Nine No-Fail Ideas to Keep a Toddler Happy in the Car

In the past few weeks our youngest (16 months) has gone from being a happy little traveler to being a rolling whiner.  From the moment she realizes that the car ride is coming she stiffens up and fusses.  After fifteen minutes in the car she starts to really get mad (the twice-daily rountrip to school is 20 minutes, mind you), and forget about anything longer--it's just not worth the bother.  So here they are, my top nine ways to keep the littlest one happy in the car:

1. Crank up the radio, and sing along.  Sorry NPR, babies don't like you.  Anything with some good rhythm and melody seems to work for us.  The singing is a requirement.
2. Make sure that the seat is adjusted comfortably.  I realized a few weeks ago that she was reclined a bit more than she liked, meaning that she had to hold her head up to see her hands.  Vewy fwustwating. 
   
3. Double check the diaper.  I also realized that after-school pickup came right before her usual change and the wetness was irritating.  Changing before the ride made for a marked improvement.
   
4. One word: snacks.  I like the Gerber fruit puffs in a spill-proof snack cup. 
   
5. Small board books...I mean, really small--toddler's hands small.  Our copy of Maisy's Favorite Animals has been worn out by three sets of hands, but is beloved by all!
   
6. Play 'what's in the sock?'  This one works remarkably well.  Put a baby toy, finger puppet, or other safe object in a sock (or wrap it in a bandanna) then have your child work to get it out. 
   
7. Provide three or more things to play with, preferably ones that haven't been too played with.
8. Take off the poor kid's shoes and socks.  Sweet pea can get really worked up trying to get hers off and those toes are just too succulent to leave alone!
   
9. And if all else fails, a sucker.  We like dum-dums, but saf-t-pops (with the looped handle) are probably safer (she says guiltily!).

How do you keep your littlest ones happy for a car ride?  (please share...I need all the help I can get!)

Ten (more) Surefire Ways to Occupy Your Toddler

A couple of months ago I shared a list of some of my favorite activities for keeping toddlers occupied for a bit when you need to cook dinner, check your email, or (goodness me!) take a break on the couch for a few minutes.  Well, it was such a hit that I thought I'd better share a few more of my standards.  I'll be sharing ideas for preschoolers and older kids in the next few weeks, so check back!

1. Set up a game of kitchen-ball with a laundry basket and a selection of small balls (crumpled paper balls are great, or tennis balls, wiffle balls, large bouncy balls, even beanbags work--nothing that could be a choking hazard, depending on the age of your child!)  Have your child try to toss the balls in from a short distance.  They'll usually wind up chasing the balls around as they bounce away so it lasts longer than you'd think!  Alternately, lay a paper grocery sack on it's side and have the child roll the balls into the bag. 
2. Get out a muffin tin (one with six holes works well) and provide your toddler with an assortment of small, safe things to "sort" (duplo legos, large bouncy balls, plastic links).  Admittedly, it's possible that little sorting will actually occur, but the process of filling and emptying the compartments is just so satisfying!
   
3. Supply your child with a feather or lambswool duster and send them to town cleaning any horizontal surface they come across.  I can't guarantee that they'll do a decent job, but is that really the point?
4. Tape or tie an empty cardboard mailing tube at an incline to two legs of a table or through one arm of a chair and atop the other arm and have your child send big bouncy balls, matchbox cars, etc through the chute.
5. Cut a fairly large slit in the top of a shoebox to make a "mailbox".  Provide your child with a deck of playing cards or collection of old hotel key-cards, ID cards, etc (that's the mail!).  Show him or her how to drop the cards through the slot one at a time, then dump them out and do it again. 
6. Provide a dishpan with a bit of water, a little sponge, and a collection of spoons (teaspoons, tablespoons, serving spoons, baby spoons, etc) for your little one to wash and sort.  You may want to set this up on a towel in the kitchen to contain the mess!
7. Once the spoon wash-and-sort gets old, put the spoons away and add more water, a few small floating tub toys and a little kitchen strainer.  Show your child how to dip the strainer in like a net to catch the little toys and lay them out on the towel to dry.  
8. Rustle up an old wallet and fill it with hotel key-cards, old ID cards, coupons clipped from the Sunday paper, and money-sized bits of construction paper.  Watch your child empty the wallet, organize the contents, put everything back in, then start again.  Alternately, fill a small purse with little animal figures, old cards, coupons, old keys, etc. 
   
