally meant for travel but I figured it would be handy for when we did travel and it could be used as their regular bed. Plus, with my first baby, we were living in a small apartment in Washington, DC, so compact was the way to go.
I would recommend one with a changing pad and a small seat or bassinet. It’s easier when it’s all together. Especially when you’re limited on space.
I’ll admit there are plastic components to these pack and plays but they’re mainly metal and fabric. I made the exception because the utility far outweighed the negatives of plastic.
Finally, I purchased a bamboo mattress for the pack and play which I can no longer find on Amazon. But there are plenty of options for pack and play mattresses. Just make sure it’s made to fit a pack and play.
What do you think? Do you feel a little less stressed knowing these essentials will get start you off on the right foot?
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