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babies, birds, chemicals, common cold, consonants, cribs, labels, mattresses, naps, phthalates, viruses, words
The crib mattress arrived yesterday! I noticed that its label proudly advertises that it is “Phthalate compliant”. What does that mean? Does that mean it has phthalates, or doesn’t have phthalates? Or does it mean that it only has a certain arbitrarily-decided maximum number of phthalates?
Everything seems to be about the phthalates these days. Perfect Husband and I spotted the word on a bag of dog treats in the pet store a couple months ago and were immediately struck by the awesomeness of such an unpronounceable word. How many other words can you think of that begin with four (FOUR!) consonants?* In a world where people have difficulty with single syllable words like “you’re” and “their”, I feel that unleashing such a combination of letters on the unsuspecting public makes up for exposing us to the phthalates themselves.
Now that word seems to be everywhere. Everything must be chock full of phthalates because we’ve noticed quite a range of products announcing themselves “phthalate free”. Or maybe they were always free of phthalates, but are now promoting that fact, the way that high sugar cereals announce that they are “fat free”, as though they used to be up there with lard and sour cream, but are now the dietary equivalents of Kate Moss.
Anyhoo, we now have a fully functioning crib. Unfortunately, Babby has picked up a nasty cold, which I am now coming down with as well. I don’t know what sucks more about having a sick baby – dealing with those heart-rending coughs and snuffles, or trying to take care of a cranky baby when you feel as though someone stuffed a hammer up your left nostril.
Completed nursery FTW
Since he’s so wheezy and incapable of breathing, this seems like a poor time to try and transition him anywhere. He did sleep for two hours in the crib yesterday after I nursed him down in his snowsuit. I hung out in the room the whole time so that if he woke up I’d be right there. I didn’t want his first sleep there to be too disorienting. I have also been giving him playtime in there to help him feel familiar with it.
Today was a total no-go for sleeping there. He was so miserable and having so much trouble breathing that he woke up the second I started to lower him in. I don’t want him thinking of his crib as That Place Where I Can’t Breathe, so I just went back to my bedroom to nurse him down there as per usual.
His room is probably full of phthalates, anyway.
Sooky Babby is Sooky
* Yes, that is a challenge. They do exist, but “y” doesn’t count.
ETA: In answer to your unspoken question, I thought the birds were gone but I must be wrong, because the noises just started up again. An eagle-like cry followed by a squeaky hinge noise followed by a series of high pitched tweets that resemble maniacal laughter.
If By Yes 
Steve is terrified of birds – Your house would make him screech. ;>)
LOL
i wouldn’t worry too much about the pphphbbthhddllvvzalates, we all grew up eating lead paint and drinking from poison bottles, and hey we’re alright eh? well some of us are anyway:)
if you are worried just put extra layers between him and the mattress, we’ve got one of those soaker pad sheet things from the hospital;”borrowed by daddy the EMT”… it also helps with messy clean ups:)
good luck with the transition. i thought it was going to be difficult, we kept Grey in our room until he was 8 months, and Vi only 4… both of them were surprisingly easy to switch over. he’ll let you know when he’s ready.
The way he mouths anything and everything, I doubt there’s any reasonable way to save him from the phthalates.
Hopefully the transition will go smoothly. I’ll more serious about it when he’s better!
Ireland is a more innocent place, or maybe I’m just ignorant…what are phthalates? Are they the reason we’re supposed to buy lots of new plastic things?
Yes. I googled them and they apparently are the chemicals that make plastic flexible, and that leach out with time. That’s why old plastic starts to become brittle and crack with age.
I think BPA is one of the more dangers ppphhhthalates, which is banned in Canada now. A lot of baby products from the states advertise themselves as BPA free.
But apparently there is a whole realm of phthalates everywhere. Wikipedia says that part of the phthalates scare is due to research on vinyl flooring in Scandinavia which turned up an unexpected correlation between vinyl in the home and autism. I don’t think the study has been repeated elsewhere, though, and since babies everywhere have been chewing on plastic for years and years, I don’t think they can be THAT toxic!
If you want people to take ppphhhthalates more seriously, quit posting pics of your son. I see “ppphhhthalates”, but all I can think is “awwww, he’s so cute!”
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