9. Cut a tunnel-shaped opening in the side of a shoebox to make a matchbox car garage.  Show your child how to drive little cars in, then open the lid to find them again!
10. Set up a basket or shelf with a collection of small, empty food containers (i.e. jello or rice pilaf boxes, yogurt cups, butter boxes).  Have your child "shop" by filling a grocery bag with whatever's on her "list" (the one in her head, anyway!), then put the groceries back and try again.

What are your tricks for keeping the under-3 set occupied when you need a few minutes? 

organizing and storing kids stuff, toys, clothes, and everything else

I somehow made it through life not understanding how to keep things tidy. I'm pretty good at the actual act of cleaning (vacuuming, cleaning the toilet, dusting--however rarely that might happen), but in spite of having an compulsively tidy, uncluttering type of mother (love you mom!) I had no idea until fairly recently that to keep everything neat you simply have to have a place to put it. Saying that now I realize how completely ridiculous that sounds, since the whole "a place for everything and everything in its place" idea seems so obvious, but I just never got it (which was obvious by the stuff I had sitting around or 'stored' under the bed, etc. That said, I wouldn't say that everything is magically picked up all of the time since I had this life-changing revelation, but it's better. For one thing, the children know where to find their things and, better yet, where to put them away. Yes, they can pick up their toys, shovel them into a designated basket and return it to the shelf. When I do a big pick-up, I can just walk around the house with a laundry basket, filling it with misplaced things that I put away later on my route. So what did it take to get to this point?

• I'm a converted believer in containerization. Daddio pokes fun at me for having so many plastic bins, but once everything has a place to be it's easy to manage. Sets of toys fit into one of a few sizes of Sterilite containers (shoebox, double shoebox, or underbed boxes for the train set, or these) which fit on shelves or into a set of cabinets we have in the hallway. In our basement storeroom everything is stored in similar 28 gallon totes that fit onto shelves. Each is labeled with a sharpie. Craft supplies are in baskets and containers in a steelcase cabinet. (Let me tell you, it used to be that you could not find ANYTHING in our storeroom, so I feel awesome writing this out).
  
• The toy containers and baskets we have are all pretty much identical so that they can be swapped around the house or put into storage very easily. In our play/craft room we have a very long set of library shelves that holds all of our old little people playsets (with the small pieces in a basket), containers of individual sets of toys (e.g. one holds matchbox cars, another holds a set of building toys), and games, plus a small cabinet that holds a sorter full of different types of paper and small containers with pompoms, pipecleaners, markers, etc. Upstairs we have some cabinets that hold trucks and other containers. It's easy to take something upstairs, shift another toy downstairs, and exchange others with toys that are out of the rotation.
  
• Daddio and I are accumulators. We collect things and then can't let them go. Part of it, I think, is our thrifty nature--we're afraid that if we get rid of it then we'll need it at some point in the future and we'll have to spend money to buy it again--while another part is that having stuff makes us feel secure. Some of these things are collections (vintage radios, 50s dishes), some are craft supplies (fabric and yarn being a considerable portion of this), but some of it consists of stuff that we fundamentally don't need (tacky garage saled Christmas ornaments, toys that were never really liked, notebooks from graduate school). We had to purge. We kept things that would likely find use, containerized them, and stored them. Even if we don't use them they don't get in the way (it's sort of a compromise between our competing urges to accumulate and purge--I'd sort of like to get rid of everything and live in a sort of zen house, but I just don't think that it could work for our personalities).
  
• The living room is essentially a toy-free zone. We have a set of blocks that we play with in there and that's usually it. Very easy to clean up if someone's dropping by, and never gets that messy anyway.
  
