Small, Bear-Shaped Hand Grenades

I walked out of an appointment the other day with some new information: new food intolerances, high heavy metal levels. The upshot is that Oskar is having immune reactions to the milk I am giving him and the stuff I use to thicken it. As if that's not enough, the bottles I am feeding him out of probably have BPA in them. I looked at the honey bear squeeze bottle in the side of my baby-bag in a whole new way. Suddenly it had become a small, bear-shaped hand grenade.

BPA is short for Bisphenol A. It's used to make most things that are made out of plastic. It's probably toxic, and it's illegal to use in many countries. Not ours though!

The doctor I saw that day told me that Oskar is clearly not a good de-toxifier, as his heavy metal levels would attest... since I do not feed him lead or let him weld or smelt heavy metals ( he has asked, I promise you :). He absorbs these toxins from the environment. So it is especially important that I be careful about the pans I cook in, (No non-stick pans!) and the containers I feed him out of. I kind of knew this. I always feed him out of glass bowls, and I used to have glass baby bottles, but I forgot when it came to the bear bottles. They are sold on websites for kids with special needs and they come with tubing to use as a straw. They were great when Oskar stopped wanting to drink out of bottles, and are flexible so I could squeeze liquid into his mouth.

I'm not sure that they have BPA, but when I did a Google search for BPA- free honey bear bottles, nothing came up. They are plastic, so I assume they have it.

Here's the good news, I found something I like better! When I Googled the bear bottles, I found a website that sells BPA- free squeeze bottles with BPA- free tubing for the straws. They aren't cheap at almost 20 dollars a kit, but they come with an awesome valve that holds the liquid in the straw, ( good for kids with a weak suck or beginning straw drinkers) and a nifty little device called a lip block that you can put at the end of the straw for kids who bite through straws. It also prevents the straw from going too far into your child's mouth.

Here is the link: http://www.arktherapeutic.com/Cip-kupSAR.html

Cheers!