Origin: a Latin derivative
meaning "Gift of the Earth."
dōTERRA[doh-teh-ruh]
Origin: a Latin derivative
meaning "Gift of the Earth."
This episode Amanda Dumouchel explores what you can do to protect your baby from toxins. She'll discuss what ingredients you should stay away from, what steps you can take in your life to avoid toxins, as well as what natural products she recommends for your baby.
Hi, my name is Amanda Dumouchel I'm a Diamond essential oils educator and leader with doTERRA as well as a mom of four little ones. Every day I have the privilege of working with moms at all stages of motherhood from pregnancy to labor and delivery to postpartum and beyond. Today I'm super excited to be able to come and talk to you about using natural products with your baby safely.
What Can I Do to Protect my Baby from Toxins?
So why should we use natural products and doTERRA essential oils with babies? We know that there are a lot of toxins in the environment that we can't control. And as a mom sometimes that can feel super overwhelming to me. What we know that we can control is what's in our internal environment. We can control what we put on baby's skin and in their bodies and what we use in our personal home environment.
How to Use Essential Oils Safely with Babies
So how can we use essential oils safely with our babies in our home? There are a few things to keep in mind when you're using them.
Topically
One of my favorite ways to use essential oils with babies is topically. There are a few things to keep in mind when we're using them topically. One is that they are much littler than we are, so a little bit goes a long way, and you'll want to make sure that you dilute them properly.
One of my favorite ways to dilute essential oils with babies is to use the Baby line doTERRA lotion. It's a little bit of a thicker carrier, especially with sensitive skin. Or you can use doTERRA's unscented SPA lotion on babies and makes a really, really great carrier to use on them safely.
You can also use doTERRA’s Fractionated Coconut Oil as a quick and convenient way to apply essential oils safely with babies. The younger your baby, the less amount of oils you're going to need and the greater the dilution. And as they get older you can use a little bit more and dilute less.
Feet are an amazing place to place essential oils with babies and it's also a little bit of a tougher skin area on the feet to apply the oils on babies that have sensitive new skin I love using essential oils before bath and a soothing calming massage before bed or after bath with babies.
One of my favorite oils to use is Lavender in a drop of the doTERRA Baby line lotion in a calming massage on the baby's body or on the baby's belly to help soothe and prepare them for sleep.
Diffuse
Another way we can use essential oils safely in the home is through diffusing. Diffusing is such a great way to help babies wind down at the end of the day. And even to help moms when you know it's been a very, very busy day. One of my favorite tips is to diffuse the oils for about a half hour in the diffuser.
Some really great ones to use with babies in the diffuser are Serenity blend or Roman Chamomile or Lavender. They're wonderful oils just to help soothe and calm babies and moms.
I often with my little ones would start the diffuser and then sit in the chair and nurse baby and then turn it off before sleep. The Petal diffuser is a really, really great diffuser because it has several options on the diffuser—one, two, or four hours and there's a cute little nightlight on it. You can turn on or off if the room is too dark.
Lavender Touch and Frankincense Touch
Another really convenient way to use oils on the go with babies is the doTERRA Touch line. Lavender and Frankincense are amazing oils to have on the go in your diaper bag. One of those things that happens often with moms is that babies get overstimulated. They get cranky or irritable on the go, especially if we push them too far. So I love knowing that I have these little oils in my bag and I can pull them out, roll them on little toes to help soothe and calm them if they're having a rough day, and then I add a little on my wrist if I'm also having a rough day as well.
Stronger and Calmer
Two of the other ones that are great to use to just promote overall wellness in babies is the Stronger blend. I love to roll this daily on a little toes and feet. With little babies I tend to add a little bit extra carrier on the skin if I'm not putting it on the feet just to protect the skin.
And Calmer is my other favorite one if I don't have Lavender on hand. It's a really beautiful blend of calming and soothing essential oils and again, very calming and to have it in the diaper bag on the go or just on the nightstand before you put baby in bed to get a quick little roll on those little feet.
