Surviving the Rora Baby Monster Phase

I was wearing Dave's faded gray Boston College sweatpants—the ones with the questionable stain on the left knee—and my hair was in a knot so tight it was giving me a tension headache. It was 3:14 AM. I know the exact time because the glaring red numbers on the microwave were basically mocking me while I paced the kitchen. Maya, who was 14 months old at the time, was arching her back like a feral cat, screaming with a lung capacity I didn't know a human that tiny possessed. I had my phone in one hand, frantically Googling because I was convinced my sweet infant had been replaced by an actual demon.

I was so sleep-deprived that my thumbs were just mashing keys. I had seen some TikTok earlier that day—or maybe it was three weeks ago, time is a flat circle when you don't sleep—about some sleep routine or monitor brand that sounded like "Rora." So I clumsily typed a mashup of words into the search bar, trying to figure out why my kid was acting like this. And suddenly, my phone is blasting a high-budget music video with pyrotechnics. Apparently, the algorithm thought I was looking up a South Korean pop star from a band, and not trying to diagnose why my toddler was actively trying to headbutt the refrigerator.

Surreal. Absolutely surreal.

But it got me thinking about how we talk about this age. The little monster phase. Because that’s exactly what it feels like when you've a baby who suddenly discovers they've opinions but zero vocabulary to express them. They just turn into these tiny, adorable, rage-filled beings. And honestly, the stuff you try to do to fix it usually makes it worse. Like, if I could go back in time and shake myself by the shoulders, I'd start with the biggest mistake I made during my nesting phase.

The time I almost poisoned my kid for an aesthetic

Okay, so before Maya was born, I spent way too many hours on Pinterest. I wanted her nursery to look like one of those calm, boho-chic sanctuaries. I bought this gorgeous, trendy houseplant. A baby monstera. It looked incredible sitting on the mid-century modern dresser next to the crib. I was so proud of it. I thought I was really nailing the whole millennial earth-mother vibe.

Flash forward to the crawling and pulling-up stage. Maya is grabbing at everything. And I casually mentioned the plant to our pediatrician, Dr. Miller, during a check-up. She looked at me over her glasses—she always does this move when I'm about to admit something stupid—and told me that those plants are completely toxic. Like, dangerous.

Apparently, they've these microscopic needle-like crystals inside the leaves. Some unpronounceable calcium crystal crap. And if a baby chews on one, it causes immediate, severe burning in their mouth and their throat can swell up. Oh god. I felt sick. I had put a literal hazard within arm's reach of my baby M because I thought the green leaves looked cute against the wallpaper.

I went home and dragged that heavy ceramic pot out to the alley in the pouring rain. Anyway, the point is, your house doesn't need to look like an influencer's grid. If you want greenery, get a plastic plant. Because when your kid is in their feral phase, they'll put absolutely everything in their mouth. Especially the things that can hurt them.

What Dr. Miller actually told me about the floor screaming

So back to the tantrums. The back-arching, the floor-flailing, the shrieking because you handed them the blue cup instead of the slightly different blue cup. I was convinced something was medically wrong with Maya, or that my parenting was fundamentally broken.

Dr. Miller essentially told me that a toddler's brain is basically soup. Well, she probably used a more clinical term, something about the prefrontal cortex and emotional regulation lagging behind motor skills, but I heard "soup." They have all these massive feelings—frustration, exhaustion, hunger, the deep injustice of not being allowed to eat the TV remote—but they can't say it. So the only release valve is to throw their body on the ground and scream.

It's completely normal, even though it feels like a crisis. But when you're in it, you overthink everything. Sitting on my living room floor, covered in dried spit-up and drinking coffee that I had microwaved three times, I made a mental list of all the things I genuinely thought were causing her meltdowns:

The fact that I accidentally gave her non-organic strawberries on Tuesday.
My mother-in-law's passive-aggressive hints that we were failing because we didn't use the Ferber method exactly to the letter.
Dave insisting that her sleep sack was too restrictive, even though it was the middle of December and freezing.
The Wi-Fi router being too close to the nursery (seriously, a late-night Reddit thread convinced me of this one).

But no. It wasn't the strawberries or the router. It was just biology. Instead of deep-cleaning the entire house with non-toxic vinegar spray and throwing out all your sleep schedules and crying in the shower, sometimes you just have to ride out the storm. You just have to sit on the floor next to them and make sure they don't concuss themselves on the coffee table.

Which brings me to toys. Because when Leo (my oldest) hit this phase, he was a thrower. He would get mad that a block didn't balance, and he would launch it across the room. We had these beautiful, aesthetic wooden blocks that weighed like three pounds each. They were basically weapons.

