Recently, I wrote about introducing my daughter to toys made of safer, natural materials. My desire has been to try to limit her exposure to lead, BPA, and phthalates, all of which are extremely harmful but even more so to small bodies.
This isn’t an easy thing to do. You can’t always rely on safe toys being sold in conventional places. Many of the products sold there contain the harmful components mentioned above. I’ve always just ended up doing research myself on individual toys and just searched for them all over the internet.
I used to feel uncomfortable about well meaning relatives and friends purchasing toys for my daughter that may not be the safest choices and with the holidays coming up, this could be a time of “plastic overload”. I found, though, that there’s an easy way around this. When asked what they can get for my daughter, I just suggest a store that has a variety of choices with a high standard for safety.
One of those stores is Natural Pod. Natural Pod is a Canadian company that was started by individuals who were just interested in finding safer toys for their own children. Their site has a variety of beautiful toys for babies, toddlers, and young children. These are toys that you’ll want to hang onto for generations to come – how often have you been able to say that about typical toys you come in contact with?
They have lovely toys for babies:
Organic Soft Block Set
Stacking toys for toddlers:
Nesting Birds
Toys that inspire imagination:
Chef's Kitchen and Hutch
And toys that keep your child active:
LikeaBike Forest
Not to mention others, like musical instruments, bath toys, arts and crafts, and dolls just to name a few.
Lucky you: Get 10% off your first order at Natural Pod when you use the code “GCM08″ through December 31st. Be sure to pass this information along to any family members who may interested in purchasing holiday toys for your little ones.
Fun!
You can also make cloth blocks REALLY easily (with basic sewing skills).
I love the LikeaBike.
-Jamie
I don’t know if you’ve talked about this already on your blog, but do you know of good, safe bath toys for kids? Donovan has a couple plastic bath toys (rubber duckies, some fish, etc) and he LOVES to chew on them. And I’m now wondering what sorts of crap he might be ingesting while chewing on his beloved soft toys. Suggestions?
Marcy,
I understand your concern. Natural Pod sells bath toys or you could also try this:
http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2008/04/zrecs-guide-to-safer-bath-toys.html
Kirstin @ Trying To Be Greener
Thanks for the great review Kirstin. We love the Organic Soft Blocks too! It’s great that moms like you are helping to spread the word about our products. More moms need to know there are alternatives out that to inspire creative play.