Houseplants that Purify the Air

Right after we had our son eight years ago, my husband bought an air purifier from Sharper Image. He figured we had a new baby, four cats, and lived in a community where they were still building houses, so it might help. I don’t know that it really did help or not. I still suffered from allergies, but our son doesn’t really seem to have much trouble with it, so who knows. The good news is that there are plants you can have in your home that will purify the air naturally. One plant that will help clean your air … Continue reading

Green Plants in Your Home

I grew up in a house that was crawling with green plants. Okay, they weren’t really crawling – they were still in their pots, and behaving themselves – but they were everywhere. Boston ferns, philodendrons, silver pothos – we had them all. It was our own private jungle. We lived this way because my mother loves plants, but there were other benefits as well. First is air quality. A green plant breathes in carbon dioxide, and we breathe in oxygen. So when you have a plant, it takes in both the carbon dioxide and the oxygen, filters out the oxygen, … Continue reading

Gardening: Baby-Friendly Pest Control

Summertime is here, and with it comes gardening season. If you’re like me, you love the idea of eating organic without having to pay the hefty grocery bill. Planting a garden allows you to do just that. Eating healthy is important for people of all ages, but it is especially important for babies. What could be better than feeding your baby steamed green beans, broccoli, or carrots straight from the garden? When you plant your own food, you control exactly what goes into growing it: the soil, the fertilizer, and the pest control. I’m able to plant a garden for … Continue reading

Baby Safe Plants

My daughter has always loved, loved, loved putting things into her mouth. Luckily, when she was a baby she did not have an inclination to swallow these things. From tales told by other moms, I know I’m lucky. I do live with an eat anything monster, though. Our cat will eat anything that we leave around the house. With her, I’ve been in emergency for dehydration after she was unexpectedly sensitive to a fig leaf. Who knew? Between the cat and the kid, I’ve had my share of putting things in the mouth scares. In that spirit, I wanted to … Continue reading

High Chair Safety

High chair accidents occur more frequently than you might think they do. Maybe parents are pretty vigilant about high chair safety when their baby is just starting to use one, but after months (or several children), the safety rules tend to slip. Here is a guide (or a quick reminder) about high chair safety. Use a high chair that follows current safety standards While that antique wooden high chair you saw in a shop or were given by grandma looks lovely, save it as an accent piece in your home to display dolls, plants, old lace, etc. We know a … Continue reading

Protect Your Baby: Free DVD

Your baby could be in danger in your own home. Baby proofing is so important, but some areas of baby proofing can be easily missed. Any experienced parent probably has at least one or two stories of near misses where their baby narrowly avoided disaster, despite vigilant care. Babies can get into all kinds of things, and this can be dangerous. I recently hosted a play date where there were babies in attendance. Although I make every effort to baby proof the play areas, one very enterprising crawler got around my efforts. She pulled off one of those sticky pads … Continue reading

Safer Cleaning Methods for Pregnant Women

Pregnant women often worry about using household cleaning products. It turns out; there may be reason for this fear. Although the cleaning industry and other experts insist that these products are safe, there is evidence to suggest otherwise. There are a wide variety of chemicals used in various household cleaning products. Some of these are irritating to the lungs or skin. Others are carcinogens and a few can cause birth defects with heavy exposure. Nitrobenzene, which is found in furniture polish, has been linked to birth defects and cancer. Other ingredients such as formaldehyde and perchloroethylene are also suspected to … Continue reading

Let’s Talk About Naming Your Baby

Have you picked out a name for your baby yet? Chances are that you have, if you are nearing your due date, but perhaps you just found out you are pregnant. It may seem a long way off until baby is here, or maybe it doesn’t and you are already frantically searching baby books. Either way, naming a person can be daunting as well as exciting. Some people have names already picked before conception, and for those people it is easy. I used to be one of those people. My first child was named before even being conceived. The child … Continue reading

Safety Issues That Parents Don’t Always Think About

It’s amazing how much time we can spend on securing our homes with alarms and baby proofing devices to keep them out of cupboards and from drawers, but there are other areas of safety that may not even occur to us until after something happens. Since we’d like to avoid the something happening possibility – here are some suggestions for maintaining safety both in and out of the home. Do Not Let Your Toddler Play Outside Alone This one seems like a no-brainer, but even if your toddler is asleep in their stroller, don’t dart into the house without them … Continue reading

Caring for Pets in Cold Weather

In June I posted about the dangers of heatstroke for animals. Now that we’ve entered the opposite extreme of seasonal weather, I’d like to take a look at ways to keep our pets safe when it’s cold outside. The ASPCA has a list of several things to remember when looking after pets in the winter. Just as leaving a dog in the car is dangerous in the heat the same is true in the cold. Especially when it isn’t sunny outside, cars trap the cold and can drop to dangerous freezing temperatures. If you must leave your pet in the … Continue reading