How to Be a Green Mom

The most important thing you can do is keep your children healthy and help them be compassionate about the world we live in. Start from day one by instilling green habits into your life and give your children a head start on healthy, natural living. You can do this by becoming green even before you conceive, when you conceive or whenever the time is right. It’s never too late to become a green mom. Read on to learn how to be a green mom.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Organic bedding
• All natural, non-toxic toys
• Organic food
• Natural organic personal care products
• A love for nature to instill in your children
• Recycling habits

1. Change your eating habits. This is one of the biggest and most important ways to live a natural, healthy, green life. Food goes directly into our bodies and affects everything about us. Many foods are filled with chemicals, preservatives and are tainted with pesticides. All these add up in our bodies and create illnesses. Babies and small children are especially vulnerable to harm from food toxins. Go natural, fresh and organic with as much of your food as possible.
2. Go organic with everything else possible in your life as well. Organic doesn’t stop with the food that you eat. You clothing, bedding, linens, even your health and personal care products come in organic varieties. The most important things to change to organic are anything that goes in or on the body. Companies are adding natural, organic product lines everyday with the growing popularity of going green. This makes it easier and cheaper to find what you need. Just read labels and avoid products with phthalates, parabens, petroleum-based products, synthetic fragrances and anything else that has too many chemical, unpronounceable names on the ingredients list.
3. Go green and natural with your furnishings as well. Solid wood furniture made with non toxic stains and paints, natural bamboo, cork, or wood flooring and VOC free paints are excellent choices when remodeling or upgrading your furnishings.
4. Consider gently used. Used items can be wonderful, soft, broken in and better the second (or third) time around. There are plenty of second hand stores, consignment shops and thrift stores that cater to baby and children’s items. Just be sure to check recall lists on the web and make sure that everything is clean and safe. Used items are wonderful because they can save you a fortune plus by being used again they aren’t ending up in landfills and no new resources were needed to make them. A very green choice for the green mom. Great online resources for finding free and cheap used items are Freecycle and Craigslist.
5. Clean green. Going through all the trouble of buying organic foods and natural products can go to waste when you still fill your home with toxic and synthetic chemicals through the use of conventional cleaning products. Try all natural solutions like Seventh Generation, Bi-O-Kleen, Ecover, and others that are safe and natural. You can even make your own out of simple everyday items like vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and essential oils.
6. Get friends and family involved. It is hard to be green when everyone around you isn’t. Especially when it involves people that will probably at some time bring things to your home and buy gifts for your kids. Don’t be pushy but inform them about all the wonderful green choices out there and where they can be found and how they can be implemented into life easily.
7. Make recycling a habit. Set up your recycling bins and get the kids involved. They might enjoy helping you peel off labels, rinse out containers and sort through everything and out it into the right bins. Also make sure to explain the importance of recycling and why you do it. An informed child is a knowledgeable child and chances are they’ll tell their friends about it too.
8. Teach your children to live green, from caring about the environment to taking care of wildlife, healthy nature loving habits can start at any time. Go to the park and pick up trash, plant flowers and vegetables in your yard and garden, go for walks and bicycle rides instead of driving everywhere, set up birdhouses and bird feeders in your yard. These are all great ways to get your children involved with nature and green lifestyles.
9. Send green living ideas off to school with your kids as well. Buy recycled paper products and other school supplies, encourage greener choices at your children’s schools. You’ll be known as the green mom and everyone will come to you for green advice.
10. Keep the green going throughout every aspect of their life. It is a lifelong process to change, learn and be green and it isn’t hard. Once you start it’s hard to stop, plus you won’t want to anyway. It will become a natural part of your life.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't feel bad if you can't go completely green as fast as you would like. Every little bit and every step helps, just don't feel guilty about what you didn't do, feel good about what you did.