Health Note: Cayenne Pepper Stops Bleeding

Yesterday I chopped off the very tip of my finger--the chunk of skin that I found on the counter was about 1/4" diameter. The bleeding was impressive for such a small cut and it wouldn't stop. I wrapped my wound in a paper towel and twenty minutes after it happened I was shocked to see blood still rolling out of my finger. I googled it to see if I should go to the ER and get stitches. What I found was a site that recommended sprinkling cayenne pepper on the wound to stop the bleeding. I didn't like the sound of that but after fifteen more minutes decided to give it a try.

I sprinkled barely any cayenne pepper, sure that it would sting and not work and I would be sorry. But what happened was AWESOME. My wound was still producing a large droop of blood every half second. I sprinkled almost no cayenne on the wound. It stung; I swore. And then I watched as a scab formed. In about five seconds I was no longer bleeding and my finger was covered in a shiny scab. It was insane to watch since it happen so fast.

Anyway, cheers to the internet and free, natural cures!

When My Toddler Won't Get In His Car Seat

When my toddler, Anders, doesn't want to get in or out of the car, I don't make him.

The other day my husband, our friend Ryan, my son Anders and I went out to eat. When we parked at the restaurant, Anders wanted to hang out in the car. I explained the situation to Ryan thus: "If Anders were another adult friend who turned to us and said, 'Hey guys, I need a few minutes to collect myself before we go into the restaurant. Would you mind waiting?' We would say, 'Sure, no problem.' And we would all wait. I see no reason we should not wait for Anders." Anders hung out in car for about five minutes and then told us he was "all done" and the four of us went happily into the restaurant.

At the peak of Anders's desire to spend time in the car (17-19 months approximately) about half an hour before I wanted to leave to go somewhere, I would invite him to get into the car. When he was done researching all the nooks and crannies in the front seat, he would climb into the back, get into his car seat and call me. Then we would leave. I loved this as I got a lot done in that time!

Often we when we did errands, he would want to get into the driver seat and do some exploring before heading home as well. At first this annoyed me, and then I thought, "What am I rushing home for? So that Anders and I can be together... at home? So that we could go to the park? There is nothing more important that I need to be doing than being with Anders."

It was an easy switch: before we went home, Anders would sit in the front seat pressing buttons, happy as could be and I would sit in the back seat, getting my email on my phone and reading, happy as could be.

Because Anders gets to go at his own pace so often, he is very respectful of the times when I want to rush. Whenever I tell him we are in a hurry, he gets right into his car seat or right out with no issues.

To be clear, I did forced Anders into his car seat about twice in his life. Both times I felt horrible and both times involved me choosing to use force against my toddler rather than to "disappoint" someone by "being late." Though I am rarely late for things, if given the choice today I would choose my relationship with my son over the imagined offense of tardiness.

How to NOT treat children comedy sketch on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUH8SO1iqA&feature=youtu.be

Health Note - My First Cold in Nine Years & Primal Experiment Update

My last cold was in 2004. I got sick in 2004 because I had just finished taking a course on nutrition at Wesleyan University. That USDA approved-course convinced me that processed meats, non-fat dairy, diet sodas, sugar and white flour were not bad for me. They weren't good, but they weren't bad either. So for the first time in my life, I started eating them. The six months following my nutrition class I gained fifteen pounds and finally understood cold-medicine commercials. Those commercials had never made sense to me before--sneezing, runny nose, not resting, coughing, pounding head, stuck in bed--OMG this is what it feels like to be sick!?! I was in bed for three days and it was a revelation. I went back to eating the way I had grown up eating--if mother nature made it, I ate it; if man made it, I didn't.

From 2004 until last year I worked with children. They were sick all the time. Their parents would catch their colds, the other household employees would catch their colds, but I never did. I was reckless and cocky around their germs too because--why should I care about germs if they never made me ill? I had no real appreciation of how fabulous it is to be healthy because, over time, I forgot how much it sucks to be sick.

When I met my husband, Tom, he got sick all the time--usually something I brought home. Our first Winter Solstice together I was working for Reese Witherspoon. Both her kids, her ex-husband, the other nanny and her mother who was visiting came down with a terrible 24-hour-stomach bug. I didn't get it, but Tom did. It was comical.

When Tom moved in with me and started eating the way I eat he stopped getting sick and neither of us ever really thought about it again until this January when Tom went to Nicaragua for ten days. He lived off of pizza and burgers and then he sat next to a sneezing, nose-blowing person on his plane flight home. Five days later, he had the whole Sick Experience: sore throat, sneezing, itchy eyes, nose blowing, aching body, dead-head, super tired. This lasted about five days. I didn't worry very much because we both knew why he got sick and we both knew that I wouldn't get sick.

But I did. I didn't get as sick as my husband, but I got tired and sneezy. I even had to blow my nose. Did you know that if you blow your nose too many times in one day it gets raw and uncomfortable? I had faint memories of a similar realization back in 2004.

So why did I get sick? Well, during the month of January I had done a "Primal" experiment, altering my diet to see if I would feel even better than I already do most of the time by not eating grains, legumes or tubers. From my research I had concluded that the Weston A. Price Foundation diet recommendations that I follow regularly are superior to the Primal diet, but I am a sucker for science experiments and every body is different and so many people were swearing by the Primal diet... I figured I had nothing to lose. Well, I did have something to lose. The good health I take for granted! I guess there is something in those soaked/sprouted/fermented grains, legumes and tubers that I normally eat that keeps my body healthy because OMFG being sick sucks!!! How does the average American deal with this four times a year? I am totally pissed off.

You know who else got sick? My toddler. His very first cold. And granted it's amazing that my child did not get sick for the first time until he was fifteen-months-old, I'm pissed about that too.

I concluded my post about my Primal experiment by saying that the Primal diet was a good way for people to kick the Standard American Diet. Now I think: the Primal diet sucks. 

Ugh, okay, in FreedomSpeak: My Primal diet experiment did not meet my need for good health nor did it meet my expectation that I would find something to share with people I like. I feel disappointed. And annoyed.

Interesting Notes on Potty-Training in History

When I began searching for potty training methods that worked with my healthy relationship parenting model, I was immediately drawn to the something called "elimination communication." From the name alone I suspected that a style of "communication" rather than a style of "training" would be more likely to use healthy relationship psychology. For the most part, I was right.

A Quick Background on Potty Training Practices

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "before children are twelve months of age, they have no control over bladder or bowel movements. While many children start to show signs of being ready between eighteen and twenty-four months of age, some children may not be ready until thirty months or older. This is normal." (http://www2.aap.org/publiced/BR_ToiletTrain.htm)

Most people in the rest of the world and most Americans prior to 1980 would not agree with any part of that statement.

In non-western societies, babies begin learning to control their bowel movements from birth. Mothers in traditional societies never put their babies in diapers. Because the mothers are in close physical contact with their babies all night and for a good portion of the day, they learn quickly when their babies need to go. Whether their babies squirm, make a noise or freeze, by the time their babies are three-months-old, most "native" mothers can tell when their babies need to go and put their babies in a desired location or position for them to do so. By the time these babies are six-months-old, they are capable of going on command (when their mothers tell them to).

