GIVEAWAY! Mother's Little Helper

This giveaway is now closed.

New Zealand's own green goddess, Wendyl Nissen, has sent me a copy of her latest book, Mother's Little Helper, to review...

...along with a copy for one of my readers.

Mother's Little Helper is such a gorgeous and useful book. You know that moment when you bring your baby back from the hospital and think, "Where's the baby manual?" Well here it is. And it's such a kind and funny baby manual at that (the chapter on knitting had me giggling away to myself).

In Mother's Little Helper, Wendyl gives her blessing for new Mums to live in their PJs, turn away visitors, ask for help, and generally do what needs to be done to survive the difficult job of raising a baby.

This book is packed full of information on settling babies, feeding them, dealing with colic, bathing babies, dressing them and, especially, reducing their exposure to harmful chemicals.

Did you realise there are regulations banning the use of certain chemicals in baby products, but no governing body actually monitoring whether those chemicals stay out of our baby products or not? It's up to parents to monitor this for themselves, and most of us wouldn't know the first thing about how to do this.

That's what's so great about this book. Wendyl has taken away all sorts of store-bought baby products and analysed them, often coming to the conclusion that they're not safe for babies at all. In fact, the release of Mother's Little Helper has resulted in several brands of baby wipes being recalled from supermarkets nationwide, because Wendyl discovered they contain the chemical iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (IPBC), which is banned from baby products.

What's a parent to do? Often the safest thing is to make your own version of everything a baby needs.

Again Wendyl has done the hard work for us, trawling through old Plunket books and other manuals from by-gone eras to experiment with DIY recipes that are safe, easy and affordable to make. Things like laundry powders, nappy soakers, baby wipes, bath wash and so on. (To say thank you to Plunket for the awesome work it does plus all the information it has provided, Wendyl is donating $1 from the sale of every book to it.)

All the recipes included are gentle enough for pregnant women and babies to use, however, Wendyl has also given instructions on how to modify them for general household use later. (Note: If you do want to make your own cleaners and cleansers but don't need baby specific recipes, check out Wendyl's other books, A Home Companion and How to be a Domestic Goddess on a Budget.)

I only wish Wendyl had written Mother's Little Helper three years ago, so I could have read it when I got pregnant with Lily and first embarked on my journey to better health. At least I have it now, and I'm already planning which ingredients to buy so I can make some of the lovely recipes in it for Lily and Sophie.

How to win a copy of Mother's Little Helper
This competition is open to New Zealand entrants only. It opens now and will run through till 8am next Thursday 22 September 2011 (New Zealand time). A winner will be selected at random from the comments below. You can enter up to seven times by following the entry criteria below, just comment to tell me which criteria you've filled.

Include an email address for me to contact you on if you are the winner. Write it in code so the spam bots don't find it, eg. cravingfresh (at) yahoo (dot) com. You can either include the email address in your comment, or email it to me separately at cravingfresh (at) yahoo (dot) com.

1. Tell me why you would like to win a copy of Mother's Little Helper. 
2. Sign up to receive Wendyl's newsletter via the side-bar on her website.
3. Become a fan of Craving Fresh on Facebook (tell me if you already are as well).
4. Post a link to this giveaway on Facebook.
5. Follow Craving Fresh (tell me if you already do as well).
6. Sign up to receive Craving Fresh emails (tell me if you are already signed up as well).
7. Tweet about this giveaway.

*If you're having trouble commenting below, please post your comments on Craving Fresh's Facebook page instead.


Good luck!