This Just In: Beaba Baby Food Products

Here at Cotton Babies, we love beautiful, practical and convenient items. New online this week, we have the Beaba Ergonomic Cutlery set. This great set includes a fork and spoon adapted to baby's grasp and a protective storage case for meals on the go. Beaba's Ergonomic Cutlery set is BPA-free and dishwasher safe.

A perfect size to toss into your diaper bag for those meals away from home. The bright colors also coordinate nicely with other great Beaba products you can find at Cotton Babies.

Beaba's Lunch Box is ideal for babies and toddlers on the go, including everything for a complete meal in the minimum amount of space. The Beaba Lunch Box includes a non-slip plate, a container with two large compartments, a "keep warm" type lid and an ergonomic spoon and fork set. All pieces in the lunch box set are microwave and dishwasher safe.

Bright and colorful, the lunchbox features an unique base to help prevent tips and spills. You'll find this feature on other great Beaba products like the soft cups, soft bowls and soft plates.

Pick a Worry, Any Worry

Phthalates, BPA, mercury, dioxins, smog, sunburn vs. vitamin D shortage, MSG, developing too slowly/too quickly, hormones in meat and dairy, pesticides on foods, trans fats, child too chubby/too skinny, too short/too tall, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, when to start solids, vaccines, antibiotic resistant bugs, just plain BUGS, did he just eat dirt, do hot dogs cause cancer...

The list of things we worry about as mommies is very nearly infinite. I am sure you can dream up new ones to add to my list. And that list was just the things we can worry about with a small child, is seems to increase geometrically as they get older and their sphere of experience expands.

I don't know about you, but my piddly human mind just can't contain all of the possible worries that I *needed* to worry about as a mom. There finally came a point where I simply had to let some go.

Does that mean I ignored them? Well I kind of do ignore some of those nagging worries. I don't throw caution to the wind and just give up, but there are some things I just couldn't give my thought time to anymore. I take a deep breath, look my worry in the eye, and let it go. I do what I can and call it good.

With some things that involves making a little change. Take sippy cups for example. I am not going to toss out my whole stash of sippies willy-nilly, but I am going to make sure any new ones I purchase are BPA free ones, and toss the old ones as I can. It means changing our habits so that instead of having 5 cheap sippies for each small child in the house we have just one higher quality sippy, so we need to know where they are. They get washed by hand and kept on the counter between uses.

Small product switches like changing from supermarket baby products to California Baby or Burt's Bees helps me to leave behind the worry that there are too many chemicals leaching into my baby's skin. And the difference in price helps me to remember that these are cosmetics and that I should use them sparingly, especially on young skin.

I buy organic whenever I can. But when there is more month than money I just buy the regular produce and milk. I give it no more permission to take up my time, energy and stress with thoughts that I should be doing more. I keep doing better than I was doing before. My home and my family have fewer toxins than they had a year ago, but there are many more to work on. In the mean time I do my best and live with a little of the idea that "it hasn't killed us yet..."

The media these days thrives on bad news and it can get very easy at times to get sucked into their fear mongering. The stress that they mass produce and pipe into our TVs, computers, and radios can have a worse effect on us and our families than some of the things they are scaring us about. When you feel that stress catching up to you, (and it is only natural that it should, you are a parent and want what is best for your precious child) take a moment and write down the list of worries. Then pick one. Pick a worry, any worry. Ask yourself if there is something you can do about it to make your life or your child's life better. Ignore all the other ones for now, they will wait for you. If you can do something great! If not, look that worry in the face and let it go with the knowledge that you are still doing your best for your family.

Phthalates & BPA - Two chemical compounds we should know more about

I am a cloth diapering mom, but I am also very concerned about the ingredients in other products my children use. One of my sons is very sensitive to detergents and is allergic to cinnamon. Our other son is allergic to corn and to dyes. We actually read the ingredient label now on every single piece of food that comes into our house and carefully watch all of our cleaners for ingredients that will cause reactions. I have been disappointed and surprised at the low levels to which some manufacturers will stoop to hide questionable ingredients. This issue was elevated again today when my husband, Jimmy, emailed me several articles about new research into BPA and Phthalates. The physical impact of these ingredients are often downplayed by United States product manufacturers and trade organizations, but the increasing media attention to this issue has raised the consumer awareness level and is producing an increased number of questions about the safety of products containing BPA and Phthalates.

We've been taught to be mostly concerned about soft plastic toys. However, MSNBC just published an article today about how researchers have found elevated levels of phthalates in the urine of babies just bathed, lotioned or powdered with baby products. The article mentions that artificial fragrances are a known source of phthalates. Unfortunately, my bathtub is currently full of fragranced baby products. I was very surprised to learn that the FDA does not require companies to disclose the exact ingredients in fragrance oils. This explains why we were unaware that phthalates were present in fragrance oils. As a parent, this makes me uncomfortable. As a product manufacturer, I have an ethical issue with hiding ingredients on a label.

This is an important issue for us at Cotton Babies because we recently developed and released bumGenius Bottom Cleaner, a cleansing product designed to be used in combination with reusable baby wipes and cloth diapers. The ingredient providing the fragrance in bumGenius Bottom Cleaner (for use with reusable baby wipes) is 100% natural Vanilla Planifolia. The product and the packaging are completely BPA and phthalate free.

In my travels through the issues related to plastics, I've also recently discovered that plastics can also leach bisphenol A (also known as BPA). Interestingly enough, except for bottles made by a few select manufacturers (including Born), BPA is common in polycarbonate baby bottles. Another report, published this weekend by Canada's leading national newspaper, Globe Life Health, states that boiling water in plastic containers spikes bisphenol A levels. Many parents will actually boil their baby's bottles to sterilize the bottle. Coffee drinkers to put very hot coffee in plastic travel mugs, then later microwave cold coffee in the same mug. Parents often microwave food for their child in a plastic bowl or plate. According to this article, this process can cause "a dramatic spike in the amount of bisphenol A, or BPA, leaching from containers into drinks... Bisphenol A is being reviewed because of health concerns that exposure to the hormone-like chemical could be a factor in recent health trends, such as increasing rates of prostate cancer, earlier onset of puberty in girls and declining sperm counts."

As the mother of two young boys, I find this rather concerning. I don't like to get all worked up about nothing, but found these two articles particularly concerning. We are now in the process of removing plastic sippy cups from our cupboard and moving to several non-leaching options available from SIGG and Foogo, by Thermos.

"Phthalates & BPA - Two chemical compounds we should know more about" is Copyright 2008, Cotton Babies, Inc.