This style of potty training is called "elimination communication" because rather than training a child where to poop and pee, the mother is communicating with her child about poop and pee--there is nothing punitive or coercive about it. It's very matter-of-fact. "You're peeing. I'm going to hold you over this bowl." Whereas the mother initially learns her infant's "cue", the child soon learns that the mother likes to have him in a certain position when he is going to pee or poop and starts to communicate with her when he has to go.

In western societies, diapers have been around for quite some time. I have not found clear evidence of when they became common but things mentioned in Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life lead me to believe that the switch to major diaper use happened after the middle ages (poop and pee were not that private of a matter until that time--I assume that if it was socially acceptable for adults to poop and pee in public, it was definitely acceptable for babies). However, it was pretty cold in the northern climates so I wonder if diapers weren't part of a dressing scheme that simply had to happen there.

Regardless of when or why diapers became common, wearing them for years was not common until recently. In 1914 American babies sat on the potty starting at three months. In 1921 a paphlet entitled Infant Care said, "Almost any child can be trained so there are no more soiled diapers to wash after he is six to eight months old." In the 1970's the average age of completion of potty training was eighteen months. Even in 1996, children over thirty-five pounds (around three-years-old) needed a prescription for disposable diapers--diapers for children that old were considered to be medical supplies and the child was thought of as disabled.

So why do we keep our children in diapers for three to four years today when it is totally unnecessary? Because our potty training methods were not based around communication or anything matter-of-fact. Our potty training methods, since the 1700's, were harsh, rigid and punitive. Potty-training was a very destructive part of the parent-child relationship.

In the 1960's Dr. T. Berry Brazelton drew people's attention to the damaging psychological effects of how children were being potty trained. Unfortunately, he concluded that this was due to the age at which children were being trained, not the potty training methods being used. By 1997, Brazelton's error was corrected: Dr. Charles Schaefer wrote, "We know now that the age at which a child is trained is not the cause of later emotional and psychological problems; rather, it is the parental attitude that is used during the training period that will determine the long-term effects of toilet training" but the AAP has yet to update their recommendations and their statements regarding the readiness of children are simply inaccurate.

Moreover, the disposable diaper industry has an enourmous interest in keeping the "delayed training is better" message prominently reinforced. All current potty training recommendations handed out by doctors are provided by the disposable diaper industry and, according to Dr. Lekovic, author of Diaper Free Before 3: The Healthier Way to Toilet Train and Help Your Child Out of Diapers Sooner, based on well-publicized opinions not medical research.

Potty training after the age of three is new in human history. The little research that has been done about the physical effects of such late potty training, according to Dr. Lekovic, shows that the delayed training has led to increased rates of voiding disorders, lasting wetting problems and an increase in children suffering from UTI's.

*It is interesting to me that the Standard American Parent knows that coercive, reward-punish potty training methods are psychologically damaging but they have made the leap that all forms of coercive, reward-punish relationships are damaging including school and government.

Do We Have a Healthy Relationship with Poop?

Because it was healthier for my child to potty train earlier rather than later and would save me thousands of dollars in diapers, I did a lot of research on elimination communication and found it to be a major turn off for me because I could not conceive of letting my baby poop and pee on me for a few months until I learned his "cue" nor could I conceive of "wearing" my baby naked against my body as the E.C. books recommended.

This led me to reexamine my (culturally inherited) ideas about the human body and its functions, ideas like: poop is gross and dirty, I would throw up if my baby poops on me, letting my baby watch me go to the bathroom is just going too far--there have to be boundaries, poop and pee anywhere but in a toilet is disgusting, poop and pee should be flushed immediately and not thought about afterward, I should put a fan on and spray something pleasant to hide the smell of my poop, I should not talk about my poop or my experience pooping in polite company, etc.

How weird that we have taken such a normal part of life and made it so negative!

According to Joseph Campbell, some religions accept the reality of life as it is and create a mythology that supports it and helps us deal with it--the reality of life being that all life eats other life to survive, that life isn't fair, that life is often brutal and ugly. "Justice and beauty are human values," Campbell said, "the Universe doesn't care about those things."

Other religions deny reality. They don't accept life as it is. They create a mythology in which there was a perfect world or justice, beauty, harmony, etc and somehow that perfect world got messed up. These religions judge reality as bad, unjust and ugly--life as it is can never be truly enjoyed by good people. Good people live for the afterlife which takes place in a "perfect" world where everything is right.

Accepting reality is much more conducive to leading a happy life. Three hundred years ago we discussed poop a lot more than we do today. Talking about our common human experience of pooping didn't go out of style until the Victorians. The hippies were right: it's natural.

I have largely accepted the reality of poop on a philosophical level, but I doubt I will start telling my girlfriends about my more dramatic bowel movements or farting as loud-and-satisfyingly in company as I do when I am alone. Those cultural changes are not my goal. My goal is having a healthy relationship with my son and perhaps enabling him to have a healthy relationship with his body and its functions.

So I don't wrinkle my nose and tell him how gross his poop is. I don't feel like vomiting when I get some on my hand. I don't mind when he peers curiously into the toilet as I go. And though I opted out of elimination communication when he was a tiny baby, now that he is walking, I am perfectly happy to let him walk around naked and learn all about his bowel movements. My comfort level has increased so rapidly and effortlessly that by the time baby number two comes, I just may try e.c. from the get go!

Further Reading on This Subject:

Infant Potty Basics and Diaper Free both focus on elimination communication with infants. The Diaper Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative by Christine Gross-Loh has great information for "late starters" which was exactly what I was looking for. Reading this book was a wonderful affirmation that whatever the parenting challenge, there is always a healthy way to do it. There is no need to start a power struggle, no need to manipulate, coerce or reward and punish--any experience can deepen your relationship with your baby, even talking about poop :)

It should be noted that elimination communication isn't necessarily part of my healthy relationship parenting model--even e.c. can be done in an unhealthy way with praise and rewards.

Book Review & Experiment - The Primal Blueprint

I recently read The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation to be familiar with the Primal diet as it is so popular right now. It was exactly what I had heard--a sexy (be a primal BEAST!) repackaging of the Atkins diet but (thank goodness) without the processed food.

Things I liked about this book:

Mark brings raw dairy, natural light and ancient ways of "exercising" to people's attention. He has gotten the message out there about not eating fake food, which is very important.

Things I did not like about this book:

Mark Sisson is not a scientist, doctor or nutritionist; he is not someone who does studies or researches in the field of food. He is not someone who studies our hunter-gatherer ancestors. He is an "elite athlete" who took biology in college and became an armchair nutritionist. Now, I don't support certification b.s.--I do believe someone can be an expert in something without the educational credentials to prove it, but Mark isn't it. To his credit, he has become more of an expert after putting out his book and being told where he went wrong by the real experts... but I am not reviewing his blog today, I am reviewing his book which has lots of great things to say mixed in with some wrong, unproven and questionable things.

Mark's main message is the Atkins message: all grains are bad. One reason is because they have anti-nutrients in them. As do legumes. But Mark misses nuts. So the correct information is:
1) Nuts are in the same boat as grains, full of anti-nutients and not belonging in the human body unless they have been soaked/sprouted/fermented--which, no surprise, is the only way traditional peoples consumed nuts.
2) Nuts are in the same boat as grains. To support nuts and then to not support the properly prepared (soaked/sprouted/fermented) grains that our ancestors ate is to obsess over carbs rather than human health i.e. macronutrients instead of micronutrients.

