Magazine

A tiny infant bird sitting in the damp garden grass next to a toddler's shoe

Dear past Tom: So your toddler found a bird in the garden

Dear Tom from last May. You're currently standing on the patio in your dressing gown, holding a lukewarm mug of instant coffee while watching Maya and Lily enthusiastically poke at a pulsating lump of grey fluff on the lawn, so...

Read more

A dad looking exhausted while his one-year-old twins play with wooden toys on a rug

Surviving the Chaos: The Truth About Raising a One-Year-Old

I was on my hands and knees, using a blunt butter knife to scrape a disturbing amount of smashed avocado out of the grooves of our Victorian skirting board, when I realised the greatest lie of modern parenting. The lie...

Read more

Exhausted dad holding a 1 month old baby while staring at a coffee cup

The survival guide to your 1 month old baby: Grunting and chaos

It's 3:14 AM and I'm currently having a staring contest with a four-week-old dictator. Before this week, both my twin girls were essentially sleepy, squishy potatoes who occasionally demanded milk. But at exactly one month old, a terrifying switch flipped....

Read more

Exhausted dad looking stressed while wrestling twins in a busy kids clothes shop

The Oxford Street Kids Clothes Shop Incident and Other Regrets

We were twenty minutes into a torrential downpour on Oxford Street when Twin A discovered a rack of heavily sequined, faux-leather mermaid trousers. Twin B, meanwhile, was systematically pulling the size stickers off every pair of denim jeans in a...

Read more

A toddler in a black organic cotton bodysuit playing with a wooden bat toy on a dark rug.

Raising A Baby Goth Without Losing Your Mind Or Your Aesthetic

The grand, sweeping myth of alternative parenting is that we're all gliding around dimly lit Victorian manors, raising miniature vampires who only listen to Bauhaus and politely refuse to play with brightly coloured plastic. The depressing reality is that I'm...

Read more

Exhausted dad staring at a massive pile of baby blankets while twin girls sleep in their bare cribs.

The Great Baby Decke Deception of the First Twelve Months

I'm standing in our cramped London living room, holding what can only be described as a mountain of pastel knitwear. It's three weeks before the twins are due, and my mother-in-law has just dropped off her contribution to our nursery....

Read more

An exhausted British dad holding a tube of baby rash cream at midnight

Surviving the 3 AM Panic: A British Dad's Guide to Baby Rash Cream

The glow of the GroEgg in the corner of the nursery was an ominous, angry red, which felt entirely appropriate given what I was about to uncover inside Florence's sleepsuit. It was 3:14 in the morning, a time when human...

Read more

A deeply exhausted dad trying to put a baby swaddle on a flailing infant at 3am

The 4 AM Starfish Incident and the Happiest Baby Swaddle

It's 3:17 AM on a Tuesday, though in the windowless temporal void of my daughters' nursery, it might as well be 1994. The room smells faintly of Calpol, sour milk, and my own evaporating dignity. I'm standing over the cot...

Read more

A tired dad holding two toddlers surrounded by organic baby clothes and silicone teethers

The Great Green Baby Panic: A Father's Descent Into Eco-Parenting

I was standing in our galley kitchen at 3:14 a.m., holding a disposable nappy that smelled vaguely of industrial solvent, when I realised my twin daughters were going to single-handedly destroy the ozone layer. Florence was screaming from the bassinet...

Read more