Why "The Babys" Sleep Rules Broke Me (And What Really Worked)
I was standing in the kitchen at 3:17 AM wearing a gray maternity bra that smelled aggressively like sour milk and desperation. My husband, Dave, was asleepβor pretending to be asleep, the bastardβwhile I was furiously typing misspelled medical queries...
The brutal truth about baby cough medicine and what actually works
At 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was standing in my dark kitchen holding a thrashing, coughing toddler while my phone lit up with three different text threads. My mom was typing paragraphs about rubbing warm mustard oil on his...
My honest guide to receiving blankets versus swaddles at 2 AM
I was aggressively stuffing those white and pink-striped hospital blankets into my duffel bag while my husband stood by the door acting as a lookout. I was a pediatric nurse for five years before having my son. I knew exactly...
The Truth About Baby Sleepwear When Everyone Has an Opinion
"Put a hat on him, he's freezing," my mother-in-law said, handing me a knit cap that looked like an oversized acorn. This was at 2 PM. At 4 PM, my lactation consultant visited, took one look at Leo swaddled in...
Decoding Infant Sleep Audio: My War With Sound Machines
It's 3 AM and I'm hovering over my eleven-month-old's crib with a free NIOSH decibel meter app glowing ominously on my phone, watching the needle spike into the red zone. My wife is standing in the doorway in her robe,...
The Messy Truth About White Noise For Babies And Sleep Safety
I was sitting cross-legged on the stained rug of Leo's nursery at like 3:14 AM. I was wearing my husband's college lacrosse hoodie that smelled vaguely of sour milk, and holding my screaming four-week-old, totally convinced I had already broken...
Why a weighted sleep sack almost broke my parenting resolve
The glow of my phone screen was the only light in the nursery, casting long, vaguely sinister shadows over two cots containing infants who had apparently unionised and agreed to strike against sleep. It was 3:14 in the morning. My...
Did Rihanna Have Her Baby? A Dad's Take on Celebrity Parenting
It was 2:14 AM, the Portland rain was actively trying to breach my window seals, and my eleven-month-old was staring at the ceiling fan like it held the secrets to the universe. We were deep in the middle of some...
Why that cheer up baby dailymotion search won't fix the crying
The glow of a smartphone screen at three in the morning is uniquely depressing. My son was doing that arched-back, red-faced screaming thing. I had a bottle in one hand, a pacifier clamped in my teeth, and I was frantically...