Babies Breath: How Do Babies Breathe in the Womb & Real Life
"You just wait until they take their first breath out here," my mother-in-law told me at my baby shower, casually stirring her sweet tea. "Before that, they just hold it for nine whole months." Bless her heart, she was dead...
Dear Past Me: The Truth About Aquaphor Baby and Drool Rashes
You're standing in aisle fourteen of the Target on Roosevelt Road, holding a tub of regular healing ointment in your left hand and the infant version in your right. It's two in the morning. Your daughter is at home with...
Surviving The Sleep Sack Baby Phase Without Losing Your Mind
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday, because time doesn't actually exist when you've a newborn. I was wearing a faded sorority t-shirt from 2008 that had a mysterious, crusty spit-up stain on the shoulder, and I...
What they never tell you about that ergo baby carrier obsession
I was standing in the Target parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon. Lake Michigan wind was doing that miserable thing where it bites straight through your denim. My kid was screaming in his baby car seat. I was sweating through...
What The Drill Baby Drill Slogan Actually Means For Parents
Dear Sarah from last October, I know exactly where you're right now. It’s 7:14 AM on a Tuesday. You're standing in the kitchen wearing those tragic gray sweatpants with the mysterious hole in the left thigh, holding your second—no, let's...
The Honest Guide to Finding the Best Baby Bottles for Your Baby
It was 2:14 AM, the Texas summer heat was somehow still radiating through the walls, and I was standing in my kitchen in a milk-stained t-shirt having a full-blown breakdown over fifteen tiny pieces of plastic. My oldest, Carter, was...
Bringing Babys Home: Surviving The First Year Without Losing It
The digital clock on the microwave read 3:14 AM, and I was sitting cross-legged on the cold bathroom tile, desperately trying to steam the congestion out of my oldest son, Jackson. He was screaming like I was personally torturing him,...
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: What Modern Parents Actually Learned
My mother-in-law told me to let him cry until he throws up because it builds character. My pediatrician, who looks like he hasn't slept since the Obama administration, muttered something about responsive attachment and vagus nerve development. Meanwhile, my favorite...
The peanut butter baby protocol: Debugging a first allergen
Flashback to a misty Portland Tuesday about six months ago. My wife Sarah was in the other room on a muted Zoom call, and I was standing in the kitchen staring at a nine-dollar jar of organic, single-ingredient peanut butter...