News desk: I am preparing to embark on a challenge to parent more sustainably, and, as I stand in my kitchen to get a feel for where I might be able to make some changes, I can’t help but feel I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Plastic baby bottles are lined up like skittles in my cupboards; drawers are a technicolour spectacle of lurid plastic baby food pouches and individually wrapped biscuits. Tupperware and zip-lock plastic bags threaten to consume me, and there are plastic bowls, weaning pots, and baby spoons everywhere.

“Is having a baby in 2021 pure environmental vandalism?” reads one headline I come across in my research. Looking at my kitchen, I can see why.

Since my daughter was born almost two years ago, I have sleep-walked into making what I can only describe as baffling consumer choices that stamp on any eco credentials I previously claimed. Between the sleep deprivation and the onslaught of new experiences and mixed emotions, I have accumulated so much stuff – and much of it made from single-use or non-recyclable materials. Apparently I’m not alone. Sustainability “goes out the window” after having a baby, according to a One Poll survey commissioned by Baby Dove, and more than a quarter of new parents said it was “impossible” to be more eco-friendly with a newborn.

As an experiment, I want to see if I can make some greener swaps in a bid to understand what the barriers are to parenting more sustainably, and what else the industry needs to do to clean up its act. I found there were plenty of areas where I could make small changes, from shopping more sustainably to choosing different products. But I was also struck by how limited I was as a consumer to make any meaningful impact, and how unscientific many of the claims around “sustainable” or “biodegradable” products are.

Jen Gale, author of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, elaborates on this when I ask her why it is so hard for new parents to make green choices. “Parents are marketed at quite hard by those brands with the most money, which might not necessarily be the most ethical and sustainable companies,” she says. I think back to the antenatal pack I was handed by a midwife at my 20-week appointment, full of big brand products in plastic packaging. Then there is the lack of time, energy and headspace to research greener alternatives, she says. “Shopping sustainably might not be at the forefront of your mind – especially when you’re just trying to get through the day, you grab whatever you can and whatever is the most convenient.”