Wanna win some soft, organic, fair trade clothes for you little one? Nature’s Child is having a contest where you could win $250 worth of Speesee’s cute and vibrant clothing…all by sharing a tid bit of the best parenting advice you’ve received as a new parent. Just make sure to do it by the end of September 2008 or you’ll miss out.

After you enter the contest, come back here and tell us what piece of advice you shared with Nature’s Child by commenting on this post. If it’s the best advice ever, we’ll showcase it on our website with your name for all other parents to see so they can get a jump start on great parenting tactics.

Although most infants are not technically diagnosed with asthma at such a young age, many infants do suffer from asthma-like symptoms. Disposable diapers have been studied to link the chemicals that are released from them to bronchial irritations found in infants, children and asthmatic parents or caregivers.

I have experienced this first hand and have to say that I do believe that young children who are already sensitive can be highly affected by the use of disposable diapers. My son suffered from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) as a newborn and has had asthma-like symptoms since. His symptoms sometimes require breathing treatments. Recently we had to put him in disposables because he developed a reaction to synthetic fabric. (We were using Fuzzi Bunz which have polyester fleece lining.) The wait for cotton diapers took longer than anticipated and after just a few days of being in disposables he began to have labored breathing which did not subside. Keeping him in the Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers was probably a lesser evil then using the disposable diapers.

Parents with children who have existing breathing problems have a good reason to switch to cloth diapers. There is not a good reason to keep using products that have a large possibility of increasing health risks. Read the complete article about disposable diapers being linked to asthma and find out which disposable diapers did not release the bronchial irritants.

I was at the park today with my children and there were several other children there of all ages. One thing stood out to me though…there was a little girl, probably 16 or 18 months old who was climbing on the play structure. It seemed so difficult for her to do this as she had to lift her legs very high and when she attempted to put her foot down, she would stumble because she just couldn’t get a grip with her big, hard soled shoes. Like I had x-ray vision, I could just see her tiny toes inside those shoes trying to balance her and help her climb. But through the thickness of the shoes, they weren’t able to do their job.

This really made me realize how much our small children really need soft soled leather shoes. The reason I say leather is because leather allows the feet to breathe whereas faux leather does not. Even if it’s not for the healthy development of feet, parents should put soft sole shoes on their children just so they can get around easier. Even if they aren’t leather, go ahead and get them because most of the thick, hard sole shoes aren’t leather either.

I remember when shopping at Trader Joe’s was fun and relaxing. The environment was different than that of other stores. Now, with two kids, Trader Joe’s is still my favorite store to shop but sometimes I want to avoid the place. Why, you ask. Read more…

With fall approaching, cold season will come sooner than we like but there is a way to defend ourselves against getting the common cold repeatedly throughout the season. Read more…