Do-It-Yourself Recipes
So, another favorite way for me to use essential oils in my home as a busy mom and one that is super cost effective and easy is do-it-yourself recipes. People sometimes get overwhelmed with do-it-yourself recipes because you think that there has to be a lot of ingredients and that there's a lot of steps, but it's actually super easy once you get started. There's a few of my favorite recipes that I want to share with you.
Essential Oil All-Purpose Diaper Salve
The first one is doTERRA’s all-purpose diaper salve. I actually use it also in other areas on the skin. But this one is one of the quickest and easiest recipes, and I even use it still with my older babies who are almost eight and eleven, my oldest.
So, you just need a few ingredients.
One is Shea butter. You can get this from any do-it-yourself store locally or online, and you're just going to need about ½ cup of that.
And either a liquid, like the Fractionated Coconut Oil from doTERRA, or a solid coconut oil, and then ½ cup of that as well.
You'll also need good quality beeswax. (Again, all of these ingredients you can get at a local do-it-yourself store or online, very easy, and it lasts a long time, so you can make several rounds of it.) So, I use 4 tablespoons of beeswax. You can either get it in a bleached or unbleached option.
So, all you're going to need is to set yourself up in your kitchen with a double boiler or a glass measuring cup in a pot of a little bit of water. You're gonna turn it on medium and you're gonna keep stirring until your coconut oil your Shea butter and your beeswax liquefy.
Once it's liquid, you’re just going to pull it off for a couple of minutes and let it cool. You're not gonna wanna let it cool too far that it starts to solidify again, just enough the temperature drops.
And then you're gonna add your essential oils. We always want to make sure we add our essential oils after we have cooled our product a little bit because when we heat essential oils it can destroy the beneficial properties of them.
So, my favorite and three oils for this recipe are Tea Tree, Frankincense and Lavender. The perfect combo to support overall skin health.
Once you've once you've added your oils, you're going to pour it into a container. It doesn't have to be complicated. I use a four-ounce mason jar that I just have on hand.
And then I throw it in the fridge to set. It will stay set at room temperature after that unless it's a really super hot day, and you can just throw it back into the fridge to set again.
And again, it's just super convenient. You can use it all areas of the skin. I use it with my cloth diapers, and I've had no issue either.
So, I also used doTERRA’s Baby line bottom cream or diaper cream, and I love this as well. I tend to use this if I need more of a barrier cream with babies.
Do-It-Yourself Baby Powder
The next do-it-yourself recipe that I love using in my home is a baby powder, do-it-yourself baby powder.
So, this is actually a spice jar, but you can get fancier jars or containers online if you want. This little spice jar, all I did was use my Lemon oil to get the sticky stuff off of the outside of it.
And then all you need is about six or seven tablespoons of Arrowroot powder, which you can get from your grocery store.
And then three to four drops each of Tea tree and Lavender.
I just literally put the Arrowroot powder first in, and then I dropped my oils in, and I gave it a shake.
And it's a great way just to pull moisture off the skin when you're diapering. So, in combination with your all-purpose diaper salve and your diaper cream, it's a great toxin free way to diaper your babies.
And again, I've used all of these with my cloth diapers and regular diapers and had no issues.
Using Safe, Natural Products and Essential Oils in the Home
So essential oils and doTERRA products are safe and easy to use with your babies in your home. And because they're the purest and safest on the market, I feel good as a mom knowing that I'm using what's absolutely the safest on their skin.
As mom of four, I've been using these in my home for five years. And retrospectively, I wish that I had had them with my first two little ones because I know what a huge impact it has made on my mommy life.
Every day I'm grateful to have these wonderful tools in my mommy toolkit so that I can just make life a little bit easier for me and my little ones. And I know that I'm doing what's best for their bodies to ensure that they're able to go forward because I'm only putting what is the safest on their skin and in their bodies.
Thank you so much for letting me share with you today, and I hope that you learn a little something today.