Magazine

A baby chewing on a soft plant-based teething toy in a nursery

The truth about tree sap teethers and your baby's weird fevers

I was staring at a thermometer flashing 102.4 in red, convinced my daughter's bottom lateral incisor was trying to kill her. My mother-in-law had already called twice to tell me it was just teething and I should rub a little...

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A wooden baby rattle next to a digital caliper and a cold cup of coffee

Dear Marcus: Stop Buying Loud Plastic Toys and Read This

Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago, It's 3:14 AM on a Tuesday. You're standing in the dark hallway of your Portland bungalow, clutching a lukewarm bottle of formula, staring at a flashing plastic boombox toy that's aggressively singing "I'M...

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Tired dad holding twin babies in different winter base layers

The Massive Infant Merino Lie That Cost Me Months of Sleep

It's precisely 3:14 am, and I'm standing in a dimly lit nursery holding what feels like a highly agitated, damp jacket potato. Maya, the twin who's currently screaming directly into my left ear canal, is wearing a polyester fleece sleep...

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Crumpled bamboo duvet in a toddler bed next to a stuffed animal

Toddler night sweats, triage, and the bettdecke bambus solution

There's a persistent lie circulating in affluent parenting circles that a natural goose down comforter is the ultimate luxury you can offer a sleeping child. We bought into it. It was early November, the Chicago wind was brutal, and I...

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Toddler wearing a merino wool base layer and sleeping comfortably

Why I Ditched Fleece for Baby Wolle in the Freezing Chicago Winter

It was two in the morning in mid-February. The kind of Chicago night where the wind off Lake Michigan sounds like a structural failure. I reached into the crib and unzipped my son's heavy fleece sleep sack. His chest was...

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Toddler wearing a chunky oversized sweater looking away from camera

The survival guide to the baby knit pullover

It was thirty degrees in Chicago last November, and my fourteen-month-old was doing the alligator death roll on the living room rug. I was attempting to line up three microscopic buttons on a very trendy, very stiff denim jacket his...

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A frustrated dad looking at a massive static-filled polyester blanket on a couch.

The Physics Of A Kuscheldecke Gross (And Why I Tasered My Baby)

We were twenty minutes into a severely delayed family movie night, the Portland rain was hammering the windows, and I made a tactical error. I grabbed the massive, fluffy gray fleece blanket we bought at a big box store three...

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A folded babydecke aus merinowolle resting on a nursery chair.

The truth about using a decke aus merinowolle for baby sleep

The radiator in our Chicago apartment clanks at exactly three in the morning. That was usually my cue to drag myself out of bed, shuffle across the freezing hardwood floor, and do the two-finger neck check on my daughter. It...

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A confused dad holding a toddler's anti-allergy duvet while looking at a smart room thermometer.

Debugging infant sniffles: My search for an allergie bettdecke

It's 3:14 AM and I'm watching the infrared feed on the baby monitor like a security guard waiting for a museum heist. The audio feed is just a continuous, wet, whistling sound. My eleven-month-old sounds exactly like our espresso machine...

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