Magazine

A soft bamboo blanket covered in rainbows draped over a wooden nursery cot.

What I Learned After Buying a Blanket With Rainbows for My Twins

We were standing by the dismal puddle that passes for a duck pond in our local park when a woman I had never met touched my arm and gave me a look of deep, teary-eyed solidarity. She was staring intently...

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Two toddlers staring resentfully at a dropped blanket in a muddy puddle.

Surviving Brutal Winter Walks With a Fusssack für Kinderwagen

It was a violently miserable Tuesday in November when the double buggy jammed in the middle of Regent’s Park. The wind was doing that specifically British thing where it somehow cuts diagonally upward through your coat, and I was desperately...

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A frustrated mother trying to pull a knit sweater over an infant's head

The brutal truth about buying your baby's winter sweater

It was mid-November in Chicago, which means the wind off the lake feels like tiny knives. I was running late for a four-month well-child check. My mother-in-law had gifted us this thick, chunky-knit mustard pullover that looked adorable on the...

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A dad looking exhausted holding a tiny organic cotton cardigan

The Baby Sweater Survival Guide: How Not to Overcook Your Child

"Put a hat on her, she’s losing heat!" shouted an elderly woman at the bus stop, gesturing wildly at Maya (who was currently sweating through her vest and trying to eat a discarded bus ticket). Ten minutes later, a bloke...

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Exhausted dad staring at a massive pile of useless newborn baby gifts

The painfully honest truth about willkommensgeschenke für babys

My mother-in-law arrived on day three clutching what looked like a Victorian christening gown and declared that a new baby must only be dressed in white lace. The DHL bloke who dropped off our tenth Amazon box of the week...

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A sage green silicone baby bib covered in smashed sweet potato on a white table.

Lätzchen Silikon: Why I abandoned the cloth bib fantasy

It was day four of baby-led weaning. My son had managed to work a single wedge of roasted sweet potato into his hair, his ears, and the space between his toes. But the real tragedy was his chest. He was...

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Stressed mom holding coffee looking at a giant puffy baby snowsuit

My Utterly Chaotic Guide to Surviving Your First Infant Winter

I'm standing in our icy driveway, and the wind is absolutely howling. It's November 2017, Maya is barely six months old, and I'm holding a lukewarm mug of dark roast in one hand while trying to wrestle a screaming, rigid...

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Newborn baby wearing a layered winter dress and cotton tights

The truth about newborn winter dresses and freezing temperatures

November in Chicago is a specific kind of brutal. The wind does that thing where it physically hurts your face. I was standing in my hallway holding my three-week-old daughter, who was stuffed into a thick velvet holiday dress, layered...

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A baby wearing a white cropped baby tee while lying on a playmat.

Why the cropped baby tee saved my sanity and his cord stump

Day five postpartum. Three in the morning. July in Chicago. The window unit AC was rattling like a dying lawnmower, the ambient humidity was somewhere around ninety percent, and my son was screaming with the kind of intensity that makes...

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