I hope you have been enjoying the baby series. It’s been so much fun to dive in deep and focus on how to choose safe ant toxin-free products for baby!. Today we’re going to cover something really fun but also really important.

Registering for your Baby Shower: How to Pick Toxin-Free Products for Baby

Baby showers are so much fun! They're such a great way for everybody to celebrate this new baby coming into the world. And they might be one of the most fun parts about being pregnant, right?

 All the yummy food, everyone getting together, opening all the presents, playing all the silly games. It’s just such a special time.

 I remember I had some very lovely baby showers. Many baby showers now that I think about it! We had a fun couples one and one my best friend threw for me. Really one of my favorite parts about being pregnant was registering for the shower and all the fun baby stuff.

 And sometimes, even though you spend a whole afternoon online or in the store scanning too many pairs of organic cotton socks, you just don't know what you’re going to get in your shower. People LOVE to go off the registry and just pick things that they think you’ll need. 

And many times if they're moms or they recently had a baby, they probably have a little bit of insight into what you’ll actually need (diapers, diapers, diapers) vs what you think you’ll need (at least 3 nursing pillows) or what your research on the internet tells you you need (a bottle warmer that connects to bluetooth). 

So don’t be alarmed if you end up getting a lot of gifts off of your registry because that def happens and that’s ok. People just want to shower you with gifts, that's why it's called a baby shower. 

So of course we have to be polite and gracious for everyone's generosity and thoughtfulness. But when people are asking you how you're feeling and telling you that they’re excited about the shower, it’s a great opportunity to start educating. 

Because believe it or not, a lot of those people in your life probably aren't aware of the environmental toxins and how they impact your health and your baby’s health. 

But I don’t want to sound judgemental…

Don’t worry! It’s totally possible to start from a place of education. Just say something like…

“Oh I'm so excited for the baby to come, I’m doing all of this research and really learning about how we can be as healthy as possible; both the baby and me. I’m taking these measures to really improve the health of our home environment. So we can be as healthy as possible.”

Or try….

“I’m being pretty particular about the stuff I’m putting on the registry because I recently learned that our skin is our largest organ; and that a lot of those chemicals in the products get absorbed into the bloodstream. Babies grow so quickly and their cells are replicating at such a fast rate, that babies are more impacted by those chemicals, than adults. So I'm just being really careful that I’m choosing the healthiest and safest products for the baby.” 

Giving examples of what you're doing and sharing your passion for why you're being a conscientious consumer, starts the conversation as education.

You can go back and listen to when I interviewed my mom about when I first started on this toxin- free journey and you’ll hear that I didn't exactly do it the right way, all the time. I learned a lot along the way, and made a lot of mistakes. 

 But it’s totally possible to learn how to bring this up in conversation in a way that’s more convincing than just telling someone that they’re doing the wrong thing, or coming from a really judgemental place. 

And it’s ok to be really picky. In fact, it’s important to be really picky! It really does matter what kind of ingredients are in our products. 

And luckily, if you’re having a baby now, there are so many more options and so many more people are more aware than when I had my babies. 

So let’s pick some baby stuff!

First, think about the physical products; so non-personal care products. Toys, bottles, nipples, feeding utensils. You want to think about what are the safest materials available.

The best options are organic cloth, wood, silicone, or glass. Plastic is much less safe, so you just want to minimize the amount of plastic on your registry. You might want to choose silicone bowls over plastic bowls, silicone pacifiers over plastic, glass bottles over plastic. There is almost a non-plastic swap for anything you could need for a baby.

Next are the personal care products. You want to make sure you’re reading the labels on everything you're putting on your registry. Your lotions and shampoos. You really want to be reading every single ingredient. It’s not enough to just look at the front of a package and assume it’s safe because of these marketing buzzwords: natural, green, vegan, healthy, dermatologist approved, perfect for baby, pediatrician approved. Those labels cannot be trusted. We have to protect ourselves and our babies and read every single ingredient in the product. These companies aren’t going to do it for us.

Watch out for….

Fragrance- Fragrance is a proprietary term and if that ingredient is on there, or parfum, you really don't know what that ingredient actually is. 

I choose not to buy anything with the world “fragrance” on the label, because I like to support companies that are transparent with their ingredient list. “Fragrance” is not transparent when it can mean 1000s of different things. 

You also want to watch out for ingredients like phthalates and parabens.

I talk about all sorts of different toxic ingredients on other podcast episodes, but if you’re ready to really do a deep dive and learn all of the things you need to know about how to choose safe products, you really should sign up for my course today, Detox By Design: The Home Method. I walk you through the process of how to determine whether a product is safe or not, and teach you how to detox your home top to bottom, room by room, in a non-overwhelming way.

I know it sounds like a lot, but once you know the skills that I teach in The Home Method, it becomes second nature. The ingredients will pop out at you and you'll know exactly what to avoid.