The midnight origami crisis: A letter to my past swaddling self
Dear Past Tom, You're currently sitting on the edge of a plastic-covered mattress in the maternity ward of St Thomas' Hospital, staring at a screaming, red-faced potato named Alice, while her twin sister, Lucy, is somehow already escaping the blanket...
My Sunny Side Up Baby Gave Me the Back Labor From Absolute Hell
It was 3:14 AM on the linoleum floor of Room 4 at Mt. Sinai, and I was wearing my husband Markβs faded 2012 indie band tour t-shirt because nothing else fit my massive, 40-weeks-pregnant body. I was clutching the hospital...
The Truth About That Uncanny Squid Game CGI Baby Everyone Hates
It was Tuesday night, raining in Chicago, and I was sitting on my couch eating cold leftover palak paneer directly out of the Tupperware. My toddler was finally asleep upstairs, which meant I had exactly forty-five minutes of silence before...
When Can Babies Have Juice: The 3 AM Apple Juice Disaster
It was 2:14 AM on a random Tuesday, and I was sitting cross-legged on the cold linoleum of my kitchen floor staring blindly at the humming refrigerator. I was wearing a maternity tank top that I'm pretty sure had three-day-old...
The Great Eye Colour Waiting Game: A London Dad's Guide to Melanin
My mother-in-law leaned over the Moses basket on day three and declared with absolute certainty that Twin B's eyes were definitely turning brown because she spotted some microscopic muddy flecks near the pupil. The NHS health visitor popped round on...
The Unvarnished Truth About Your Infant's Shifting Eye Colour
Dear Tom from eighteen months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of the nursery at three in the morning, holding an iPhone torch uncomfortably close to Maya's face to see if her irises have developed any gold flecks, while...
When Do Babies Start Seeing Color? A Letter to Past Me
Dear Jess from six months ago, You're currently sitting in the rocking chair at 2 AM, running on three hours of sleep and a cold cup of coffee, frantically waving a muted sage-green wooden toy in front of your new...
When Do You Find Out The Gender Of Your Baby
I was untangling IV lines in triage when a patient in her third trimester started crying. Not the quiet hormonal weeping we see a dozen times a shift. Full sobbing. Her mother-in-law had just painted the nursery aggressive pastel pink...
The Great Crawling Myth: When Do Infants Actually Start Moving?
I was literally sitting on our living room rug with a stopwatch and a spreadsheet. My daughter was exactly eight months and four days old, lying perfectly still on her stomach, looking at me like I had lost my mind....