Brrr!! Winter temperatures arrived here this week, so it seems like the perfect day to talk about keeping babies warm at night. By the time you have read all the experts on crib safety & SIDS and removed all possible hazards, the modern baby seems lucky to get a (non-toxic) mattress in the crib these days, much less a blanket.

But regardless of where you stand in the great Bumper Debate, everyone can agree on one practical and marvelous innovation of recent years: the infant sleep sack. This is a wearable blanket, complete with arm holes, that baby is zipped into at night. Not even the most active can wriggle out, and they provide everything from light warmth to serious insulation depending on the weight. And if your baby can pull off a hat faster than you can say Jimminy Cricket, these are definitely for you…

There are several sources out on the internet for organic sleep sacks, but by far my favorite is another mom-owned company, Cee Wee Designs. Jennifer sews these lovely sleep sacks herself and can include “twiddlers”–little ribbon pieces sewn into the seams that babies love to play with as they drift off to sleep. I put her organic mid-weight sacks in my Sleepytime Sleepyhead baby gift box, but she also offers adorable patterns (all natural fiber, just not certified organic), including one with sock monkeys! Check out her site and design your own sleep sack.

Two shopping notes for sleep sacks: a) try to find something that can stand up to repeated washing and b) look for a zipper that starts up top, so that the pull is down by baby’s feet when the sack is fully zipped. Also, many of the organic sacks are just a single layer of cotton, so unless you live in a warm climate, take a close look at the construction! (The giant in this category is the Halo Sleep Sack, which is available in organic cotton for their smallest sizes only, but these seem too light to me. But since you can find them easily in stores, I’ll give them a mention.)

Stay warm out there! And if anyone has a good source for organic cotton toddler mittens that actually have thumbs, let me know…

Soft Kitty!

There was something of an uproar this past week when my older son’s lovey, a tiger cat called Soft Kitty, went missing. My son has not one but two spares (see, we were trying to prevent this sort of disaster!), but neither is as dilapidated and adored as the original.

Muted panic ensued. I spent a wind-swept morning retracing our steps over the last few days, which included a scramble along the bottom of some cliffs in the park (in case Kitty was throw over the edge by someone less than kind). With clenched stomach, I smiled bravely and went by every possible store and entity with a lost and found. No tiger.

By this point, I was racking my brain for possible Kitty locations, including some rather far-fetched ones. Maybe Kitty was packed in with a baby gift?! (Though really, it’s usually my toddler that sneaks into the Green Baby Gift Box office, and he’s more interested in knocking over shipping boxes.)

Just when I was resigning myself to a Kitty-less existence, Connor yelled, “Hey Mom! Kitty’s back!” And there Kitty was, wrapped in his arms. All attempts to ascertain *where* Kitty had been hiding were fruitless. Connor’s story is that Kitty was taken away by Calico (his imaginary friend, a rather mischievous horse) and then returned when Calico realized that “Kitty had been away too long.” And I thought the faeries were only interested in human babies…

I searched the house thoroughly, including under the sofa cushions. Multiple times. Really. So where was Kitty?? I’m too relieved to care…