The macronutrients / micronutrients issue: this is where most diets lose me--native peoples have lived off of every possible balance of protein/carbs/fat. Weston A Prince, in his research, noted that the healthiest native peoples ate all three i.e. those tribes that ate all-protein-no-grains and those that were vegetarian did not enjoy the same level of health that those tribes who ate both meat and grains enjoyed. Price and the foundation that has continued his research today focuses on "nutritionally dense foods," the foods that pack the most punch nutritionally i.e. vitamins and minerals. When you focus on this, you end up with a diet that IS low-carb compared to the Standard American Diet, but not anti-carb or anti-grain or as low-carb as Sisson advocates.

The other reason Mark hates carbs (because then we will burn glucose as our fuel instead of fat) makes no sense to me. Our bodies can burn glucose OR fat for a reason--both are helpful at certain times. If it wasn't advantageous for our bodies to be able to be "glucose-burners" sometimes, we would not have evolved with the ability to be "glucose burners". Perhaps we burned fat during the winter and spring when food was scarce but when food was plentiful we burned glucose... who knows! What I know is that my body can burn both, and I assume that it evolved that way for a reason. Now, don't get me wrong,  I don't support sugar or high-carb diets but, properly prepared grains are full of nutrients and that is what I care about.

The worst part about this book was when Mark advocated eating CAFO meat (i.e. the stuff that is really really bad for you) over eating any grains whatsoever or eating "too much" fruit. Factory farm meat is poison, literally. No one in their right mind should believe that bacon from Costco is healthier than eating too many organic apples. Like I said above, this is a repackaged Atkins diet. It's not about health, it's about weight loss. (Unless you are diabetic, if you are diabetic this is the diet for you!).

The other part about Mark's diet that I didn't like was the blatant contradiction: "don't eat fake food EXCEPT buy my protein powder!!! Eat like a cave man--make shakes out of chemically altered substances that were food once!" Some of the ingredients in his "primal fuel": Whey Protein Isolate, Inulin, Guar Gum, Sucrose, Natural Flavors, Maltodexrin, Sodium Caseinate.... I have read books on how these things are made and they are NOT natural. They are NOT food. Grok would not have eaten them.

One of the other major things Mark misses is that traditional peoples ate a lot of bacteria i.e. fermented foods. These are not mentioned at all in this book.

My 21 Day Primal Experiment:

I love doing science experiments so I decided to follow Mark's diet for the first 21 days of January to see if it transformed my body like he promises. Following his diet has changed the lives of many of my friends, but I had a sneaking suspicion that that was because they went from eating a Standard American Diet to eating a Primal Diet i.e. it was not that Primal was so amazing but rather that the SAD is so bad. I would be switching from eating a WAPF diet. For those of you unfamiliar with the WAPF diet, know that it is similar to Primal in that I already don't eat sugar, wheat or anything processed.

What I had to change to eat Primal instead of WAPF :
-no soaked/sprouted/fermented oats, wild rice and beans that are a normal part of my WAPF diet
-limit my fruit and vegetable intake so that I did not exceed his recommended 100-150 grams of carbs per day
-no sweet potatoes (he only lets athletes have tubers)
-no kombucha or lacto-fermented rootbeer (both are a normal part of my diet)
-I had to "moderate" my dairy intake
-I was allowed to have nuts that had not be soaked or sprouted but I chose not to do this and continued to eat WAPF style nuts throughout my experiment
-I was allowed to have coffee, dark chocolate and red wine (as treats). WAPF doesn't support any of these things--a WAPF treat would be an apricot compote sweetened with maple syrup and served with lots of raw whipped cream).

My results:
-Getting an hour of sunlight a day helped my sleep immensely. It is also possible that it was the diet that gave me better sleep though so I need to experiment more with this.
-I neither gained nor lost a single pound. (I was at a healthy weight to begin with)
-I noticed no "glucose burner to fat burner" change. I wonder if, since the WAPF diet is a rather high fat, high protein diet, I was already a fat burner
-When I reintroduced certain foods after 21 days I learned that I have a sensitivity (I have a reaction in my sinuses) to raisins and corn. I need to experiment more on this to see if properly prepared corn gives me a reaction as well (I was at a restaurant so I don't know if the corn flour I ate had been soaked in lyme or not).
-I also had a reaction to some standard american whole wheat bread I had at a restaurant. I will definitely be curious to see if I react to properly prepared wheat.
-I had no reaction when I consumed fermented oats or any other sprouted grain. I did not feel bloated, tired, sick or any of the other things I was told I might feel.
-I did not notice any change in energy or mood and it would have been impossible for me to notice an improvement in health since I already haven't had a cold in a decade.
-So I didn't feel any better BUT I also, didn't feel any worse! Except for an intense increase in my desire to eat "forbidden" foods i.e. all the self-control required to eat this way kind of wore me out. The WAPF way of eating does wear out my will-power, in fact, the WAPF diet makes me feel quite spoiled.

Random Note:

When I started eating the WAPF way, with a focus on nutritionally dense foods like organ meats and anything fermented, I noticed a sharp decline in my cravings for sugar and alcohol. All my adult life I had loved chocolate and enjoyed having a glass of red wine with dinner. When I started drinking lots of bacteria-beverages and eating lots of bacteria-foods, I found I had no desire for chocolate and the thought of having wine was almost gross. A year later, I hardly ever drink or indulge in chocolate anymore, not because I have all kinds of will-power, but because I just don't want those things that much. The WAP Federation explains this phenomenon: our cravings for sugar and alcohol are actually cravings for bacteria. This seems to have been totally accurate in my case.

My conclusion:

The Primal diet is a great way for people to kick the Standard American Diet. It has easy-to-follow rules and instructions and is sold very well. The Weston A Price Foundation--though it has more accurate and more complete information does NOT sell itself well. "Be a Primal BEAST!" is so much sexier than  "Eat a traditional diet full of nutritionally dense foods."

Because the Weston A. Price Foundation is extremely research oriented, they also weigh down some of their followers with Too Much Information. Therefore, the Primal Diet is great for people who just want a better way to eat, but don't want to get into it too much.

That being said, after a while on the Primal Diet or if you find yourself wanting to cheat, EAT FERMENTED FOODS! I think Sisson approves of some of them.

If you just want to dig a little deeper into the subject of nutrition and ancient ways of eating, check out:
westonaprice.org
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A Price

Ancient Child Spacing Wisdom

Here is what I know about child spacing:

Hunter-Gatherers had their children 3-6 years apart and usually had 4-5 children. 

What this information means to me is that my body evolved to function best having babies every 3-6 years and to have 4-5 children, but that doesn't mean, should I want to have twelve babies in twelve years, that my body could not do it.

