Magazine

A sleeping newborn baby wrapped in a soft blanket

What no one tells you about bringing a jaundice baby home

My mother-in-law told me to put him in the living room window like a houseplant. The hospital lactation consultant told me to feed him until my nipples literally fell off. My deeply sleep-deprived husband downloaded three different tracking apps, poking...

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Stressed mother sitting on a couch checking a video baby monitor in the dark

Why the movie Gone Baby Gone triggered my newborn panic mode

The monitor was finally silent. Kabir had been fighting sleep for three hours, doing that rigid back-arching exorcist move every time I tried to lower him into the crib. My husband and I slumped onto the couch in the dark,...

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A tired mother looking at a baby teeth chart while her toddler chews a toy

The baby teeth chart lie: What to expect when fangs arrive

I've got my knee gently pinning her left arm to the carpet, my elbow blocking her right, while I try to wedge a clean index finger past her lips. She has just ruined her first baby tee of the morning...

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A messy nursery floor with a soft pastel swaddle blanket and a coffee mug

The 3 AM Battle Between Crusty Pink Eyes and Pastel Aesthetics

It was three in the morning the night before our big extended family photoshoot. I was sitting on the nursery floor staring at two very specific things. One was my fresh manicure, an expensive gel job featuring those trendy baby...

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Two messy toddlers covered in organic baby cereal sitting in high chairs

What I Got Completely Wrong About Baby Cereal

There's a patch of gray, cement-like substance currently adhered to the underside of my kitchen island, and I honestly don't think it's ever coming off. It has survived three rounds of antibacterial spray, a vigorous scrubbing with a wire brush,...

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A confused dad looking at a baby monitor while holding a folded baby blanket

What Nobody Tells You About Your Baby's Breath

When we brought Leo home from the hospital eleven months ago, I received exactly three pieces of contradictory advice about his respiratory system within a forty-eight-hour window. My mother told me to hold a tiny compact mirror under his nose...

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A disassembled toy doll next to a sink full of soapy water and a scrub brush

The ugly truth about that baby alive doll hiding in your playroom

I'm standing over my kitchen sink at eleven at night with a pair of surgical tweezers, trying to extract a solid black clump of fermented synthetic cherry mush from the plastic esophagus of a toy. This is not how I...

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Exhausted mom in stained sweatpants holding a baby with dry skin

Surviving The Ash Baby Look And Other Sweaty Newborn Disasters

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was staring at Leo under the harsh bathroom vanity light, wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively of sour milk and my husband Dave's oversized college sweatpants. Leo was three weeks...

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A stressed parent looking at a mobile phone and a positive pregnancy test

The 3am Accutane Baby Panic: Skincare, Pregnancy, and Paranoia

The bathroom tiles were freezing against my bare legs, but the cold barely registered because I was staring at two things: a plastic stick with two faint pink lines, and a half-empty tube of prescription acne cream. It was 3:17...

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