• Finally, we don't really have that many 'toys'. We very rarely buy anything ourselves and have been very fortunate to have grandparents who are on-board with buying a few really nice toys rather than gobs of cheap stuff. There are a lot of open-ended toys (like dress-up clothes or the play kitchen) and craft supplies, but their imaginations seem to be most of what keeps them occupied.
  

Poking around online, I found a number of really great ideas for keeping kids' things tidy. I'm thinking that I'm on the right track, since a lot of other parents seem to have the same containerization idea, but honestly, theirs look better than mine.

• Good + Happy Day posted some pictures of her daughter Sabrina's storage system. I loved the decor in her bedroom, and the way the cutouts in each door turned the toys inside into bits of art. I also found her comments on Sabrina's use of the space really interesting.
• Mayaluna at maya*made came up with a cool idea for storing her daughter's hair and clothing accessories. This is something I've so struggled with since I had no idea that having a girl brought so many ponytail holders, necklaces, little purses, and hair clips!
  
• Laura at Organizing Junkie found a shelving unit for her playroom and labeled the bins with pictures.
  
• Finally, the posts that really made me think about how hard this can really be, Jen at Amazing Trips had a pair of posts outlining how she manages the chaos that her three-year old triplets and infant son wreak on her little house. I wondered how she did it all....
  

Surprising sources of BPA, phthalates, and PVC in your house (it's there!)

After a bit of looking over the weekend we realized that although the liquid-holding body of our sippy cups were phthalate and Bisphenol-A (BPA)-free, the lids weren't. Further, our daughter's pacifiers have BPA in the shield that holds the nipple and that...basically everything in our house has something bad in it. After throwing out the cups and switching pacifiers (we're going with the Evenflo Mimi since the nipple shape seems a lot like our standard MAMs), we're still left wondering what else is lurking. Here are some of the surprising sources we found in our trip around the internet:

• Food cans are lined with an epoxy resin coating that almost always contains BPA. This is particularly concerning with acidic foods such as tomatoes, and for liquid baby formula (since BPA has been found to leach out into fatty substances in higher concentrations). Eden Foods is the only company that I know of (or could find) that has removed this from their packaging (for beans, at least, not for tomatoes).
  
• Rubbermaid has an area on their site devoted to helping you determine whether Rubbermaid products you already own are a source of BPA. For other kitchen items, you can check out the cheat sheet for safe(r) plastic containers, and Z Recommends has a super-comprehensive listing of what baby feeding products to avoid.
• Nearly all baby mattresses are wrapped in PVC. PVC is generally considered to be one of the most toxic and environmentally damaging plastics in use and off-gasses nasty stuff into the air (it's what makes new cars smell like, well, like new cars). Additionally, they're filled with urethane foam, which releases nasties like benzene, and coated with a fire retardant containing things like antimony and arsenic. You can get around this by purchasing a cotton, wool, or natural latex mattress.
  
• Tooth-colored composite fillings often contain BPA--some are composed of up to 90% BPA.
• Some plastic wraps contain phthalates. These are mainly commercial grade wraps; Saran Wrap, Glad Cling Wrap, and Diamant Food Wrap (Diamant is made of cornstarch and compostable) definitely do not. Also, some plastic cutting boards contain BPA or phthalates.
  
• Two of the baby teethers that we owned contained phthalates. We also have a number of rubber duckies (which our oldest daughter used to carry in her mouth as she crawled around the house); some rubber ducks have been found to contain very high levels of DEHA, a particularly nasty phthalate. Safe Mama has a guide to figuring out whether the teethers and pacifiers you're offering may contain BPA or phthalates and for choosing safe(r) options.
  
• Many personal care products contain phthalates (patently bad) and parabens (jury's still out on actual badness), including baby washes, lotions, and cosmetics. Safe Mama offers a cheat sheet for this too. To generally stay away from phthalates altogether, here is a guide to other products to avoid.
• Sunscreen often contains parabens and phthalates, as well as formaldehyde, and some potentially estrogenic compounds such as benzophenone, homosalate, and octyl-methoxycinnamate/octinoxate. Considering the relative amount of surface area on a baby, you can expect that their exposure to these chemicals by weight will be much higher. Cosmetics Database has a super-comprehensive list of sunscreens to buy, what to avoid, and best of all (for us living up in the mountains, that much closer to the sun) a listing of how accurate the SPF rating on the bottle is.
  

