I’ve always known about baby-friendly laundry detergent and fabric softener, but I had no idea you could buy baby-friendly dish soap! Dapple Dish Liquid is an all-natural dish soap that is phthalate-free, paraben-free, and dye-free. It features award-winning "green" technology that targets milk residue (all too common on bottles and other feeding gear) and baking soda to fight odor. The ingredients list is rather impressive only because I can actually understand each ingredient, from purified water and baking soda to tree oils and natural amino acids.

Dapple rinses quickly and uses essential oil for a light lavender fragrance. It is also biodegradable, environmentally safe, free of detectable levels of dioxane (a known eye and respiratory tract irritant) and has not been tested on animals. Kind of makes me wonder just what's in the current bottle of dish soap sitting on my sink…

You can purchase a 16-oz. bottle of Dabble for about $6 from Amazon.com or a case of six 17-oz. bottles for about $42 from Dapple's website. - Emily H.

We are the proud owners of a Diaper Genie II, and while it does a fantastic job keeping our baby’s room odor-free, I find the room could still benefit from a little freshening up. We’re not big fans of room sprays or plug-ins for the nursery, but my nose was telling me we definitely needed something. When I discovered Thymes’ Sweetleaf Baby Nursery Diffuser I knew I'd found the perfect alternative to mass-market air fresheners.

Thymes’ Sweetleaf Baby Nursery Diffuser is a flame-free, spray-free, plug-in-free way to fragrance your baby’s room. The diffuser uses delicate reeds placed in a sweet little glass jar to gently release a fresh, clean scent throughout the room. The Diaper Genie II may help contain odor but it sure doesn’t release an aroma of powdery rose and jasmine, and the softest hint of sandalwood and amber, throughout the room!

Though your little one’s nose may not know the difference, yours will, and I can almost guarantee it will enjoy walking into a warm, inviting and freshly scented baby’s room. Thymes’ Sweetleaf Baby Nursery Diffuser is available for $38 from Amazon.com. - Emily H.

Your baby already knows that the best toys are not always baby toys. Your hair is probably a constant source of entertainment, and the appeal of momma’s car keys seems universal. So what toys, that are not toys, are safe and handy?

Those in the kitchen are the most widely adopted. Wooden spoons, spatulas, plastic measuring cups, baskets, pots and pans, colanders and strainers, and funnels are a good start. Always double check for sharp edges, unsafe plastics, potentially-detachable parts and choking hazards (anything able to fit through a toilet-paper tube).

Investigate your toys. Hacky sacks are a popular baby toy in our house, as are juggling balls. Frisbees could be good, and bocci, soccer, tennis, croquet, or any other sturdy large ball would work.

Our kid is often excited to grab and manipulate clothing he is not accustomed to - winter hats (the pom-poms are great), cowboy hats, baseball hats and winter gloves all are intriguing. Avoid scarves - anything thin and over six inches in length is an entanglement (strangulation) hazard.

Use caution in the bathroom - some things are fun and safe, but like in the kitchen, there are many hazards. Hand towels with fringe are a good thing to try. Big plastic combs are really fun. And a bath toy that suddenly appears on a stroller ride might be very excitingly unexpected. Don’t let baby play with shampoo bottles or similar items - the caps are a choking hazard, and the product residues are probably not something you want the baby to ingest anyway.
- Leigh G.

A good spray scent is the perfect antidote to those inevitable stinky odors that just pop out from nowhere when you're the parent of a small child. Whether you're changing diapers, recovering from a middle of the night surprise "vomit festival" or enduring the joys of potty training, a little non-body-produced aroma can be a centering addition to your routine.

Available in lavender, plumeria flower, fresh clover, orange sherbet, beach, oatmeal-milk-honey, English coast, and basil lime scents, these all-natural sprays from Red Leaf are a great alternative to sprays full of chemicals.

The complete ingredients list is: Ethyl alcohol and fragrance. It's really comforting to know exactly what you're spraying around your children, and if you can get a little aromatherapy in the bargain, well then so much the better. Also, in many instances the term "fragrance" encompasses ingredients that are potentially hazardous phthalates (you can find info about phthalates in the ZRecs Guide), and Red Leaf has confirmed with their supplier that none of the scent formulations Red Leaf uses contain them.

The unique scent combinations (complete descriptions are available on their web site) ensure that you'll never get tired of them. Start with Lavender and enjoy a relaxing vacation to Provence without leaving the nursery. Then move on to Plumeria, close your eyes and think of the islands.

It might not be possible for you to wing yourself away to far-off lands today, but treat yourself to an evocative surprise and get a little luxury into your daily life. And when your daily life includes getting pooped on, you deserve a little something just for you.

These long-lasting room sprays are $14 per bottle and are available from Red Leaf. - Erika

If there is one thing that your baby is guaranteed to do (aside from loving you) it is emit bodily fluids. Whether we are talking pee, spit-up, drool, actual vomit, or all of these at once, the baby will be making a mess.

You’ll need to cope with these fluids somehow. If you want to minimize your expenditure on paper towels, and don't feel like buying a heck of a lot of actual spit-up rags or burp cloths, here are some other options for wiping, sopping, and dabbing.

Dish cloths. Dish cloths are great because once baby grows out of the fluids stage, you’ll still have them for use in your kitchen. Buy a dozen- they work wonderfully.

Face cloths and hand towels. Along with the dish cloths, you can use small terry towels. Again, the added bonus is that once baby outgrows the fluids stage, they are still useful in your household.

Cloth diapers. If you already have cloth diapers this is ideal. To prevent using them up too fast, we sort our laundry by its yuckiness level- so a cloth diaper that has a bit of drool and spit-up in it goes in the "baby laundry" while an otherwise identical cloth diaper soaked in urine goes in the "diaper laundry."

Onesies. Sure, you put them on the baby as clothing. But if you got dozens of them as gifts, why not use some as rags, too? They are convenient, soft, absorbent, and in many babies' wardrobes they are really plentiful. Cute tee shirt yesterday, wiping up drool today, toss it in the laundry and it’s a cute tee shirt again tomorrow.

Receiving blankets. Big messes require big rags. Don’t discount blankets - for drool, try to use them a couple of times (perhaps four messes, one for each corner) to minimize your laundry load.

Leftover paper napkins from restaurants. I don’t know about you, but I have a bunch of these in a drawer that I never remember to use. Recently I started putting them in the diaper bag for on-the-go fluids removal. So handy! I’m not usually a paper products kind of girl, but I figured if I already have these stored up in my house, might as well put them to good use. - Leigh G.