Twins and the absurd reality of baby elephant weight
In the suffocatingly warm waiting room of our local NHS clinic, whilst desperately trying to balance a screaming twin on each knee, I received three entirely contradictory pieces of advice about infant growth within a single ten-minute span. Our health...
Stop Crying Over Baby Weight: A Letter to My Sleep-Deprived Self
Dear Jess from six months ago, I see you. You're standing barefoot in the master bathroom at 3 AM. You're completely naked, holding a screaming, naked infant. You step on the cold digital scale, squinting in the dark to read...
Normal Baby Weight at Birth: A Letter to My Terrified Past Self
Dear Tom from six months ago. You're currently hiding in the downstairs loo at a family barbecue, trying to field questions from your brother-in-law about what constitutes a normal baby weight. His wife is being induced on Tuesday, and you're...
A Letter to Past Me: Stop Panicking About Normal Baby Weight
Dear Tom from two years ago, currently sweating through a grey marl t-shirt in Room 4 of the local NHS clinic. You're sitting in a plastic chair that's somehow both sticky and cold, balancing two identical infant car seats on...
The baby scale anxiety trap (and why we threw ours out)
It's 4:12 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm standing in the kitchen illuminated only by the aggressive blue backlight of an LCD screen, trying to calculate the relative density of a soiled nappy. I'm staring at an Excel spreadsheet that...
Why I Stopped Treating My Baby's Weight Percentile Like a High Score
The crinkly paper on the exam table was already soaked with drool by the time Dr. Miller walked in holding the printout. I was bouncing our eleven-month-old on my hip, trying to keep him from disassembling the otoscope on the...
Am I Really Having The Biggest Baby Ever Born? My Honest Take
There I was at 38 weeks pregnant, standing in line at the local H-E-B just praying my water wouldn't break near the seasonal aisle, when the cashier took one look at my belly and told me I needed to stop...
Why That Online Growth Chart Is Making You Lose Your Mind
I'm standing naked on my cold Chicago bathroom tile at four in the morning. My baby is also naked. I step onto the digital scale, memorize my exact weight, step off, pick up my thrashing three-month-old, step back on, and...
Dear Past Me: Please Stop Stressing Over the Baby Weight Chart
I was cleaning out my messy Google Drive about 6 months agoβlooking for a recipe I never ended up makingβand I found a draft of a letter I had started writing to my past self. I was looking at old...