Life with a newborn: Survival tactics from a tired pediatric nurse
I spent my first week at home with my son staring at a spreadsheet I built to track his bowel movements. It was three in the morning, my nursing scrub top was stained with spit-up, and I was holding a...
When your sweet newborn suddenly turns into an actual baby demon
It was exactly 6:43 PM on a Tuesday in November. The radiators in our Chicago apartment were clanking the way they always do when the wind picks up. My sweet three-month-old daughter, who had spent the entire morning peacefully cooing...
Baby Chief Do It: 3 AM Rabbit Holes & Real Firmware Updates
Itβs 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, the exact temperature in our Portland apartment is 68.5 degrees, and I'm currently forty-five minutes deep into a TikTok wormhole trying to figure out why my eleven-month-oldβs behavior doesnβt match the internetβs benchmarks. My...
Surviving Your 4 Month Old Baby: The Truth About Sleep and Sanity
Everyone tells you that once you hit the sixteen-week mark, the clouds part and the angels sing. They call it the end of the fourth trimester, like you're suddenly crossing a finish line into this magical land of predictable naps...
A Rat in the Playroom and Why I Tossed All Our Plastic Toys
I was holding a lukewarm mug of chai, stepping over the scattered debris of my toddler's morning play session. Beside the television stand, there was a grey lump. At first, I thought it was just a discarded lint ball from...
My 3 AM Colic Panic and the Truth About Gripe Water for Babies
It's 3:14 AM. Tuesday. Or maybe a Thursday, time is a flat circle anyway when you haven't slept more than forty consecutive minutes in a month. I'm wearing my husband Dave's gray sweatpants with a mysterious crusty stain on the...
Dear Past Me: Surviving The First Year And That Lil Baby Age
Dear Sarah from six months agoβ Actually, wait. No. Maya is seven and Leo is four now. So writing a letter to myself from six months ago would just be me aggressively telling myself to buy more coffee before the...
3 AM Teething Panics And The Nikki Baby Google Search Spiral
At 3:17 AM on a Tuesday, I'm standing in the middle of the nursery holding a glowing infrared forehead thermometer like a phaser set to stun. My 11-month-old is thrashing around in his crib like a fish on a dock,...
The Morbid Truth About Rock a Bye Baby and Why It Still Works
Don't open up a search engine at three in the morning to research the origins of nursery rhymes while bouncing a screaming infant. It's a terrible idea that only leads to weird historical rabbit holes and more anxiety. I know...