However, in the 1920's Weston A. Price spent over a decade traveling the globe looking for the healthiest people in the world (a control group to which he could compare Americans). He recorded the dietary and lifestyle habits of the thirteen or so native groups he considered to be the healthiest people in the world and noted that they followed this ancient pattern of spacing children no closer than three years. He learned that the native people believed that a baby born closer than three years after a sibling was considered to be unhealthy. He looked into this and found evidence enough to convince him of the validity of this concern. In the photographs he includes in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, one can see the perfectly straight, white teeth of siblings spaced 3 or more years apart and the crooked teeth of the sibling born too soon. Crooked teeth were just one signifier of in-womb nutrition deficiencies though--narrow faces, narrow hips leading to more difficult births, club feet and almost all other birth defects were more common in children born closer than three years.

Price's theory was that pregnancy exhausts a woman's nutrient stores. Nursing a baby further depletes those stores (or slows down the replenishment process). It takes a woman's body several years to replenish and be ready to give everything to a new baby. A baby born only a year or two after a sibling will most likely not be able to receive enough nutrients in the womb to develop properly.

There are many other things that can deplete a woman's biological fitness and make it not wise to have a baby. Children born soon after a woman suffers from a major illness or during a time of famine also showed signs of not getting properly nourished in the womb. This did not mean these babies couldn't survive, it just meant their gene expression was not optimized. 

To put this theory into a real life example: very few Americans today, even the healthiest, will have children with naturally straight teeth. But if any of their children have straight teeth, it the most likely be the couple's first born. This could also be why the first born will have the highest IQ, be the most attractive and the least likely to have a hormonal imbalance. (If a woman's nutrient stores are properly replenished before she gets pregnant again, it is possible for all her children to be attractive with straight teeth and high IQs. Again, this does not mean that babies whose gene expression was not optimized will be stupid and unattractive, it just means that had they been properly nourished in the womb, they would have been even more intelligent and attractive than they are.) I cannot find any examples from people in my life in which this is not the case. Whenever I run into people who look like they have nice, wide mouths and perfectly straight teeth I ask about their mothers' diets before they were born. 100% of the time thus far, the person with the straight-teeth-no-braces had a mom who ate a traditional diet or some strange traditional foods that most people don't eat today or, in one case, fished and ate fish for at least one meal a day every day.

For these reasons, I would never consider having children spaced closer than three years. 

Why did we lose our ancient knowledge and start having more children spaced closer together? The change took place after the middle ages due to religions pressure to not nurse and have large families. Nursing is a natural contraceptive. Native societies nursed their young for 3-6 years. When the church convinced women that nursing was sinful and dirty and babies started being weened either at birth or after a month, infant mortality skyrocketed (thus women had to have more children in order to have one or two survive to adulthood) and women were able to get pregnant again right away. The ancient knowledge, that this would lead to unhealthy offspring, was lost... and crooked teeth, narrow faces, and difficult child-bearing hips became normal.

If you would like to read more about this subject, check out:

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life

Is Your Child Defiant?

People keep asking me if my son is "acting defiant yet". He is fifteen months old. Standard American Parents have been told that at this age their children will start displaying "defiant behaviors," hence why people keep asking me this.

I haven't been able to answer this question because the idea of defiance makes no sense to me. I don't think about my son's behavior in this way. In order to "be defiant" one must live in a world of control, power and authority. I don't live there.

Here is where I live:

My son has a point of view. His point of view is valid. His desire to keep playing rather than change his diaper is valid. He is not "defiant" when he lets me know that he doesn't want to change his diaper right now. Or, to say it another way, he is not "defiant" when he does not want to do what I want him to do. I am not an authority figure that he must obey. He is not "good" when he obeys me and "bad" when he defies me as the "is he defiant yet?" question implies.

People ask me, "Do you just let your son do whatever he wants then?!"

Again, "let him do" is another phrase from the control paradigm. I don't live there. My son and I have a relationship. I respect him and I don't allow him to disrespect me. All relationships have boundaries and... so does ours. Most of the time our relationship boundaries are effortlessly respected (toddlers who have been treated with respect are actually quite respectful little people). About once a week or so we will run into a situation where one of us is doing something that bothers the other--perhaps he wants to throw beans on the floor and I don't want him to or I want to leave the park and he doesn't want to--at which point I think some version of: "This is what I want. This is what he wants. We don't want the same thing. What can we do to get both of our needs met in this situation?" No one is "defying" anyone. We are just two people trying to get our needs met.

Every now and then I force my son to do something he does not want to do--perhaps change a diaper, perhaps get in the car and go somewhere. When this happens I don't lie about it or hide the reality of the situation from him: when I pick him up and put him in his car seat, he was forced to do something against his will by the bigger, stronger person. We both know it. If he struggles and cries while I strap him in, he is not being defiant. He is rightfully expressing his indignation and frustration with being forced. It is me who needs to apologize, not him.

The rare occasions where I have chosen to use force against my toddler have always been due to a failure in planning on my part. Given proper time to make the decision, adjust to a change in activity and connect with me, I don't think I would have ever used force against my son (and by using force I mean forcing him into his car seat or forcing him to change a poopy diaper, that is the extent that he has ever been forced to do something against his will).

For great reading on this subject, check out:
1,2,3... The Toddler Years: A practical Guide for Parents & Caregivers
Tears and Tantrums: What to do When Babies and Children Cry

Book Review: The Continuum Concept

*If you are interested in this subject (how hunter-gatherers parent) I recommend Hunter-Gather Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental and Cultural Perspectives. http://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Gatherer-Childhoods-Evolutionary-Developmental-Perspectives/dp/0202307492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356892287&sr=1-1&keywords=hunters+and+gatherers+childhood

Book Review: The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost by Jean Liedloff

This book is mostly lame. It is an uneducated woman ranting about what she thinks a tribe of Native Americans think about raising babies. Then she rants about her assumptions that all native peoples were parented exactly like this tribe and this tribe is full of happy babies and all babies would be happier if they were parented this way and there would be world peace, etc. It's a pretty ridiculous book mostly full of emotionally charged and guilt-ridden lectures about things she thinks that have a lot more to do with her own issues than the reality of hunter-gatherer childhoods and lives.

That being said, I found her anecdotes about the Yequana fascinating. Here are almost all of them since most of her book was not actually about the natives:

"One Yequana boy I knew came to me clinging to his mother and screaming at the top of his lungs from a toothache. He was about ten years old and so unfailingly self-reliant and helpful that I had supposed him to be highly disciplined. To my civilized view, he seemed a master of keeping his feelings to himself, and I therefore expected that in the present situation he would be making a terrific effort not to cry or to let his companions see him in such a state. But it was clear that he was making no attempt to suppress his reaction to the pain or his need for the primordial comfort of his mother's arms. No one fussed but everyone understood. A few of his playmates stood by to watch me extract the tooth. They did not have any difficulty in accepting his sudden departure from their gallant ranks into infantile dependence upon his mother; there was no hint of mockery from them, none of shame from him. His mother was there, quietly available, while he submitted to the extraction. He flinched and shrieked even louder several times when I touched the tooth, but he never pulled away or looked angry at me for causing the pain. When at last I worked the tooth free of the gum and stopped the hole with gauze, he was white in the face and went to his hammock exhausted. In less than an hour he reappeared alone, the color back in his cheeks and his equanimity restored. He said nothing, but smiled and poked about nearby for a few minutes to show me he was well, then wandered off to join the other boys."

