Magazine

A frustrated mom holding a baby with red bumps on their neck in the summer heat

The Southern Mom's Guide to Clearing Up Baby Summer Skin Bumps

It was July 2019, the thermometer on my back porch in rural Texas read 104 degrees, and my oldest son looked like he had been attacked by a swarm of invisible fire ants. He had these tiny, angry red bumps...

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A skeptical pediatric nurse looking at her phone showing a viral wildlife video.

Why That Viral Bush Baby TikTok Is A Terrible Idea For Your Toddler

My cousin in Miami texted me a video of a tiny primate eating a grape on Tuesday and told me I should get one for Maya's second birthday. Three hours later, a girl in my local mom group forwarded the...

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A tired dad holding a diaper and looking confused at baby products

The 3 AM Baby Powder Disaster That Changed Our Diaper Strategy

The humidity monitor in the nursery read exactly 46 percent, but it felt like a humid jungle as I wrestled my 11-month-old at 3:14 AM. He was furious. He had a diaper rash that looked like angry topography, and I...

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A stressed mom holding a coffee mug looking down at the nursery baseboards

Finding a Baby Cockroach in the Nursery (And Not Losing Your Mind)

It was 2:14 AM. I was standing in the middle of Maya's nursery wearing Dave's giant, horribly stained Villanova hoodie from 2008, holding a half-empty bottle of breastmilk that had somehow already gone completely cold. I was practically sleepwalking when...

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Tired dad looking at a baby monitor screen in a dark Portland nursery

Debugging the erratic hardware of your newborn's respiratory system

My mother-in-law confidently told me that if the nursery is completely quiet, the baby is sleeping perfectly and I should go make a sandwich. My lead developer at work, however, told me that I needed to purchase a hospital-grade under-mattress...

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A tired dad holding a freshly washed baby bottle in a dim kitchen.

Debugging the 2 AM Bottle Wash (And Why We Switched Methods)

It was 2:14 AM. I was standing in the kitchen illuminated only by the harsh blue light of the microwave clock, aggressively scrubbing a plastic milk cylinder with the exact same green and yellow sponge I had just used to...

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Dad carefully applying thick ointment to a baby's dry cheek patches

Troubleshooting Baby Eczema: A First-Time Dad's Bug-Fixing Guide

I was sitting at our kitchen island at 2:14 AM, staring blankly at a massive Excel spreadsheet I had built to track every single thing my wife had eaten over the past 72 hours, alongside every spoonful of pureed sweet...

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A tired mother looking at her baby's mouth in a dimly lit nursery

A letter to myself about thrush in babies and the white spots

You're sitting on the edge of the glider at 3 a.m. with your phone flashlight pointed into a sleeping mouth. You're trying to pry his tiny jaw open without waking him, which is as impossible as it sounds. His lips...

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A tired dad sitting on a nursery floor looking at his phone in the dark

Debugging Infant Sleep With The Taking Cara Babies Framework

The glow of my phone screen at 3:14 AM was the only light in the room, illuminating my desperate, one-thumbed Google search: taking cara babi sleep help please. Outside, the endless Portland drizzle was doing its best to act as...

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