My All-Natural Baby

I hate to say, I've turned into rather a snob about my all-natural little baby Elvis. He was born after a natural (hard) childbirth in an antique brass bed at a birth center, attended by wonderful Midwives. Because of his "all-natural" beginning; I have endeavored to keep him as natural as possible. Now, I'm not taking anything away from babies that were born in a hospital; I had my first three babies in a hospital and know that the "natural" route is not safe or desirable for everyone. But for myself, as someone with no risk factors and a good track record; a Midwife-attended birth was a good fit. Since I also decided to use cloth diapers for the first time, I think I've been even more careful with what I put on my baby. After the birth, I was given a sample of Calendula balm which is made by Sierra Sage, and let me tell you, that's the stuff! It's good for everything from dry skin to diaper rash, which is what I mainly use it for. After doing research on Calendula, I found that it is excellent at getting rid of even the nastiest rashes, and has natural antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. I also found that it was rather expensive, so almost as soon as I began to make soap, I bought some Calendula balm through my supplier, and have used it for everything from soap to lotion. I seem to have misplaced that jar of balm I've been using for seven months now, so I decided to use my new-found skills and whip up a batch of my own. I got a little carried away and didn't really measure, so I'll do my best to give the proper proportions, although it's not an exact recipe and is easily modified and customized.

Baby Balm:

You'll need:

Olive oil
Virgin coconut oil (unrefined, it even smells like coconut and has tiny specks of the "meat" in it)
Castor Oil
Shea Butter
Hempseed Oil
Caldendula Extract
Rosemary Essential oil

Now, I realize that this may be more of a pain than it's worth, as the average person is not likely to have these ingredients on hand, but all of these ingredients are good for all sorts of things and can probably be found at your local health food store or online.

You'll also need a small food processor, for emulsifying the mixture. I don't usually use my kitchen equipment for making my beauty supplies, but all of these ingredients are "eatable", or at least not toxic, so I felt ok using my food processor and washing it out well. Although I would certainly not recommend ingesting this mixture, no matter how yummy it smells!

I basically started with a "base" of olive oil, it making up the main portion of the amount I wanted to use; for a 4 oz container probably 2 ounces would be olive oil. I then added a scoop of virgin coconut oil, about an equal amount of shea butter, melted; only a smidge (maybe a few teaspoons) of hempseed oil, a little castor oil to make it smooth, a teaspoon or so of Calendula extract and a few drops of rosemary essential oil. All of these ingredients serve a purpose, and blend together nicely. I then pulsed the heck out of the mixture in order to emulsify and thicken it. I did this until the blade was hitting just air, because the mixture was stuck to the sides and thickened.

I used this on Elvis; note that this is not a zinc oxide cream, and doesn't make a thick coating, it absorbs really well into the skin; the only little issue I had with it is that there was a small amount of minuscule specks of coconut occasionally, but they are really tiny and didn't present a problem. I know that diaper creams are a no-no with cloth diapers; but I think this might be ok, because it absorbs into the skin so quickly, also all these oils are very washable and soluble. At least, I'm willing to risk my cloth diapers on this balm!

I've applied it a few times to Elvis; I guess I'll see how it works and whether I like it as much as the balm from Sierra Sage!

The greatest thing since...

I've recently been trying to find ways to stretch my grocery budget even further. I've always been very thrifty, but because of the state of the economy in the last few years, I've had a need to keep my grocery budget the same, while at the same time joyfully expanding our family...twice! It was this need to keep costs down that led me to learn the art of soap making; and we all know how that turned out! I also cloth diaper and use cloth wipes, make my own soap (obviously) as well as laundry detergent, buy in bulk, make everything from scratch, and pretty much do everything humanly possible to get the most out of my grocery budget while still providing my family with hearty and (I hope) yummy meals day in and day out. Recently, Elvis began to eat solids, and this has put additional strain on my poor little budget, especially since he absolutely refuses to eat the homemade baby food that I intended  to be his only food, and I'm still working on getting him to eat "regular" food, since I don't believe in giving children purees for any longer than necessary. Because at the moment I am spending something like, eeek! 10 to 20 dollars a week on baby food, I decided to start making all the bread we eat with my own little hands! I've always been an avid baker, making bread to have with dinner several times a week, but I've never felt equal to the task of providing the bread for toast and sandwiches, not to mention the bagels, hamburger buns and hot dog buns that our family uses every week. We can easily go through a loaf of sliced bread a day, and although I shop at a bread "thrift" store, at an extremely reduced cost, it is still triple the cost of homemade bread, and of course, not nearly as delicious. My favorite recipe only uses one pound of flour, and a nominal amount of yeast and salt; costing only 25 cents per loaf, a far cry from the price of bread in stores. It will take some getting used to, since we are all used to eating sandwiches on uniformly sliced, abnormally soft-crusted commercial bread, which as a bonus is filled with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, dough conditioners and preservatives, and a huge amount of sodium compared to homemade. Before they "invented" pre-sliced bread, people were used to eating toast or a sandwich on a thick, rugged slice of bread, and thought nothing of it. I hope that in my family at least, we can go back to blithely eating a hunk of bread without complaint!

My high point of the week....

http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=37&products_id=1853
I am a reformed disposable diaper user; after years of scoffing openly at those who chose cloth (sorry, guys!) and went into the cloth diapering gung-ho and determined to not use so much as a diaper wipe. I've stuck to that, using "reusable" wipes and only using one disposable diaper a day (for nighttime, and even then using only chlorine-free disposables). I got into a great routine of washing/folding/washing/folding and all was well. Until a few weeks ago, when our baby E was introduced to solids. EEEEWW. My sweet little Elvish One turned quite messy and stinky! Then I remembered way back when I was a hormonal pregnant lady, frantically researching and buying the best possible items for my precious baby-to-be; I found out about the product above; a flushable liner to lay into the cloth diaper that allows you to easier remove the...uh, soil and flush all your cares away! I ordered two rolls from Cotton Babies (a great shop), one roll for our bedroom where we change the majority of diapers and the other for the living room, where we often are for first and last changes of the day. They are awesome! Makes a cloth diapering mama's life much, much easier!