I finally got smart and swapped them out for the Gentle Baby Building Block Set. They're soft rubber. Completely squishy. So when Leo had a meltdown because I wouldn't let him drink bathwater, and he chucked a block at my head, it just bounced off. No bruises. No shattered windows. They're BPA-free and come in these really nice, muted macaron colors so they don't look like a neon carnival exploded in my living room. I think they've numbers and math symbols on them for "early education," but let's be real—their absolute best feature is that they're non-lethal projectiles when your kid is seeing red.

Taming the feral teething beast

A lot of times, the monster behavior isn't just emotional frustration. It's teeth. Teething turns the sweetest infant into a drooling, biting, miserable little goblin. Maya got her first molars all at once, and for two weeks, our house was a hostage situation. She wouldn't sleep, she wouldn't eat anything except cold waffles, and she constantly wanted to bite my shoulder. My actual shoulder.

I bought so many teethers trying to fix it. We got this one silicone panda thing—the Panda Teether. It was... fine? Like, it's cute and you can throw it in the dishwasher, which Dave loved because he's obsessed with sanitizing things. But Maya didn't really care for it. She'd chew on it for thirty seconds, drop it under the couch, and go right back to trying to bite my collarbone. It's okay to keep in the diaper bag for emergencies, I guess, but it wasn't our savior.

Our actual savior was leaning into the theme and getting her a literal monster. The Plush Monster Rattle Teething Toy. God, I loved this thing. It's crocheted from organic cotton, so it's super soft, but it has this hard untreated wooden ring at the bottom. Maya was obsessed with the contrasting textures. She would gnaw on the hard wood when her gums were throbbing, and then rub the soft crocheted monster head against her cheek when she was trying to self-soothe to sleep. Plus, it jingles just enough to distract her from a tantrum, but not loud enough to make me want to throw it out the window. It felt very fitting to hand my screaming little gremlin a smiling little monster.

Tech gear paranoia and staying unplugged

Between the teething and the tantrums, you start looking for tech to save you. Monitors that track breathing, apps that predict sleep cycles. Dave and I got into this massive argument about baby monitors. He wanted the high-tech Wi-Fi one that streamed to his phone so he could check on Leo from his office. I had read exactly one terrifying article about a hacker talking through a Wi-Fi camera and I completely lost my mind.

I refused. I made us get a basic, closed-circuit radio monitor. No internet connection. If I hear static, it's just interference, not some creep in another country. Sometimes, the best way to handle the anxiety of the baby phase is to unplug from all the data. You don't need a spreadsheet to tell you your kid slept terribly—you were there. You know.

If you're also trying to survive this chaotic phase without turning your house into a padded cell, maybe just take a breath. Lower the expectations. And if you want to make your environment a little softer, take a look at Kianao's organic play gyms and blankets. Because when they throw themselves backward on the floor, you're going to want something thick and padded catching their head.

Anyway, I need to go see why Leo is currently trying to feed the dog his old pacifier. But before you fall down another 3 AM internet spiral trying to diagnose your kid's totally normal behavior, go browse the Kianao teething collection. Getting a soft, safe toy for them to chew on instead of your furniture might be the one actual fix you can control today.

The messy realities of the tantrum phase (FAQ)

Are meltdowns at 14 months a sign I'm messing up as a parent?

Oh god, no. Please don't think this. I spent so many nights crying into Dave's shoulder thinking I had ruined Maya because she threw her oatmeal at the wall. They literally just don't have the brain development yet to handle big emotions. Dr. Miller told me it's actually a sign they feel safe enough with you to lose their minds. So, congratulations? You're doing great. Drink some water.

What do I do if my baby actually chews on a toxic houseplant?

Don't wait around Googling remedies. Call Poison Control immediately or take them straight to the ER. Dr. Miller drilled this into my head. Those aesthetic nursery plants look great on Instagram, but if they get a leaf in their mouth, their throat can swell fast. Just ditch the real plants for now. Get a fake one from Target. No one cares.

How long does this feral teething monster phase last?

I wish I had a clean answer for you, but it comes in waves. Just when you think you're clear, a molar starts pushing through and they regress into a drooly little goblin again. It usually peaks around the first two years. Just keep frozen washcloths and safe wooden teethers on heavy rotation, and buy a really strong under-eye concealer for yourself.

Are soft silicone blocks really better than the aesthetic wooden ones?

In my tired, battle-tested opinion? Yes. Look, wooden toys are gorgeous. I love the vibe. But when your toddler is in a throwing phase, a solid maple block to the shin hurts like hell. The Kianao soft rubber blocks saved my sanity (and my windows) when Leo was going through his launching phase. They still look cute, but they squish when they hit a wall.

Should I ditch my Wi-Fi baby monitor?

This is totally a personal choice, but my anxiety couldn't handle the Wi-Fi ones. After reading about the hacking risks, I made Dave swap ours for a simple, closed-loop radio monitor. It gave me so much peace of mind. Sometimes less technology is genuinely better for your mental health when you're already stressed about keeping a tiny human alive.