Now that I've totally freaked you out, I personally think that this should all be taken with a grain of salt. I cook with lots of canned foods (especially tomatoes), all of my children have slept on PVC-wrapped, flame-retardant, urethane foam mattresses, and my mouth is full of pretty white fillings. There's not much I can do about some of this (let alone our general exposure to environmental toxins), but I think that it would be easy to make some simple changes that would work with our lifestyle.

More from the collective:

• The basics: what are PVC, phthalates, BPA, dioxins, and parabens?
• Safe teething toys
• Choosing safe playthings
• So which plastics are safe?
  

The basics: What are PVC, BPA, phthalates, and dioxins?

We keep reading about how bad the stuff in our house is, but I'm still confused about what it all is and why I should be worried about it. So here is the Cliff's Notes version:

• Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a component in plastics (mainly polycarbonate [recycling #7], which is clear and shatter-resistant) and the epoxy linings of food cans. There are two camps on the safety of BPA. The American Plastics Council maintains that the potential human exposure to BPA is extremely low and poses no known risk to human health. On the other side are groups maintaining that the APC is basing their recommendation on outdated research and that over 100 newer studies are showing adverse effects of BPA exposure in animal models, suggesting that it does have a biological effect. Structurally BPA is very similar to naturally occurring estrogen and there is evidence that it disrupts endocrine function in the body and it has been linked to low sperm count, hyperactivity, early puberty, obesity, small testes size, and enlarged prostates.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC; recycling #3) is used in a great many products. From construction materials such as sprinkler pipe and vinyl siding to credit cards and music records nearly all of us come into contact with it on a daily basis. It can be made softer with the addition of phthalates, making it useful in the manufacture of clothing, vinyl toys, and flexible hoses such as those used in medical applications.
  
• Phthalates are used as plastic softeners, oily substances in perfumes, additives to hairsprays, lubricants, cosmetics, and wood finishers. One of these, DEHP (diethylhexyl phthalate), has been banned in the European Union out of concern for children's safety. Health concerns surrounding PVC are related to both contact exposure (e.g. children mouthing toys) and offgassing (e.g. compounds released into the air--see 'new car smell'). High doses are known to be toxic, but the current research is focused on the effect of chronic, low-dose exposure, and exposure to children and fetuses during critical periods of development (e.g. DEHP was found to produce dramatic changes in male sexual development with low-dose exposure in utero). Additionally, it has been related to exacerbating allergic reactions to an allergen. (Here is a fairly non-neutral source of additional information including a list of products to avoid if you're trying to stay away from phthalates.)
• Parabens widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, as well as in food products (here is a not-too-biased source of information about these products). Long-term studies have generally found parabens to be safe. However, other studies have found the presence of parabens in cancerous breast tumors, leading to concern that parabens in underarm deodorants may be related to the development of cancers. Further, parabens have been found to have weak estrogenic activity in the body. This category seems to still have a big question mark.
  
• Dioxins are produced as a biproduct of PVC manufacture, and are also found in a variety of household goods such as most brands of baby diapers. They are considered to be a global health threat because they persist in the environment for an extended period and appear to be very toxic. At even very low levels, near those to which the general population is exposed, dioxins have been linked to immune system suppression, reproductive disorders, a variety of cancers, and endometriosis.
  

I hope you found this as helpful as I did. My head was really starting to spin trying to figure out which was which, and how bad any of this really is.

toys 'r' us and their "natural toys"

Just in time, Toys 'R' Us, the one store I avoid at all costs if I've got children in tow, has come up with their own line of wooden toys. They're constructed of replenishable materials and are chemical-free. As I said earlier, I really do think that mainstream toy manufacturers are starting to respond to the concerns of their consumer base!
Read more .http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

mmmmm....teething toys!

I got a great question from Susannah, mother of a little teether:
i do have question for you...whats your best recs for teething toys? is there a particular website or brand of toys i should look for?

