1Designing Your Eco Friendly Baby Nursery from the Ground Up

The carpets in our home are often a source of dirt, grime, and almost unspeakable germs; most of us own a carpet steamer or cleaner to help us keep our carpets as clean as possible. However, the majority of carpet cleaning chemicals can be almost as harmful as some of the bacteria residing in your carpet. With chemicals that are definitely not the best green options, and over perfumed smells that could prove to be an irritant to your newborn baby, the majority of commercially available carpet cleaners are not the best option for your eco-friendly home. While there are certainly more environmentally-friendly options, they can prove to be incredibly costly. As an incredibly affordable and toxin free alternative consider using vinegar in your carpet cleaning machines in lieu of the costly or harmful chemical cleaners. Regular white vinegar is an environmentally friendly cleaner that proves to be excellent at removing stains, odors and bacteria – all without leaving a lingering odor in your home! Vinegar can be used to clean almost every surface in your home and is an ideal choice for wiping down and disinfecting your baby’s nursery!

For a comprehensive list of household uses for vinegar, consider visiting www.vinegartips.com.

2Use Environmentally-Safe Paint for the Nursery Walls

There are several eco-friendly options for painting your baby’s nursery that can help you to avoid the use of harmful toxins in your baby’s nursery while doing your part to use products that contain low VOC’s. VOC is an acronym for volatile organic compound; these can prove to be harmful to our environment – look for a paint manufacturer who stands by their promise to produce paints with low or no VOC’s. Benjamin Moore is one such company, offering their Green Promise line of paints that are a more environmentally-friendly option to many of the other paints available on the market. Visit the Benjamin More website to learn more about their Green Promise paints, www.benjaminmoore.com. Alternatively, consider the Bio Shield Paint company - www.bioshieldpaint.com - for their non-toxic paint options. Or, ask your local home improvement store for alternate green options for your paint selection. There are many options for environmentally-safe paint for your baby nursery!

3Safe Furniture Choices for Your Baby Nursery

An eco friendly crib for your baby is one that is not only free of toxic finishes but is also made using sustainable or recycled materials. The majority of cribs on the market today are constantly being evaluated and scrutinized by various safety administrations; however, it is important to verify that the crib you ultimately select does not have a product safety recall on it. Drop-side cribs are a lot more likely to be under a safety recall so consider opting for a crib that does not have a drop-side.

• Amazon, www.amazon.com, offers several options in eco-friendly cribs along with reviews from people who have already purchased the crib – when purchasing for your new baby, reviews from other parents can be a valuable resource.


• Go Natural Baby, www.gonaturalbaby.com, is an excellent source of all things eco-friendly for your baby and for your home; they offer a full-sized solid maple (a sustainable wood) crib that has a non-toxic finish.

Pricing on eco-friendly cribs is set at around the same amount of money that you could expect to pay for any crib from a popular baby retailer.

4Go Organic for Mattress & Linens in Your Baby Nursery

Organic and environmentally-safe baby linens are a popular choice for today’s parent; this surge in popularity provides parents in the market for green linens a wide variety of choices at an oftentimes budget-friendly price. There are many benefits to using organic linens in your baby’s crib; however, perhaps the most important benefit is that bedding of this type trends towards being softer and is also free of chemicals that could irritate your baby’s delicate skin.

A toxin-free mattress is a must-have for your eco-friendly nursery; while it is certainly a budget-friendly option you should try to avoid purchasing a pre-owned mattress as you may not have any way of knowing if it contains potentially toxic chemicals.

• Kush Tush, www.kushtush.com, provides a wide array of eco-friendly bedding for not just your baby but for your bedroom too. Competitively priced, their selection is worth taking a look at! Kush Tush also offers organic crib mattresses that are toxin free and soft for baby!


• Dax Stores, www.daxstores.com, offers their shoppers a huge selection in all things environmentally-friendly, including an excellent selection of organic baby bedding!

5Use Cloth Diapers

While disposable diapers are being made to be more environmentally-friendly, the reality is that they are still not the best green-friendly option for diapering your baby. Cloth diapering has not only made a huge comeback in popularity, but it has also never been easier to use cloth diapers. An initial investment of a few hundred dollars for your cloth diaper stash has the potential to save you a huge amount of money over the time that your baby is in diapers. From one-size diapers that require no folding, no soaking, and no special care, to adorable cloth diaper covers that can decorate your baby’s behind in style!

• Fuzzi Bunz – www.fuzzibunz.com
  These soft diapers combine function with ease of use and a touch of pure cuteness; reasonably priced and easy to care for, Fuzzi Bunz are an excellent choice for your cloth diapering needs.
• gDiapers - www.gdiapers.com
  gDiapers offer parents a great way of incorporating the convenience of disposable diapers with the eco-friendly option of cloth. With a biodegradable refill that can be purchased in most stores that supply baby products gDiapers are a great budget-friendly and eco-friendly diaper choice!

If you are giving serious thought to using cloth diapers, consider purchasing ones from several companies until you can find one that best fits your baby diapering needs.

6Eco Friendly Baby Bottles

There are several eco friendly and non-toxic baby bottle options for feeding your baby. While the majority of plastic baby bottles are free of chemicals that could potentially prove to be toxic to your baby, it never hurts to err on the side of caution and opt for a more budget and eco-friendly baby bottle. Check out Green to Grow - www.greentogrow.com. These shatter-proof plastic bottles are guaranteed to be free of BPA, PVC, and lead. They are reasonably-priced and available in convenient 5oz and 10oz sizes.

If glass bottles are your baby bottles of choice, Evenflo and BornFree offer glass baby bottles that are free of potentially harmful chemicals and are more budget-friendly than you may think.

Your baby preparations can be overwhelming with the amount of information that you are inundated with by well-meaning friends and family members; take the time to carefully research your options so that your affordable and eco friendly baby nursery preparations are everything that you are hoping for!