Magazine

Confused dad holding an infant covered in pureed sweet potatoes

The Great Gerber Baby Myth and The Reality of Infant Parenting

I'm currently staring at a smear of what I think is pureed sweet potato on my kitchen ceiling. I don't know how it got up there. My son is eleven months old, sits exactly thirty-two inches below that spot in...

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A wooden push toy on a nursery rug next to some soft building blocks.

Why that classic seated baby walker is actually a terrible idea

Last Diwali, my mother-in-law cornered me near the samosas with a brightly colored plastic catalog she had acquired from god knows where. She flipped to a dog-eared page and pointed to a massive plastic saucer surrounded by wheels and covered...

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Sleep deprived mom staring at a mechanical baby swing in a dark living room

What I Wish I Knew Before Buying That Magical Baby Swing

It’s 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in November, and I'm standing in my kitchen wearing a pair of Target maternity leggings from 2014 that smell aggressively like sour milk, holding a lukewarm mug of yesterday’s coffee, just absolutely paralyzed while...

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A tired mom holding a cup of coffee while looking at baby clothes

The Only Things You Actually Need For A New Baby (And What To Skip)

"You absolutely need the wipe warmer," my sister-in-law hissed across the table, leaning in like she was giving me state secrets. "If a cold wipe touches that baby's bottom, you'll never sleep again." "Don't buy anything," my hippie neighbor countered...

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Tired dad staring at a massive pile of baby items from a Target registry

The Truth About Target’s Baby Registry From a Tired Dad

I'm standing in our London flat at 2am, holding an iPad my American mother-in-law mailed across the Atlantic, staring at a digital spreadsheet that's fifty rows deep in burp cloths alone. My wife is asleep on the sofa, heavily pregnant...

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Dad holding a baby wearing a simple A-line dress

Buying schΓΆne kleider fΓΌr kinder: A dad's dress debugging

It was 7:14 AM on a Tuesday when the mobility crisis officially peaked. My eleven-month-old daughter, Maya, was stranded in the middle of our living room rug, her knees firmly pinned to the floor by an excessive layer of synthetic...

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A tired father staring at a complex plastic bouncing contraption while holding two identical screaming infants.

Dear Past Me: The Truth About That Newborn Jumper Fantasy

Dear Tom of six months ago, You're currently sitting on the hallway floor of our terribly drafted London flat at 3:14 in the morning. Your left shoulder smells aggressively of sour milk, your right knee is entirely numb from the...

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Messy living room floor covered in wooden blocks and toddler toys

Spielzeug Kinder 2 Jahre: Surviving the Toddler Toy Explosion

I was standing in the dark hallway at 3 AM holding a laundry basket full of spit-up stained onesies when my heel came straight down on a plastic light-up police car that screamed "WEE-WOO PUT YOUR HANDS UP" into the...

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A bewildered father holding a mountain of unnecessary baby items while his twins look on.

The Great Baby Accessories Delusion: What Parents Actually Need

I'm currently staring at a twenty-pound velvet baby fedora. I found it in a plastic storage tub at the back of our loft, resting gently atop a pristine, battery-operated wipe warmer. This box is essentially an archaeological dig of my...

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