"Another time it was a man of about twenty: I was doing my best to excise the beginnings of gangrene from his toe by flashlight. The pain must have been excruciating. While offering no resistance to my scraping the wound with his hunting knife, he wept without any sign of restraint on his wife's lap. She, like the little boy's mother, was completely relaxed, not putting herself in her husband's place at all, but serenely accessible, as he buried his face in her body when the pain was greatest or rolled his head from side to side om her lap as he sobbed. The eventual presence of about half the village at the scene did not appear to affect his reaction either toward self-control or dramatization."

"I was present at the first moments of one little girl's working life. She was about two years old. I had seen her with the women and girls, playing as they grated manioc in a trough. Now she was taking a piece of manioc from the pile and rubbing it against the grater of a girl near her. The chunk was too big; she dropped it several times trying to draw it across the rough board. An affectionate smile and a smaller piece of manioc came form her neighbor, and her mother, ready for the inevitable impulse to show itself, handed her a tiny grating board of her own. The little girl had seen the women grating as long as she could remember and immediately rubbed the nubbin up and down her board like the others. She lost interest in less than a minute and ran off, leaving her little grater in the trough and no noticeable inroads on the manioc. No one made her feel her gesture was funny or a "surprise"; the women did, indeed, expect it sooner or later, as they are all familiar with the fact that children do join in the culture, though their approach and pace are dictated by individual forces within themselves. That the end result will be social, cooperative and entirely voluntary is not in question."

"Caretaking, like assistance, is by request only. Feeding to nourish the body and cuddling to nourish the soul are neither proffered nor withheld, but are always available, simply and gracefully, as a matter of course.... Ideally, giving the child an example, or lead, to follow is not done expressly to influence him, but means doing what one has to do normally: not giving special attention to the child but creating the atmosphere of minding one's own business by way of priority, only noticing the child when he requires it and then no more than is useful."

"A Yequana tot would not dream of straying from his mother on a forest trail, for she does not look behind to see whether he is following, she does not suggest there is a choice to be made, or that it is her job to keep them together; she only slows her pace to one he can maintain. Knowing this, the babe will cry out if he cannot keep up for one reason or another."

"It is clear that they [young children] are imitative, cooperative and inclined to preserve the individual and the species, but they also include the specifics as knowing how to care for infants and having the ability to do so. To give the profound maternal urge in little girls no quarter, to channel it off to dolls when there are real infants about, is among other things a serious disservice to the children of the little girl when she grows up. Even before she can understand the instructions from her own mother, a little girl behaves instinctively toward infants int he precise manner required by infants since time immemorial. When she is old enough to consider alternative methods, she is already a long-standing expert in baby care and does not feel there is any advantage in thinking about it. She foes on throughout her childhood taking care of babies whenever she can, in her own family or among her neighbors, and by the time she marries. not only has nothing to discuss with the Doctor Spocks, but also has two strong arms and a repertoire of positions and movements with which babies can be held...."

"The notion of ownership of other persons is absent among the Yequana. The idea that this is "my child" does not exist. Deciding what another person should do, no matter what his age, is outside the Yequana vocabulary of behaviors. There is great interest in what everyone does, but no impulse to influence--let alone coerce--anyone. A child's will is his motive force. There is no slavery--for how else can one describe imposing one's will on another and coercion by threat or punishment?"

[An outsider child was adjusting to the village.] "Sometimes after he started walking, he hit other children. Interestingly, the other children regarded him without emotion; the idea of aggressiveness was so foreign to them that they took it as though they had been struck by a tree branch or from some other natural cause; they never dreamed of striking back, and went on about their games without even excluding Wididi."

My Baby Never Spit Up Unless...

I follow the Weston A. Price way of eating (as stone-age as I can manage) and breastfeed and my baby never spits up. On the rare occasion that he did spit up (about once a week) I wrote down the things I had eaten that day. Here is the list of things that made my baby spit up:

Think Thin bars and Kind bars

All candy

Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting I made at home

Cookies

Deli meat (all deli meat, including the nitrate-free, organic stuff I buy)

Hot cocoa made by restaurants but not hot cocoa made with raw milk and honey I make at home
He also spit up after I ate at restaurants almost 100% of the time regardless of what I ordered. He did not spit up from many of the purer salads from Hugo's so after a while I just stuck to those. 

Health Note - Coffee

I treat myself to a cup of coffee about once a month. I have known for a long time that 3-5 days after I treat myself to that single 8oz cup, I will have a minor breakout (acne). It was always a tradeoff. But recently I have noticed something else: 3-5 days later I will also have a "dead day," a day where I get nothing done and just lay around and stare at the wall feeling useless and often depressed. I never made the connection before but now it is pretty clear that coffee is a "rob Peter to pay Paul" situation--the energy I use up when I have my cup of coffee on Saturday comes directly out of my Wednesday energy stores....

Rational Baby Registry - Part 4 - All the Things on the Baby Gear Section of Baby Registry Lists

A note on health: I do try to limit the toxins to which my baby is exposed, but I don't want to drive myself crazy, so I am super anal about the toxicity of places where he spends most of his time (like his bed) and less worried about toxic things that he won't be around that often (like an outside play pen).

Here is what Babies'R'Us calls the "must haves" of baby gear:

INFANT CAR SEAT & TRAVEL SYSTEM, CONVERTIBLE CAR SEAT & BOOSTER CAR SEAT

Toxic: The more time a baby spends in a car seat, the greater his chances of dying from SIDS. There is no definitive proof as to why this is, but what scientists do know is that in a car seat, infants are scrunched up, making it more difficult for them to breathe and that car seats are highly toxic and famous for off-gassing. The wise parent will make sure her child spends as little time as possible in a car seat.

Health issue: Newborns are most comfortable lying on their backs. According to Dr. Emmi Pikler in Bulletin Number Fourteen, this is also the best position for proper muscular development. Any time a baby spends in a "propped" position, his muscles are forming and developing badly. So again, the wise parent will make sure her child spends as little time as possible in a car seat.

For these reasons, I don't recommend buying an infant car seat at all and especially not a "travel system". Infant car seats with travel systems are made so that you can strap your baby in and never take him out. You put him in the car seat in the house, take him like that to the car, drive somewhere, take him out of the car (still in his car seat) and click that car seat right into a stroller, go for a walk, let him doze in the stroller/car seat while you have lunch at a restaurant.... Your baby can spend most of his day unable to breathe easily and only able to breathe toxic air.

Only uninformed parents carry their newborns around in their car seats. For people who know better, for people who plan to only have their child strapped into a car seat while in the car, there is no point in purchasing both an infant car seat and a convertible car seat since all of the nicer convertible car seats accommodate newborns all the way through booster age. Not to mention, that if you are buying one car seat instead of two, you will have more room in your budget to get something nice.

As for the booster car seat--your kid won't need this for years. Why register for something so that it can sit in your garage gathering dust for three to five years? The laws may change by then!

What I did: When choosing a car seat, I looked for safety first. But, knowing that eighty percent of car seats are not installed correctly (which makes them useless), looking for a user friendly and easy-to-install car seat was my number two priority.

