Baby Living

With all the news media frenzy around Phthalates and baby products it makes you wonder, is anything safe anymore? Do we need to go extreme...all natural for everything we use, or maybe nothing at all?  

Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastics softer and more malable. It is used in scented products and many loations, shampoos, etc. There hasn't been any direct evidence in humans of the effects of Phthalates, but worries are it increases toxicity effecting reproductive development, especially in infants under 8 months.

So what to do? Suggestions from the medical community is to either use Pthalates free products or just bag shampoos, loations and the like. The problem with both of these are we like to keep our kids clean, and there is no government regulation that requries printing Pthalates level on the packaging. As parents we will have to do our own investigating on this issue. If it worries you contact the company whose loations and potions you are using on your baby and find out if their products are 100% Pthalates FREE.

Mustela, formulated in France is completely 100% Phthalate FREE. They have a wide variety of baby loations, cremes, shampoos and overall cleansing products. Mustela is a brand I commonly use in my house and have been since my children were born. I chose it because it was soap free and didn't dry out my children's skin. Knowing that I also haven't had to worry about this "maybe" health scare helps me rest a bit easier. For more information on Mustela follow the link below.

http://www.ellabellakids.com/mustela.html

Posted by ellabella at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You have just arrived home from the hospital and you are preparing your newborn to sleep. The hospital nurses maybe gave you a run through on how to swaddle your baby and it looked pretty easy, right? Wrong! Many of us new parents have gotten our new baby's home only to find when baby is ready for dream land we can not get the whole swaddle thing to look anything like the nurse did. What was her technique? The staff at ellabellakids.com has some tips and techinques to get your little one snug as a bug in a swaddle.

Swaddling is important because it not only creates the womb feeling that comforts baby but it keeps baby's limbs secure beneath the blanket. Baby's have jerking reactions which can startle them awake. They can also scratch their faces if their arms and hands are left out of the blanket.

When beginning to swaddle your baby think of it like you are making a buritto.

1. First lay your blanket out flat and fold down the top corner if your blanket is a large square.

2. Lay your baby on his back on top of the corner fold and place your baby's arms by his side.

3. Take one side of the blanket and wrap it snugly around the baby and tuck it under him.

4. Pull the bottom corner up around baby's feet and tuck it into the last fold that went across his body.

5. Take the last corner and tuck it around behind the baby's back.

***While swaddling you baby make sure you are pulling the blanket snugly around baby and be certain as to not overheat the baby. Room temperature should be kept around 65-70 degrees.

Posted by ellabella at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)