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Forget about organic cribs – the greenest baby gear is the stuff you don’t buy!

April 11, 2011 By 4 Comments



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Being green is about reducing, recycling, and reusing. If you are about to have a baby or trying to get pregnant, it is all too easy to fall in love with organic cribs and crib mattresses, handmade clothes and toys, and breastfeeding pillows. But do you really need all those things? The greenest baby gear is precisely that which you do not end up buying.

After two kids, I am convinced that there are very few things that are truly baby-care essentials. For my family, they are cloth diapers, a good baby carrier, clothes and my breasts. We did inherit a crib from my husband’s family (he used to sleep in it himself!), and we did buy a stroller, a new crib mattress, and far too many toys. Even though I try to be green, I am not immune to a little bit of shopaholism. My tips for fellow green moms who love to shop? Ask yourself these questions before you buy:

-Do we really need this?

-Can we borrow it, get it as a hand-me-down, or buy it second hand?

-Do I really, really want this item?

-How useful will the (crib, stroller, dozens of cloth diapers) really be? Will we use it often, or will it just be another piece of clutter in our home?

-How long will this item last? Will our baby benefit from this for a long time, or will it only be useful a couple of months?

If, after asking all those questions, you still want to buy – go right ahead and enjoy your item!

Written by Olivia from Trying to Conceive, a blog dedicated to fertility, pregnancy and babies


Filed Under: Green Shopping, Guest Posts Tagged With: , , , , , ,
  • http://profiles.google.com/kdfgreene Kristina Greene

    Great advice! I have 3 children and wish someone had said this to me then! For our first child, we bought everything! The second and third came all at once – twins. We smartened up quick and borrowed everything we could.

    One other thing – don’t let magazines and books tell you that you MUST have this or that. Chances are you don’t. Ask another Mom first.

  • http://www.greensahm.com Stephanie – Green at Home Mom

    We do some serious reusing with our kids. Even for the first we were given most of the usual stuff, buying little ourselves, and quickly found out how little baby really needs.

    My mother-in-law was first horrified at my delighted acceptance of handmedowns for babies, until she started looking at prices and the quality I was getting given to me. I have 3 kids, and I have rarely bought more than a few new clothes for them.

    We love cloth diapering and wish I’d considered it before. Only doing it with this last baby, and it has been very much worthwhile.

  • http://twitter.com/Caedmen Rachel neufeld

    I think baby items are the perfect things to get secnd hand or to give to someone else once you are done with them. Babies use things for such a short amount of time that things rarely get worn out. But boy, it sure is nice to have a few of those things, like an exersaucer, bouncy chair, stroller, ect. I wouldn’t have been able to survive without some of that stuff but I plan on taking good care of it all and passing it along to another mom once I’m done with it:)

  • http://twitter.com/navanavanava navanavanava

    Agree with it all, except that any crib over 8-10 years old and car seats MUST be bought new! No, really!
    The crib is a dropside no doubt (no fixed-side cribs back then) and hardware can warp from sitting in storage and unless you can 100% trust the person giving you the car seat that it wasn’t in an accident (and you’ve checked to make sure it isn’t expired [they last about 6-7 years for most brands]), then you’re okay.