After much deliberation between the Britax Boulevard, the MaxiCosi Pria and the Orbit Baby Infant Car Seat, I decided on the MaxiCosi Pria. First I decided against the Britax because it has sweater-snagging velcro on the straps. I then decided on the Pria because I could use it for much longer than the Orbit (the Orbit seat went from 4-30 pounds and the Pria seat went from 4-70). So far, I have been very happy with this choice.

With baby number 2 I did the Clek Fllo Convertbile Car Seat which I like even more than the Pria, but they are both great.

Note: The first lay-flat car seats are already on the market in Europe but are still illegal in this country. When they are legal here, they will be worth your consideration.

CAR SEAT CUSHIONING, HEAD SUPPORT, FULL-BODY SUPPORT, NECK WINGS & STRAP COVERS

Unnecessary! If you buy a nice car seat, it will come with all of these things built-in.

CAR SEAT ACCESSORIES: SUN SHADE, BABY MIRROR, CAR SEAT CUP HOLDER, CAR SEAT TOYS, CAR SEAT LEVELER

These are personal preference items. I did not buy any of them except sun shades for my windows which I LOVE and should have had in my car all these years even without children!

ADDITIONAL INFANT CAR SEAT BASE

Unnecessary! Since I did not buy an infant car seat, I was also saved this expense. My husband and I considered getting two car seats, one for each car, but then we decided it was easier to just make my car the "family car". I keep my car stocked with the stroller, backpack, a change of clothes, diapers, a nursing cover, a picnic blanket, water bottles, etc. It's nice to only have to worry about the inventory in one car.

TRADITIONAL STROLLER, LIGHTWEIGHT STROLLER, ALL-TERRAIN/JOGGER STROLLER, DOUBLE STROLLER

Health issue: The best stroller for a newborn is one that allows him to lay flat.

Toxic! But even strollers that enable your baby to lay flat are made of highly toxic things and babies should not spend very much time in them, similar to a car seat.

What I did: After much research, I settled on the Nuna Mixx. It is less toxic than most brands and came with a lay-flat basinet that my baby slept in while we were out. Once he graduated to the regular stroller, the lay-flat option was incredibly useful for nap times. I was very happy with that aspect of this stroller. What I did not like about this stroller was that it is bulky and annoying to transport. Also, I did not buy the travel case for it which was stupid as American Airlines broke this stroller while we were traveling.

None of my kids have cared about strollers after about 18 months. They like walking! I ended up buying a Mac Sports Collapsible Outdoor Utility Wagon to bring groceries in from the car at some point and this wagon has ended up being my favorite stroller as it is so easy to fold up and put in the car and I can pull a toddler in it along with a ton of other stuff and if I am out and about my toddler can sleep it it -- it's flat too. But it does not have wheel locks, so legally, I have to advise you to never place your child into such a thing. 

STROLLER RAIN COVER, NETTING & SUNSHADE

Geographical issue: I live in LA. I cannot comment on the necessity of these things and have zero personal experience with any of them. Except sunshades. My stroller had a sunshade and I did use it.


STROLLER ACCESSORIES: MOMMY HOOK, CUP HOLDER, SNACK HOLDER, STROLLER TOYS

Philosophical issue 1: If you are going for a walk, go for walk. If it's time for a snack, have a snack. No need to do both things at once. That does not teach good habits. That teaches chaos and mindlessness (there will be more on my eating philosophy later).

Philosophical issue 2: Stroller toys?! For your baby, the world looks like a crazy foreign country full of sights and smells he has never seen. Looking out at the world is the only entertainment your baby needs.

ENTERTAINERS & ACTIVITY JUMPERS

Philosophical issue: The name alone should stop you from buying these. What a terrible thing to do to a baby--force him to sit in something that he can't get out of with a mess of toys in his face that he can't escape from even if he wants to. These contraptions are perfect for future Epsilons: prison with meaningless entertainment. They do not belong in the home of someone who believes in freedom and wants to raise someone who thinks.

Health issue: According to Dr. Emmi Pikler in Bulletin Number Fourteen any time you prop your baby into a position into which he cannot get on his own, you are encouraging poor muscular formation. Babies who strengthen their legs before their strengthen their cores will walk early, yes, but they will be clumsy and their posture will only continue to get worse as they get older.

What I did: I was given one of these. I sold it.

I was religious about never propping Anders. He learned to walk properly. Was strong, graceful and never fell. With Henrik, though I never propped him, Anders enjoyed holding his little fingers and helping him to "walk" so much that I allowed it. I should not have. Henrik was a terribly dangerous baby. He learned to walk before he could balance and fell all the time. Anders never hit his head even once a baby or toddler. Henrik fell so often and hit his head so often I am worried about his future IQ.

SWING: FULL SIZE & TRAVEL

Health issue: Propping your baby into artificial positions is not good for his health--from scrunched up lungs to improper muscular development.

Toxic: These are just as toxic as car seats.

Practical issue: Rocking babies to sleep--and especially by a machine instead of by a person--is a terrible habit to get your baby into. A baby who learns to fall asleep being rocked will come to need that in order to fall asleep. This means you will be getting up 5-10 times every night for months to rock your baby back to sleep every time he wakes up. Better to teach your baby to fall asleep without motion.

If you want to rock your baby to sleep because you enjoy it, get a rocking chair and rock your baby but don't hire a "machine nanny" to do it for you--and be clear on what you are doing: you are rocking your baby for your enjoyment. If your baby comes to need it because you have made it a habit and you no longer enjoy it, stop doing it. Instead of putting him in a toxic cloud that will give him a crappy body, teach him to go to sleep without motion.

Philosophical issue: When used as a toy, swings are noisy and overstimulating. They are active toys that entertain passive babies. This is not a wise kind of toy to have.

WALKERS

Health issue: See what I have said about propping and body development above or read Emmi Pikler's Bulletin Number Fourteen.

Philosophical issue: Maria Montessori supported walkers as long as the baby could use it volitionally i.e. no toy that the baby cannot get in and out of on his own. Magda Gerber believed that babies should not be encouraged to do things that they cannot actually do. If your baby can't walk--he can't walk. He doesn't need something to help him pretend he can. I am a big fan of reality so I am with Magda on this one.

BOUNCER (CHAIR)

Health issue: See what I have said about propping and body development above or read Emmi Pikler's Bulletin Number Fourteen.

Philosophical issue: When all a baby can do is lie on his back, that is all he should do. There is plenty for him to do on his back and there is plenty of time for him to sit when he is older.

What I did: One of these chairs was given to me. I removed the toys and used it as a chair. I put my baby in every now and then during a festive meal when I wanted him to be able to be part of the group and could not have him on my lap. I never used it to bounce him or as an entertainment center. I would not have purchased one.

With my second baby if I wanted him to be part of the group I just put him in his stroller and wheeled him over.

PLAY YARD, PLAY YARD SHEETS & PLAY YARD NETTING

Practical issue: There is no point in putting an immobile baby in a pen. Once a baby is mobile, the pen has to be, at minimum, 4' x 4' for proper body development. 

Toxic! Most of these pens are made from toxic plastic materials.

Philosophical issue: Many of these pens come with built in entertainment. That makes this a toy which harkens back to--active toys make passive baby brains; passive toys make active baby brains.

