The Great Spot Panic: When Your Infant Looks Like a Teenager
There's a very specific type of terror reserved for 4:17 am, illuminated solely by the aggressive blue light of an iPhone torch. I was standing over the Moses basket, holding a generic glass tumbler against my two-week-old daughter’s cheek, trying...
Why Every Mom is Obsessed With the Baby Pygmy Hippo
I was sitting on my living room floor at 2:14 AM last Tuesday, surrounded by half-folded shipping boxes for my Etsy shop, nursing my youngest, and watching a video of a baby pygmy hippo aggressively gumming a zookeeper's knee. And...
Troubleshooting Cradle Cap: A New Dad's Guide to Safe Baby Oil
I was staring at a fake checkerboard background on a transparent image file at 3:14 AM while my eleven-month-old looked like a shedding reptile. I was trying to build a Notion database of non-toxic skincare for our household, right? Because...
That Viral Baby Oil Meme Made Me Rethink My Entire Nursery
It was 2:00 AM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting on my living room floor surrounded by packing tape, trying to fulfill fourteen Etsy orders before my toddler woke up demanding string cheese. I had my phone propped up...
Dear Past Tom: Why Using Baby Oil as Lube is a Terrible Idea
Dear Past Tom, It's 11:14 PM on a freezing Tuesday in November. By some absolute miracle of the parenting gods, the twins are both asleep at the exact same time. Maya, who usually treats sleep as a mild suggestion, has...
The lie of the pristine soap baby and other bath time truths
Dear Priya of six months ago. You're currently sitting on the cold bathroom tiles at two in the morning. You're holding a screaming, slippery infant who smells aggressively of artificial lavender. He is covered in suds, you're soaked in lukewarm...
Surviving The Dust Cloud: Johnson's Baby Powder & Nappy Rash
It’s 3:14 AM on a Tuesday. The heating in our London flat is making that ominous clanking sound that usually precedes a massive repair bill, and Florence (Twin A, currently the undisputed heavyweight champion of dramatic screaming) has decided her...
The Truth About Johnson's Baby Lotion and Millennial Guilt
I was standing in the infant care aisle of Target at 9:43 PM on a random Tuesday, eight months pregnant with Maya, wearing my husband Dave’s horribly stained college sweatpants, and having a low-grade panic attack while staring at a...
A letter to myself about Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo
Dear Tom of exactly six months ago, You're currently standing in the baby aisle of the High Street Kensington Boots, staring blankly at a wall of brightly coloured plastic bottles, sweating profusely into your jumper. You have a pram the...