How To Live Plastic-Free With A Baby

Top Tips On How To Live Plastic-Free With A Baby

Congratulations! You’re about to become parents to a brand-new baby. And we know the environmentalist in you wants to at least try to live plastic-free with a baby.

Welcome to a whole new world of baby products, gadgets and items; where companies spend big dollars on marketing to new parents to get them to buy all sorts of things they don’t really need. You’ll learn that a lot of these items, if not most, are either entirely plastic or contain some plastic. 

If I am being honest, plastic is likely an inevitable part of your life from here on out, either from an inability to avoid it or simply because parenting is hard work and choosing a plastic-free lifestyle makes it even harder!

But I’m here to make your life a little bit easier to live plastic-free with a baby. So you can focus more on the baby and less on how to navigate the confusing and overwhelming world of baby products.

Tips to live plastic-free with a baby

1. Buy Less

First and foremost, just buy less. To live plastic-free with a baby the easiest thing to do is refuse to buy all the extras you don’t really need. The more you choose to avoid buying in the first place, the fewer decisions you have to make and the less searching for plastic-free baby alternatives you have to do. You simply don’t need all of the baby products and gadgets they will try to sell you – no, you don’t need a nappy bin, nor an electric baby nail trimmer, and you definitely don’t need single-use plastic gaspassers… when you thought you’d seen it all! 

2. Choose Reusable

There are a lot of single-use plastic items when it comes to babies and postpartum. The obvious, and contributing to landfill the most, are nappies and wipes. After that, you’ve got breast pads and sanitary pads. There can be lots of spills and leakages in the first few months, so you can add paper towels to that list too.

Luckily, there are many reusable alternatives on the market to choose from. From modern cloth nappies to reusable sanitary pads you can find reusable alternatives to these single-use items to live plastic-free with a baby.

Modern cloth nappies

1. Designer Bums – Proudly Australian-owned and operated, Designer Bums was born out of a need for stylish and high-quality nappies that wouldn’t harm the environment
2. Seedling Baby – Seedling Baby has been designing and creating cloth nappies since 2006. They know that you need something quick, simple and effective, so that’s what they create
3. Pekpi – Australia’s first Reusable Cloth Nappy made from Repreve®Our Ocean™, derived from 100% Post-consumer Recycled Plastic Bottles 

Breast Pads

1. Nature’s Child Organic Cotton Washable Breast Pads
2. Silverette Silver Nursing Cups
3. Earths Tribe Reusable Nursing Pads

Sanitary Pads

1. Boody Period & Leak-proof Underwear
2. Earths Tribe Reusable Organic Cotton Menstrual Pads
3. hannah:PAD Reusable Organic Cotton Cloth Pad

Baby Wipes

You will likely go through hundreds of baby wipes a week. Flannels and lukewarm water make a great substitute, especially when at home. They can be washed and reused over and over without adding to landfill.

Paper Towels

Spillage is inevitable while babies are little. We used hand towel sized towels to easily wipe up any spills. Likewise, they can be washed and used over and over without adding to landfill.

Alternatively, if you still want the ease of disposable nappies and wipes there are more eco-friendly options available. Some brands include Tooshies, Ecoorignals and, a new one to me that looks great, Comfy Koalas.

But according to Which Bin SA, where I live, “in South Australia, there are currently no known brands of compostable nappy that can completely break down in a commercial composting system.” And they advise nappies must always be placed in the landfill bin. Compostable and biodegradable wipes on the other hand can go in your green bin or home compost IF they don’t contain poop and wee. 

A good rule of thumb is to always check your local council regulations before putting something new in your curbside green bin.

3. Breastfeed

If you are physically able to breastfeed – do so! And this tip extends to expressing and bottle feeding too. What I mean is, breastfeed straight from the breast. This will save on plastic from bottles, formula tins, pumps, bottle sterilisers and more. There is a lot of plastic that goes into feeding a baby if not breastfeeding.

Please take this advice at face value though. The way people choose to feed their babies can be a sensitive topic. There are a lot of factors to consider and trying to live plastic-free with a baby is only one of them. Mental health, family arrangements, work arrangements and more all factor into this decision. 

What’s best for you and your baby needs to be paramount here.

4. Where you can’t avoid plastic, buy second-hand

You’re likely unable to avoid all plastic so an option instead of buying new is to buy second-hand. This goes for things like bouncers and highchairs to baby carriers and more. If you can’t live plastic-free with a baby, then you might as well use the plastic that is in circulation already rather than buying new and adding to demand.

There are plenty of places to look for second-hand baby items like Facebook Groups and Marketplace, Gumtree, your local op shops, and even asking friends and family with older children. People can spend big money on these items so it’s often the case that they want them to be loved and cherished by another family.

5. Choose natural fibres for baby clothes and bedding

As I am sure you’re aware, clothes and bedding are another place where plastic shows up! And I don’t know about you, but plastic in clothes is a bugbear of mine. The fact that every time I wash my clothes hundreds of thousands of microplastics are released into the environment just makes me so frustrated. So I try my best to avoid synthetic fibres to live plastic-free with a baby – which is hard, especially when companies use confusing labels.

Look for these fibres when shopping for baby clothes and bedding:

• Cotton – Try Organic Nights Kids Pyjamas
• Wool
• Linen
• Bamboo
• Hemp

Work out a really good laundry system and routine

Ok this one might seem out of left field but with all your reusable items you’re going to have to be on top of your laundry routine, especially if your baby is born in a cooler month! Clean Cloth Nappies is a great starting place.

Another great reason for a good laundry routine is to avoid waste from spoiled clothing, bedding and your reusables. There’s no point investing in these and sourcing natural fibres if you don’t know how to look after them and they end up stained or mouldy.

Laundry products are another place where plastic shows up, so to live plastic-free with a baby it’s definitely something to consider. The laundry aisle is full to the brim of different options all promising to get rid of stains, freshen your clothes and make your whites brighter. And what’s worse is that there are SO many companies greenwashing their products these days. Watch out for laundry sheets made from PVA plastic.

Laundry items I use:

• A sensitive, plastic-free laundry powder
• Bicarb soda
• Liquid dish soap
• Sunshine

You might be wondering what bicarb soda and liquid dish soap are doing in my laundry but together they get almost every stain out. And if that doesn’t work, the sun can be a great stain remover.

Concluding: How To Live Plastic-free with a baby

At the end of the day, plastic is a fact of life when raising babies and children (hello, car seats!) but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to live plastic-free with a baby where we can. Whether you choose plastic-free baby products in one area or you try to avoid it everywhere you can know that you’re doing a great job. 

Parenting is hard work and the fact that you want to live plastic-free with a baby and you’re even thinking about the environmental impact of having a baby is the first step in lessening your family’s impact. Landfills and oceans everywhere will thank you.

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