Haba Teething Toys…another BPA-free phthalate free option!

Haba teethers are another option if you are looking for a phthalate free BPA free teether. There are a number of high quality adorable options. Many of them are wood toys, which are finished with completely non-toxic, child-friendly substances.

Here is a quote from Haba about their materials….

We use primarily indigenous maple and beech wood and water-based paints for our toys. We also use fabric, felt, leather, cardboard and glass. The vast majority of the designers’ ideas are put into practice in our own workshops. From the cut-out to assembly our products are manufactured at the Bad Rodach site, where our workforce of some 500 specialists produces our wooden toys and furniture.

Check out EarthyBirthyMama.com for a great selection of Haba Toys!

Are all Sassy products BPA and phthalate free?

This was the question I ask the people at Sassy and this was the response I got….

Hello and thank you for visiting our website. All of our products are Phthalate free and all of our feeding items such as bowls, spoons, plates, snack cups, formula dispensers, MAM Bottles etc are BPA free. We have changed a number of our teethers/rattles to other alternatives and are still in the process of changing the remaining ones. If you have a few in question I would be happy to look those up for you. Thanks and have a great day!

Shannon Novak

Consumer Relations

Good to know, right? I thought they were all phthalate AND BPA free, but I guess that isn’t the case. I continued back and forth with Shannon a bit giving her names of teethers and asking where or not they were BPA free. I deleted those that had BPA (disappointingly including a very cute one called “monkey see monkey chew”) from my webstore. So…short story long….the Sassy teethers in my webstore are BPA and phthalate free!!

Bright Starts Teethers

I contacted Bright Starts to ask them about their teethers this week. I had my fingers crossed that their teethers were BPA and phthalate free because Madeleine has been chewing on one for weeks! Seriously…shame on me for not checking sooner, but I was pleasantly surprised at their response. See below…

Hello Rebecca,

The plastic used for our clear teethers is called; EVA = Ethylene Vinyl Acetate

And our teethers are not filled with a gel; they are filled with sterilized water.

All of our products are phthalate; PVC, BPA and Latex free.

Please let me know if I can assist you with anything else.

Thank you,
Angela

Angela L. Tuttle

Consumer Services Temp
770.751.0442

It was refreshing to get this response. I have been writing to a lot of the companies (I’ll be posting their responses) and getting mixed messages and confusing answers about which of their products are BPA free and phthalate free. I wrote back and commended them for their efforts to keep our kids safe!

Earth Brights

Sassy has a new line of teether rattles called “Earth Brights”. I’m holding the unopened “wooden trio” toy that I bought about a month ago, but haven’t yet introduced to Madeleine. I commend Sassy for there earth friendly efforts on this one. The toy is made from different fabrics and wooden pieces. They claim the toy is made from quality hardwoods, select fabrics and water-based finishes. They are really really cute. Madeleine has been happily chewing on the bird rattle for a few weeks now.

I think I am most impressed by the unique environmentally friendly packaging. Instead of a bunch of hard to open (I always hurt myself!) plastic packaging that just gets thrown away, these toys are attached to a piece of recycled card board with a few bits of twine. I appreciate that I can recycle the packaging instead of feeling bad about throwing it away. Why does packaging have to be so environmentally UNfriendly? Apparently…it doesn’t.

Safer Teethers

Are there phthalates in your teething toys?? What are phthalates you ask? Diisononyl phthalates are chemicals which are used in the production of some toys in an effort to make them softer. After a number of studies using rats and mice (I’ll spare you the details…) found the substance to be potentially harmful, the government asked companies to voluntarily stop using them in the production of toys for children. Teethers came under scrutiny because of course they are mouthed by infants increasing the risk of ingestion of anything harmful leeching from the plastic!

There are a number of companies who took the challenge to make toys without this potentially harmful chemical. Those companies are…Arcotoys, The First Years, Chicco, Evenflo, Disney, Gerber, Hasbro, Little Tykes, Mattel, Safety First, Sassy, Shelcore Toys and Tyco Preschool.

**If the teething toys that you are currently using were purchased before 1999 you should toss them just to be on the safe side**