What I did: A "pack'n'play" was given to me. Because it is not the proper size for a mobile baby, I did not use it and am still not willing to use it. I keep it in case I want to try using it while traveling. I will update this post if it ends up coming in handy! For now, I recommend skipping this purchase.

Update: I have never found these to be necessary. 

HIGH CHAIR, HIGH CHAIR COVER, EXTRA HIGH CHAIR PAD, SPLAT MAT & BOOSTER SEAT

Philosophical issue: Both Maria Montessori and Magda Gerber believe children should never be put in something they cannot get out of on their own.  Both recommend waiting until the child is really ready to eat (around nine months) and then providing him with his own child-sized table and chair.

My story: In the last decade I spent caring for other people's children, I found the whole high-chair feeding process to be loathsome. When my son was just starting to take an interest in foods (around six months) I let him taste things from my lap. When he could sit on his own I used the Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair, with the Baby Set. He used this chair for many years so that he could be the right height at the table.

BABY CARRIERS: FRAMED, FRONT & HIP CARRIERS, WRAPS

Newborns love these. Older babies not so much. My back not so much.

My mom loved the backpacking backpacks with external metal frames that puts all the weight into your hip band/legs. Apparently her babies lived in those things and she was able to get a lot done with the baby on her back. My babies just weren't into it. They had too much to do and explore I guess.

Rational Baby Registry - Part 3 - All the Things on the Baby Care Section of Baby Registry Lists

Here is what Baby's-R-Us calls the "must haves" of baby care items.

BABY NAIL CLIPPERS

This is a personal preference item.

What I did: I have Dr. Mom's nail clippers and they work fine.

BABY BRUSH & COMB

Philosophical issue: Your toddler will love brushing his own hair and will have a much easier time with the right sized brush.

What I did: I bought a wooden handled and natural bristle brush that served as a toy long before it became useful.

DIGITAL THERMOMETER / EAR THERMOMETER

I chose the ear and forehead thermometer. They work great!

FIRST AID KIT

Philosophical issue: It is not wise to medicate your baby, even for teething pain. Read my posts on heroic health, the books I have recommended on health and Dr. Mendelsohn's book, How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor.

Unnecessary! There was nothing in this kit that wasn't already in my home medicine cabinet except for drugs, none of which I needed and none of which I advise using.

HUMIDIFIER / VAPORIZER

If you or baby has a cough then these machines are great. I have one in my medicine cabinet. I have used it once in the last nine years. 

GAS RELIEF DROPS & PAIN RELIEF PRODUCTS

Toxic! There are no pain relief medications out there that are not bad for your baby's health in some way. If it would make you feel better to give your baby something, look into homeopathic remedies and natural cures and your own psychology because--

Philosophical issue 1: Many parts of life are uncomfortable and downright painful. This isn't bad. Pain is just... uncomfortable for a little while. Better to get to know your body and learn to deal with physical discomfort than pop a pill for every ache.

Philosophical issue 2: Instead of masking the problem with gas relief drops, find out what you are eating that is giving your baby gas. Work to cure causes, not effects.

BABY BATH TUB

Not fun! Bathing newborns sucks. They hate it and often shiver and for the parent it's just one more chore. I wanted to make bathing more fun for both of us so I skipped the baby bath tub and made a nice bath for me and my newborn once a week or so. In the tub with me, my newborn was a very happy and at peace little guy. Because he was in a real bathtub he could be immersed in the water and was never cold. He learned how to float on his back quickly, and I would just hold his head and let him float. Being fully immersed in water and able to stretch out made him so happy that I took him to baby swim classes! (And there I realized that the bathtub is warm whereas a pool is cold, the bathtub with mom is peaceful whereas pools are loud and chaotic and the bathtub at home has a chlorine filter whereas pools have extra chlorine. Plus--for a small baby, the bathtub is the size of a pool! There is no need for anything bigger.)

Health issue: It is not healthy for your baby to be "propped" into positions into which he cannot get himself. Many baby bathtubs force your baby to sit in a position similar to his car seat. This depresses the lungs and encourages muscles to form that will make your child slouch. Better to have newborns lay flat.

Health issue: Newborns don't need to take baths. It's not even good for them. That white goo they are born covered in is super good for them and should not be washed off. Ear infections are caused when water gets in kids ears during bath time. Baths give little girls yeast infections. I don't recommend bathing babies. Washing their butt and legs when they smell a little, yes, but I think keeping water away from their heads as much as possible is good. 

BATH ROBE

Both my toddler and my nine year old love full length, warm, fluffy robes. They use them as wearable blankets though, they have never used them after bathtime.

BABY BATH SPONGE

Philosophical issue 1: They come in bright colors. Why do we think babies need things like this? Maria Montessori says it well: "The most marvelous aspect of the child is that he is quite an acute observer who sees things that we cannot imagine he can have seen. how peculiar, then, that we believe we must use bright colors, exaggerated gestures and loud voices to attract his attention."

Philosophical issue 2: They come shaped like little animals instead of like a sponge an adult would use. Again, Maria Montessori says it well: "Although the children in our first school could play with some really splendid toys, none cared to do so. This surprised me so much that I decided to help them play with their toys, showing them how to handle the tiny dishes, lighting the fire in the doll's kitchen, and placing near it a pretty doll. The children were momentarily interested but then went off on their own. Since they never freely chose these toys, I realized that in the life of a child, play is perhaps something of little importance which he undertakes for the lack of something better to do. A child feels that he has something of greater importance to do than to be engaged in such trivial occupations." For children under age of six, Dr. Montessori came to believe fantasy had no place. She believed that pretend is "not proof of imagination, rather it is proof of unsatisfied desire." Pretending was thus assimilation of the ego, rather than adaptation to reality. The child's task is to adapt to reality, so for adults to encourage fantasy was to encourage the child toward something that deviates from the developmental path he or she is on. "When children play house, they are expressing a desire to really keep house." Give them real chores! Teach them about real life! Not only will the child be happier and feel more competent and confident, but if he does want to engage in some sort of fantasy play it will be his fantasies rather than yours.

HOODED BATH TOWELS

Regular ones work just fine, however, I was given a set of those towels with the little hood part and my toddlers loved them. 

WASH CLOTHS

Practical issue: Do you use a washcloth in the bath? If not, your child will most likely not use one either. They are not necessary to get clean. If you do use one, your child should have one sized for his use.

BATH TOYS

Possibly toxic! Almost all toys made for the water are plastic. Plastic, even BPA free plastic, is toxic and does not belong soaking in hot water with your baby or in your baby's mouth.

Philosophical issue: Read my post on appropriate toys--i.e. items from real life,

My experience: I follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to toxicity--I do my best to keep major toxins out of my life and my baby's life and the rest of the time I try not to drive myself crazy. Same with toys--I do my best to keep my son's toys philosophically sound but when someone gives him a gift and he enjoys playing with it, I don't worry about it. In the bath tub my baby loves playing with bars of soap, my pumice stone, an old toothbrush, the body of my razor and his wash cloth. Most of the time however, he is too busy obsessing over the water spout, drain and doors to worry about toys.

My favorite bath toys ended up being items from the kitchen. Metal measuring cups and spoons were a big hit.

STORAGE BASKETS & BINS

Possibly toxic! But your baby is probably not chewing on these so it's most likely fine.

