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Making the Switch to Natural Toys

Posted on Nov 13, 2011 in Featured, Playing | 1 comment

Making the Switch to Natural Toys

As I wrote last week, creating a natural playroom doesn’t happen overnight. Taking the longer route, while perhaps more realistic, is not without its bumps and setbacks. Here’s a little about what you can expect and some tips to help along the way: It’s no secret that kids don’t actually need a bunch of fancy toys, but unfortunately, I’ve also observed that given the choice, they just can’t resist the shiny, plastic, battery operated, noisy, walking, talking, lights-flashing ones. When you first start to introduce natural toys you may find, like I did, that they aren’t played with as much as you’d hoped. Despite observing...

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Natural Playroom Dreams

Posted on Nov 4, 2011 in Featured, Playing | 1 comment

Natural Playroom Dreams

When my son was born, 6 years ago, our consumer culture was in the early stages of the move back to organic, natural products for baby. This included natural crib mattresses without fire retardant in them, homemade baby purees, organic natural fibre clothing and the rising popularity of cloth diapering. Similarly, I started seeing natural toys and wooden toys everywhere. Some expensive baby boutiques that catered to this mindset sprang up around Vancouver and Natural Pod was a new venture that I started seeing at baby themed trade shows like Birth Fest in East Van. I fell in love with the beauty and simplicity of many of the wooden toys and handmade dolls and soft...

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Top Three Baby Toys

Posted on Aug 26, 2011 in Featured, Playing | 2 comments

Top Three Baby Toys

Do you see this? These are the baby toys that we’ve acquired over the last six years. We’ve had others that we’ve sent to the Thrift Store or given to friends so the fact that these are still kicking around tells you that they aren’t bad. They’ve been played with here and there, but almost without exception, we probably could have done without them. Yes, even that Sophie the Giraffe peeking out there. I know, I know. In the natural parenting community it’s pretty much a sin of blasphemy to declare Sophie anything less than an awesome baby toy. But there you have it. All of these brightly coloured noisy (even scented) plastic, plush...

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