Magazine

A wet Newton mattress core drying in a Portland bathtub

Why I Hosed Down Our Newton Baby Crib Mattress at 2 AM

It was 3:14 AM. The infrared glow of the Nanit monitor showed a gray, pixelated blob that used to be my daughter, but now she was completely face-down. Smashed directly into the mattress fibers. I watched the screen, waiting for...

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A dad attempting to install a heavy toddler car seat into the back of a family car

Is the Recaro Baby Seat Actually Worth It? A Twin Dad's Review

The greatest lie the baby gear industry ever sold us is the concept of portability. There's a persistent, completely delusional myth that you'll buy a premium child car seat, click it effortlessly into your vehicle on a Tuesday, and then...

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Close-up of organic bamboo baby blanket next to a painted nursery wall showing the exact baby blue hex shade.

How to Debug the Exact Baby Blue Color Code for Your Nursery

Three different people gave me completely conflicting advice while I was standing in an empty room holding a dry paint roller. My mother-in-law called to insist I needed to find something she referred to as "stork blue" because it supposedly...

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A nice dinner table setup with a subtle clothing protector folded next to a plate

Finding the Best Adult Bibs for Dignity at the Dinner Table

The gravy hit her white silk blouse before I even had a chance to drop my fork. I'm sitting there at Sunday dinner, wedged between a screaming toddler and my grandmother, watching a massive brown stain spread right across her...

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Clueless software engineer dad looking at baby registry must haves on dual monitors

Decoding Baby Registry Must Haves Without Crashing Your Brain

It's precisely 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, my mechanical keyboard is clacking, my dual-monitor setup is glowing with the intensity of a thousand suns, and I've exactly forty-seven browser tabs open trying to parse the flow rate variations of infant...

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Red panda eating bamboo on branch next to a sleepy human infant

What an Endangered Red Panda Taught Me About Parenting My Wild Child

The glow of my dual monitors was the only light in the living room while my eleven-month-old son performed what I can only describe as a sustained velociraptor screech from his playpen. It was 3:14 AM. I was supposed to...

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A confused dad looking at jars of organic baby food in the grocery store.

Debugging dinner: My panic-induced deep dive into organic baby food

It was Tuesday night, 6:14 PM, and my kitchen looked like a crime scene involving a very small, very angry sweet potato. My wife, Sarah, was trying to scrape orange sludge off the ceiling while I sat on the floor,...

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Confused mom looking at baby products on the Target app while drinking coffee

How to Actually Do a Target Baby Registry Search Without Tears

When I was about seven months pregnant with Maya, three different people gave me three completely contradictory pieces of advice about how getting people to buy us newborn gear actually worked. My mother-in-law insisted that guests just walk up to...

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A folded terracotta and white baby blanket on a wooden rocking chair

What Is a Rainbow Baby? The Complicated Truth

The monitor is beeping a steady, boring 145 beats per minute, but the woman on the paper-covered table is still holding her breath. She has her eyes squeezed shut, her hands gripping the plastic edges of the bed so hard...

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