One topic I teach about in my Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Classes are avoiding toxic substances while pregnant (and with new babies). Household cleaners are often very toxic and we don’t even think about when we use them!
Here are 10 tips to help you be cleaner and greener!
- Use real towels instead of paper towels: This isn’t for everything (like wiping up raw chicken drips, I would use paper towels). But for so many spills and wiping, real towels work great! I buy them in bulk in the car cleaning section. I have a pile in a cupboard and throw the dirty ones in a bucket under my sink and wash them every few days. Great for the environment!
- Water can clean a lot: using just plain water with my real towels can do a lot of cleaning. Especially hot water. For instance to clean my microwave, I heat up a bowl of water for 2 minutes and then let it sit without opening the door for about 3 more minutes. Open up, use a towel and wipe it clean!
- Vinegar is a secret weapon: Vinegar is so amazing. There are whole websites about how to use vinegar for cleaning!
- Baking Soda is another secret weapon: Cleans great and is cheap too! For a stinky drain, pour some baking soda down the drain, add a little vinegar and you get a fun show and a clean smelling drain!
- Take shoes off outside: With 3 boys I have sand galore in my home. I try to get the boys to take their shoes off outside and shake them in the grass and wipe off their feet. I feel lucky if they at least take their shoes off. I have a box on the front porch where they throw their shoes they wear every day. (church shoes and sports shoes are kept inside)
- Your Dishwasher is powerful – let it do it’s job: If you have a newer dishwasher, you don’t need to rinse your dishes before loading it! This saves water and makes less work for you!
- Swish and Swipe Every Day: I learned this from FlyLady. Keep a toilet bowl brush in every bathroom and do a quick potty swish every day. This means my toilets look clean all the time. Also with boys, I have to do a quick swipe too of any rogue pee. I will sometimes use a bit of toilet paper to do this, but if it is bigger, I have paper towels in each bathroom too. A bit of water and paper towel and voila!
- Use SAFE cleaning products: I like Bon Ami for cleaning my sinks. (Like Comet, but non-toxic) Mrs. Meyers is another good choice for safe cleaning products, I haven’t heard of it before, but I am excited to try it.
- Use Cloth Diapers: Definitely Greener and surprisingly cleaner. I used cloth diapers with 1.5 of my boys. They are fun and they were not really any harder then disposable (once you have a system down)
- Simplify and Declutter: The less we have the less we have to clean. Also I have found that we buy or get so much JUNK (think McDonald’s toys) that hurts the environment. Get less to be greener and have less clutter to clean.
Great tips! I never buy paper towels anymore. If I used a towel to clean up something really nasty (like chicken drippings) I wash the towel out with dish soap and hot water before putting in the hamper. I use vinegar and/or baking soda for virtually every cleaning job in the house. I make homemade laundry soap with bar soap, borax and washing soda, and it saves a lot of money too. Baking soda works really well to scrub toilets and sinks as well. I use it for any cleaning job I would use Comet cleanser for, and much more than that. I also switched to cloth diapers last year when I had 3 kids in diapers, and I’m so glad I did. I love knowing that what I’m using in the house isn’t toxic to any of us, and I’m saving a lot of money in the process!
I agree, Vinegar really is a secret weapon! I also use hydrogen peroxide with vinegar but in a different spray bottle. So I spray first with HP and then with the vinegar and it works like a charm!
Even some of the natural products do have a lot of smelly stuff in them that can be a problem for babies. I have had to cut waaay back on fragrances and essential oils because I was just tired of always feeling bombarded by scents every time I had to clean something.
Your #7 point contradicts with your #1 point, no?
We don’t allow paper towels into the house, period. Same with paper napkins (I have a big pile of linen napkins), paper plates, plastic cups, etc.
It really is do-able to live without them at all, for raw chicken or boy-pee, I promise.
I agree, but I have such a system with my towels, that it just is easier to have a roll of paper towels in each bathroom for little touch ups. When I “clean” I use the real towels. When I touch up I use the paper towels. I go through them slowly, as in maybe a roll a year in each bathroom. So it works for me, but you are right they do contradict each other.
I agree, I use baking soda or vinegar and/or water for pretty much everything now and I love it. So clean, healthy, and cheap! I even use baking soda for deodorant and sometimes in lieu of shampoo (and apple cider vinegar for ‘conditioner’). Try it!