What Are Bibs Actually For? A Nurse's Guide to Baby Drool
My mother-in-law told me I needed forty cloth neck-ties before we left the maternity ward. The lactation consultant said skin-to-skin meant strictly naked feeding, with absolutely no fabric allowed between us. My neighbor swore I only needed two plastic wipe-clean...
The Truth About Buying a Pink Baby Tee (And Keeping It Pink)
I'm currently staring at a laundry basket full of what used to be pastel pink baby clothes, and I'm just gonna be real with you: half of them look like they were washed in a muddy puddle. If you Google...
The Actually Useful Infant Essentials List for Pragmatic Parents
I was sitting on our living room rug surrounded by forty-seven pounds of cardboard packaging, holding a wipe warmer that apparently needed to be plugged into an outlet at all times, when I realized the baby registry industrial complex is...
Why Baby Boy Rompers Are The Only Outfit You Actually Need
I'm standing over the changing table at what feels like three in the morning, trying to thread a miniature leather belt through the belt loops of three-month-old corduroy pants. He is doing the alligator death roll. There's a very specific...
Debugging Baby Winter Temperature: A Dad’s Layering Logic
We were twenty-two minutes into the deployment phase of leaving the house, standing in our freezing Portland driveway, when the entire system crashed. I had just spent a quarter of an hour wrestling my 11-month-old son into a heavily insulated,...
Surviving the sticky, panic-inducing reality of baby suncare
It was late May, the temperature had inexplicably hit 22 degrees in London, and I was staring at my twin daughters in their double pram like they were gremlins about to melt in the light. They were barely four months...
The Huge Car Seat Lie That Cost Me Weeks of Sleep (And Money)
I was standing in the middle of a big box baby store—seven months pregnant with Leo, wearing maternity leggings that definitely had a crusty yogurt stain on the knee from God knows where—just absolutely sobbing. My husband Dave was holding...
Dear Past Marcus: A Debugging Guide to Dressing Your Infant
Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago: I can see you right now. You're standing over the changing table at 3:17 AM in our freezing Portland apartment, sweating profusely while holding a squirming, screaming five-month-old, trying to figure out how...
The Complete Dad Guide to Finding a Good Feeding Bottle
I was standing in our dimly lit kitchen at 2:14 AM, holding six separate, dripping plastic components of a single infant vessel, when I accidentally dropped a tiny silicone vent disc down the garbage disposal. The baby was screaming in...