Great question! If you haven't noticed, I love to give advice (as my close friends will attest to) and with a six month old myself, I hope I can give you some helpful insight. We have a pretty healthy selection of baby toys, and I've found over time that my kids have generally really liked toys with a bit of give, made out of things like wood, cloth, or rubber-y plastic (which I'm really wondering about now after my research about toys and plastics!). The few harder plastic toys (which I think may have been polycarbonate, a source of bisphenol-a) didn't seem to be that gummable to them, so I got rid of them anyhow. Our current favorites are the Sassy Earth Brights, particularly the dove and the cherry tree rattle. Adelaide seems to like the different textures, and particularly the crinkly-fabric parts, and I like both of these because they're easy for her to hold and find something to bite on. I've generally stayed away from the ones that are on a ring since they seem to be the hardest for a baby to get the part they want into their mouth while holding on to the ring since the pieces slide, but the Nuby Bug-a-Loop is an exception. I'm starting to worry since it's plastic, but the rubbery bugs have a nice bite and different textures. She also likes to chew on stuffed toys, and the Haba Little Dwarf has arms and a hat for good gumming, while having no chokable parts to pop off, and a nice little rattler sewn securely inside.
Haba makes a variety of rattles and wooden teethers available from Amazon and Oompa Toys. I haven't tried any of them, but they are so cute! Like the Bonita Clutching Toy up at the top!

The thing is that, realistically, your baby grows out of these by about 10-12 months, and they're always happy to rediscover the same toy so you probably only need 3-4 really good choices. Also, you want to be super-careful about giving your little one anything with loose parts that they might be able to pull off (obviously), or that they might poke themselves with (like a baby spoon, oops!). Also, my children seem to be magnetically attracted to my keys, but keys may have a high lead content and babies shouldn't be allowed to mouth them.

How about you? Do you have any ideas for Susannah about baby teethers? Places to look, things to watch for? Please share in the comments (right below the end of this post).

Giveaway! $20 at Oompa Toys

Oompa Toys is one of my very favorite online choices for fun, safe kids' toys and art supplies. They've got a great selection of toys from HABA and other European manufacturers (and if you've read earlier rants, er, posts you already know that the EU imposes strict standards on their toys). Also, they promise NO BATTERIES. NO BLINKING LIGHTS. NO CARTOON-THEMED TOYS. PERIOD. Got it?


To enter to win a $20 gift certificate to Oompa toys, just leave a comment below with something you'd like to see a post about. Contest ends midnight April 30, and the winner will be selected by random number generator. Check back to see if it's you!
(note that personal information, e.g. email address, will not be shared or added to a mailing list, whatever.)

Thanks, and good luck!

This contest is closed! Congratulations to reeva, I hope you enjoy your certificate!

making good choices in the big bad world of toys...

So yesterday I was freaked out about the lead, the phthalates, the cheap plastic toys that seem to overflow our shelves.... but I think I've gotcha covered. By being just a tiny bit selective, it's really quite simple to buy better stuff. You'll be happier too, since it seems like these playthings are just better quality and are better designed and promote great play. So you've got options.
One important point to make, however, is that we've bought very few of the toys in our house. We didn't even give our kids Christmas presents until last year. We rely on the grandparents and aunts and uncles to keep our shelves stocked. They've been really good to us, but part of that is because we've made our preferences clear and (in the case of my parents in particular) have provided ideas of specific items and places to shop for the kinds of toys we like to have around. Also, at this point, we've decided to ask for gifts that include one toy item and a cash donation to their Education IRAs since we have enough to clean up, er, play with already!


Buy handmade toys:


It may take a bit of looking, but shops like Mahar Dry Goods, and Etsy are stocked with lots of clever toys for little ones. In addition to knowing what your toys are made from, you can feel good knowing that you've supported a craftsperson in their trade....like the person who made this cool felt pizza set over at Mahar.

Make your own play:

When Josie was a little pumpkin I did a lot more actual toymaking than I do now (wonder why). Still, it's personally rewarding and you can produce something truly special for your child. Here are some ideas for you:

Make games. Josie and I have made a whole selection of board games that we pull out and play over and over. Some are really simple with just a die and a path of stickers to follow to the end. Others are really complex with many pieces and random rules from the mind of a five year old. We'll have these for-ev-er.

