Because parents only have two arms, the adorable Skip Hop Penguin Soapster Foaming Soap Dispenser comes in very handy. This cute soap dispenser allows you to grab some soap with one hand, while holding onto your slippery baby with the other, making tub time washing fun and convenient. You don’t need to remove the penguin from the wall to fill it up, and the dispenser is refillable, making it a greener choice than multiple plastic bottles of soap. Now you can buy non-toxic soap in bulk! Plus, as your child ages, he’ll be able to press penguin’s belly to lather up all by himself. This dispenser easily mounts to tile or glass with suction, adhesive or screw plates, and the convenient window shows when you’re running low on soap. This set is also BPA-free and phthalate-free, helping to keep bath-time less toxic.

+ Skip Hop Penguin Soapster Foaming Soap Dispenser $24

+ Skip Hop

We love playful storage solutions for kids so when we stumbled upon this duck-shaped toy box, called Quackie, we were over the moon! With several spots to stow and stack toys, and a clever duck design, kids will be happy to help fill it with their books and toys. Dreamed up by the folks at e-glue, Quackie is not yet in production though. We’re crossing our fingers that an eco-friendly company will manufacture it from sustainable materials. No matter how much we like to think we limit the amount of toys we let our kids have, they still seem to pile up and get out of control, so bring on more cute and eco organizing products!

+ Quackie

+ e-glue

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ThredUP launched their unique children’s clothing recycling program back in 2010. Up until now, the only way to swap outgrown clothes through thredUP was to build a box of about 10 items of the same size and season and post them on the site so other moms can choose to buy your box. Now, the company is making the clothing recycling process even easier with thredUP Concierge. Just request a free Concierge bag online, fill it with your kid’s outgrown clothing, return the bag with a prepaid label and you’ll earn up to $5 per piece.

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The PlanToys Workbench is perfect for kids who love to build. The set includes plenty of workbench items, including six handy tools, 27 cool construction parts and a removable storage unit to keep everything tidy. The various construction parts can be placed on both the table and back panel, and the back panel doubles as a tool holder. The wood clamp included in this set may be used easily by both right and left handed children. Luckily for less industrial parents, minimal assembly is required. This set, like other PlanToy items is made with sustainable rubberwood and child-safe paints. You can add more fun with the also safe and green, PlanToys Tool Belt Set.

+ PlanToys Workbench $130.99

+ PlanToys Tool Belt Set $27.81

+ PlanToys

A new research study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) may reduce the effectiveness of common childhood vaccines. Researchers working on this study, headed up by Dr. Philippe Grandjean, chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, studied children born in the Faroe Islands due to reports of increasing amounts of PFCs in the drinking water and fish located within close proximity to the Islands. Children in the study received the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine at 3 months, along with the recommended booster at age five. The researchers tested the immunity of the children, at age five and seven years, and drew some blood to test PFC levels. What they found wasn’t good. Higher levels of PFCs in the blood correlated with much lower immune responses. In fact, by the age of seven years, children with a twofold increase of bodily PFCs were up to fours times as likely to have an immune response that was no longer even clinically active. Basically, children with the highest PFC levels weren’t as protected or weren’t protected at all against disease, even though they’d been vaccinated.
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We’re not huge fans of the USDA school lunch program. Not only has Congress attempted to keep school lunches unhealthy, to the point of declaring pizza a vegetable, but overall, school lunches contain some horrid stuff. From pesticides to too much fat and sodium to flavored milk, fizzy fruit and fast food, school lunches throughout the last decade have become nightmarish in quality at most schools. Your child, thus far, has been better off with a sustainable healthy packed lunch. Now though, thankfully, there’s hope on the horizon. Thanks to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by the First Lady and signed by President Obama, the USDA is making the first major changes to all school meals in 15 years. Hopefully these changes will stick and result in a healthier generation of children.
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Researchers from the Children’s Environmental Health Center at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York have recently found a link between exposure to phthalates and childhood obesity in young children. Researchers working on this study measured phthalate concentrations in the urine of 387 children plus recorded body measurements including BMI, height, and waist circumference one year later. Urine tests revealed that shockingly, more than 97% of all the children were, at some point exposed to phthalates and the researchers guess that body care products may be to blame. Children exposed to the highest concentrations of chemicals also had larger BMI results and larger waist circumference results. BMI and waist circumference are both likely to be higher in overweight or obese children. The study’s lead author Susan Teitelbaum, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, notes:

“Research has shown that exposure to these everyday chemicals may impair childhood neurodevelopment, but this is the first evidence demonstrating that they may contribute to childhood obesity. This study also further emphasizes the importance of reducing exposure to these chemicals where possible.”

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