Philosophical issue: Your baby does not need very much stuff and that stuff that he has should be stored in an organized, peaceful and beautiful fashion. There are a few things like socks or a large collection of a particular type of toy, that merit attractive storage baskets, but otherwise, one small book shelf where each of the toys have a place and are all visible should suffice. For more on this, read Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui.

BODY WASH / SHAMPOO & HAND SOAP

Possibly toxic! Read ingredients carefully before you buy. Never buy anything antibacterial. Only buy soaps and shampoos sold at health food stores.

Unnecessary! The purpose of soap is to remove oils from your skin and hair. We do that and then pay more money to put oils back in in the form of conditioner and lotion. I seriously question the necessity of soap and shampoo and would like to see some experiments done in this area in the how our skin would benefit from not removing the oils and drying it out. Remember that everything about our natural body evolved that way for a reason or was a successful adaption. This includes our natural oils. I don't want to smell bad any more than the next person, but rinsing off is enough for me to not smell. There is no need for soap and shampoo. My naturally wavy hair actually looks better without conditioners that make it silky-smooth. Unfortunately, I have not been able to break this normalization of wanting my hair to feel this way, so I continue to wash and condition. I have been able to break the daily habit though and am showering twice a week. That being said, I don't wish to inflict this habit on my son. I have a friend who has not done anything but rinse off daily for about a year. He looks and smells fine--though his hair is not silky to touch. It feels like animal hair.

LOTION & BABY OIL

Possinly toxic! Read ingredients.

What I do: My husband, my baby and I use organic 100% pure sweet almond oil for moisturizer. No need to have lotion too. Though we are not plants, we are animals, so the ideal moisturizer for human skin is actually tallow or lard. There are some companies that make amazing tallow lotion nowadays but it's much more expensive than oil.

ALCOHOL SWABS & COTTON BALLS

Health issue! These are "may irritate body tissue but will have no significant effect on germs. The body has its own system to fight infection, and they work quite effectively if you give them the chance," says Dr. Mendelsohn. 

PETROLEUM JELLY

Toxic! Not sure what this would be used for, but I recommend using 100% pure lanolin instead. Almost identical products but lanolin is not toxic. Some people don't like lanolin because they are allergic to wool. I am not allergic to wool and neither of my babies are allergic to it (or anything). So I LOVE lanolin. Amazing as chap stick too!

HAND SANITIZER 

Toxic! Never use antibacterical anything. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make. 

DISH SOAP

Possibly toxic! Buy the gentlest, unscented, hypoallergenic dish soap you can find. Or just skip it. Dish soap isn't truly necessary. You learn this when you go backpacking and you learn to wash your dishes with dirt. Yes, you rub dirt all over your plate until it is dry and then you wipe it off or rinse it. Most soap is far more toxic than any food bacteria (despite what you have been led to believe).

LAUNDRY DETERGENT / STAIN REMOVER

Possibly toxic! Buy the gentlest, unscented, hypoallergenic laundry soap you can find. You can also save quite a bit of money by making your own.

DRYER SHEETS

Toxic! And irritating. And that shit stinks.

ALL-PURPOSE CLEANER

Possibly toxic! It is fascinating to me that many people with pets only use white vinegar to clean their homes because they don't want their pets to get sick when the lick the floor... but people with babies buy the harshest chemicals around and think they are at war with bacteria. If you think bacteria is bad, you need some reeducation on that subject. There are many great Ted Talks for listen to.

What I do: I use white vinegar.

Rational Baby Registry - Part 2 - All the Things on the Diapering Section of Baby Registry Lists

Here is what Baby's-R-Us calls the "must haves" of diapering items:

DIAPERS

Practical issue: Cloth or plastic? If you google this you will find a ton of information, in my experience, these issues are the most important and the most rarely mentioned--

The main pro of cloth: The average baby who wears cloth diapers will potty train a year earlier than the average baby who wears plastic diapers (because the baby has made the brain connections of going pee and being wet. Babies who wear plastic diapers pee and since they don't feel anything, often never realize something is happening). It is not absolutely necessary to use cloth diapers in order to potty train a child at a young age.

The other great thing about cloth: Because the diaper is wet, poops are very easy to clean up. In a plastic diaper, all the moister gets sucked down and you are left with sticky grossness on the baby's but that takes a dozen wipes to wipe up. With cloth diapers, you often only need one wipe.

The main pro of plastic: The majority of Americans use plastic diapers which means baby clothes are made for the slim butts of plastic-diaper wearing babies and not the bulky butts of cloth-diaper wearing babies.

What I did: My baby wears cloth diapers at home and plastic when we go out or travel. He has only ever had a hint of a diaper rash and the only time I ever had poop escape his diaper was when he was wearing a plastic one. We have a diaper service so I cannot comment on whether cloth diapers are worth it if you also have to wash them. I will update this post as time goes on.

[Update 1: I almost gave up on cloth diapers after about three months since the diaper covers did not seem to be water proof. Both the Thirsties and the Bummies covers had the problem of losing their waterproof-ness after a very short time even when never washed in hot water. Once I started using the Grovia covers, I started to love cloth diapers again.]

[Update 2: With baby number 2 I used seventh generation disposable diapers because I wanted him to be able to wear regular baby clothes. These do not give him diaper rash, though I also change him right away. I did try Huggies and Pampers and both seem to give him rashes regardless of how fast I change him. But it's not bad. It's not like a rash all the time, it's just maybe once a every other week. (I had to use these on a three month stay in Nicaragua.)]

BABY WIPES & TRAVEL WIPES

Possibly toxic!

What I did: I use Seventh Generation and Earth First wipes.

What my parents did: Wipes didn't exist yet. They put dirty baby butts under running water in the sink!

WIPES WARMER

Practical issue: If you get your baby used to room temperature wipes he will be used to it. If you get him used to warm wipes he will get used to that, come to need warm wipes and freak out if your wipe warmer breaks or you forget to bring it with you when you are out and about.

DIAPER BAGS

This is a personal preference item.

What I do: I slip a diaper, changing pad, a travel packet of wipes and a ziplock bag into my purse. (The ziplock bag is in case I am going somewhere that does not have an appropriate place to dispose of a diaper, I can put it into the bag and dispose of it later.)

BABY CHANGING MAT

This is a personal preference item: 

What I did: I have three Kushies delux flannel changing pads that fold easily, can go with me anywhere and wash easily.

DIAPER RASH CREAM / DIAPER OINTMENT

Practical issue: Diaper rash is caused by your baby sitting in his stools for too long so if your baby gets a lot of diaper rash, instead of slathering toxic things onto his butt, change his diaper more often or consider switching to cloth as cloth diapered babies get less diaper rash.

Possibly toxic! The best cure for diaper rash is fresh air and sunshine. Your first line of defense should always be naked time outside. When that is not possibe--

What I did: I was given four bottles of various diaper rash creams at my shower and I have only ever used it a few times. My favorite is the Weleda because of how it smells. 

DIAPER PAIL & DIAPER PAIL REFILLS OR DIAPER GENIE WASTE BASKET

Practical issue: I have used a million different kinds of these in my decade working with children and I never found one that didn't smell. The solution that worked best was never a fancy contraption but rather a small waste bin that gets taken out frequently.