Make dolls and snugglers. Hillary at Wee Wonderfuls and Teresa at Sewing Stars have a variety of patterns and kits to produce sweet little things. If you're new to the whole idea, try the
Lavender Baby pattern at Molly Chicken. It's super simple and CUTE!

Involve your kids in household tasks. Josie and Jasper are super-experienced in the kitchen. At just 2 Jasper was helping chop veggies with his little safe chopper from Montessori Services (below), and at 4 Josie could make pizza crust with a tiny bit of assistance on the food processor. It's something we've always enjoyed doing together and although it might take me a little longer than if I were alone it really, really cuts down on the whining and fussing. That and we get a lot more treats that way! They also help with folding laundry (even if it's just by building forts out of my sheets or playing hopscotch on the washcloths), emptying the dishwasher (making drums out of my pots and cymbals out of the lids), and cleaning the walls around the bathtub at bathtime (whilst I clean the toilet).

Buy good-quality mass-produced toys:

Toy standards are vastly different in Europe and restrict use of things like PVC (known for its nasty phthalates) and actually test for lead (and although some of them produce their toys in China, they own the factories and control labor practices and sourcing of materials). These places are full of fun toy choices that you can feel good about:

Magic Cabin carries a lot of fun Waldorf-inspired doll kits, wooden toys, and other lovely things. Their prices are surprisingly reasonable, like this crazy-fun looking 'sand mixer' for under $20
And this felt bird on a nest, which I love.


Hearthsong is Magic Cabin's sister store. They have some items you may want to be wary of, but a lot of mainstream options for potentially picky older children.

"Green Toys" section at Amazon. They've substantially improved their offerings of 'safe,' sustainably produced toys, and are now stocking a lot more toys from HABA and other European manufacturers. I was surprised!



Willow Tree Toys supplies
a variety of Waldorf-style toys like this wooden wave stacker.

Oompa Toys carries many HABA toys which are, hands down, the favorites in our house. It seems like they can't make a bad toy, and have a huge range of board games for a variety of ages.

Montessori Services supplies Montessori schools with the tools children need to do their 'work.' Turns out my kids think that this 'work' is a lot like 'playing.'

Other than that, I can only suggest that you buy more books and music. Enough said :)

fear of toys.

The whole toy recall thing really hit me last summer. With our organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee, our organic strawberries (okay, sometimes), throwing out the polycarbonate sippy cups, no pesticides, blah blah blah, one would assume that toys were safe. They're toys! For children! I'd love to have a house full of lovely wooden, or European, or cloth toys, but the reality is that we don't. We even had to check our poor Thomas the train collection. That really got to me.
Even once you're comfortable with the fact that your toys aren't exuding lead, you come back to PVC and phthalates, not to mention poor labor practices (slavery, children being forced to produce goods, factory workers working for barely a living wage). Ugh. I love my little people (that is, the chokable Fisher Price toys from the 70s), but it leaves me wondering about whether their contemporaries are a good choice.
I honestly hope that the ongoing media coverage of this issue and the public backlash leaves the big toy companies thinking about the impact of what they're doing, if only from the realization that consumers aren't going to continue to buy junk. (...and I think that manufacturers and toy sellers have started to judging from Sassy's new natural wood baby toy line and the "Green Toys" section on Amazon).
Honestly, we don't need half as many toys as we have (and we don't even have that many), and I've really tried to shift to spending a bit more on great quality, reliable toys, games and puzzles from responsible companies (like HABA, who we love in this house). This has been satisfying not just as a consumer, but as an end-user, since experience has proven that these toys and, in particular, the games are way, way, way more fun that Candyland or the latest offerings from Fisher Price, et al. (sad to say, since I totally grew up on that stuff), and that the kids get so much more quality play out of each toy that you can--and should--have fewer playthings (I'll have to post more on that sometime, from the perspective of a Developmental Psychologist--the total overwhelm that comes from too freakin' many toys).

Tommorrow: So yeah, what do I do now?