Baby Green: Caring for your baby the eco-friendly way

I wasn't mad about this book.It immediately feels like half of it is an advert for products in their shop 'Green Baby', which has branches in Richmond, Reigate, etc. It is a very expensive shop!None of the information in the book was particularly useful, and it was all stuff I think most people would know already.And on a different level, the typeface is too small to be comfortable to read, and I didn't like the font they used!

A friend bought me this book, as I'm an ecologist who tries to live in an environmentally friendly way - and I'm seven months pregnant.The first point to note is that it is written by someone who sells organic/green baby stuff - not exactly impartial.I found it difficult to read, as it jumps about from topic to topic in a fairly random order, spending whole chapters on some things and only bullet points on others. For example, the travel chapter spends ages talking about flying with a small child or baby, and only casually mentions the possibility of staying in the UK for your holiday.There are some sensible suggestions that I totally agree with, like trying re-usable nappies, but there are also quite a few that are totally off the wall e.g. 'think about enlarging your windows for extra solar gain'. There is also a lot of info about the scary chemicals that are found in almost everything. Yes, it would be lovely to only eat organic, wear organic and use organic products, but only a very few people can afford to. Case in point is the chapter on clothing, which carefully explains how much pesticide is used in cotton growing (vast quantities), and the conditions that some farm labourers work in. The point therefore, being to dress your baby in organic, fairtrade clothes only. No mention of using second hand clothes until the end of the chapter, where she suggests passing on your organic baby clothes to someone else. My baby's clothes are virtually all coming from friends with older children, or charity shops - just as eco-friendly.Basically, yes, try to live in an environmently friendly way. Recycle where you can, think about what's in the products you buy and where they came from etc etc. But don't let this woman make you paranoid or guilty because you can't afford or don't agree with what she says. This is definitely not the only way to be green.