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I was going to do some indoor painting today and I was wondering if it is ok for me to throw my 1 year old daughter into her backpack while I do it. I would open all of the doors/windows in the room while I was painting.

Does this seem safe or would it be better to find somewhere else for her to hang out?

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    You're making my back hurt just talking about it :-) Apr 11, 2013 at 22:04
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    The question epitomises the crazy things we come up with to try to look after a small child whilst getting on with life. Apr 16, 2013 at 8:05
  • oooooh! I read "Painting around baby" as a literal term, haha.
    – SaturnsEye
    Apr 20, 2015 at 13:14

1 Answer 1

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The US EPA recommends keeping young children from freshly painted rooms.

I would look into paints that off-gas fewer chemicals if I were to paint around a baby or young toddler. You can find several. Here is a list of five and here is a Consumer Reports comparison.

Purely anecdotally my mother threw me into a backpack to paint our home when I was a baby and I don't think it had any lasting negative impacts, but one instance does not make solid data.

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    Low-VOC paints are nice for the person painting, too! :-)
    – Acire
    Apr 11, 2013 at 23:19
  • ..and the environment. You can get entirely water-based paints (as on some of my daughter's toys), but I doubt they'd be suitable for real decorating. Apr 16, 2013 at 8:04

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