Magazine

Twin babies sitting on a clinical weighing scale looking incredibly suspicious

Chasing the Average Baby Weight: A Twin Dad's Red Book Survival

There's a very specific, quiet humiliation reserved for parents standing in a drafty NHS community clinic in late November, frantically trying to undress a furious infant while a health visitor named Brenda hovers with a clipboard. You have to take...

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Tired mother holding a sleeping newborn while looking at a smartphone screen in a dark nursery

Carrying His Babies Stealing His Heart: Expecting Twins Reality

I was sitting in the dark at 3 a.m., trying to keep my eyes open while my son aggressively refused to sleep. The breast pump was making a mechanical wheezing sound that I swear had a syncopated rhythm to it....

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A father staring bleary-eyed at a glowing baby monitor screen in a dark room.

The truth about the best baby monitors (and what actually works)

At 2:14 am on a Tuesday, I was staring at a glowing five-inch screen, utterly convinced my daughter had been replaced by a Victorian ghost. The night vision on our heavily marketed, terrifyingly expensive smart camera had turned my two-year-old...

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A terrified dad standing in a hallway handing two toddlers to a teenager

How to hire a baby sitter without having a complete meltdown

I'm currently crouched behind the wheel of my Vauxhall Astra, engine off, parked exactly three doors down from my own house. I've been sitting here in the dark for fourteen minutes. I'm supposed to be sitting in a dimly lit...

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Dad holding a smartphone trying to film twin toddlers in Kianao bodysuits

Why I ruined bedtime with that viral Million Dollar Baby song

I was crouching behind the living room sofa, my phone balanced precariously on a half-empty packet of water wipes, waiting for the heavy bass to drop. The plan was incredibly simple. I'd film Florence and Matilda in their breakfast-stained sleepsuits,...

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Exhausted dad staring at a partially installed metal safety gate on the stairs

The 2 AM Regalo Baby Gate Crisis That Finally Broke My Spirit

It's exactly 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm sitting on the top landing of our painfully narrow London terrace in just my boxer shorts, holding a spirit level in one hand and a metal tension rod in the other....

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Exhausted dad staring at his phone while covered in unexplained baby puree

What I Learned About Birth Plans After Sparkle Megan Has A Baby

I was halfway through surgically removing a layer of cemented, fossilised Weetabix from the highchair straps when my phone vibrated off the kitchen counter. A friend had sent me a link to an article about Megan Waleriusβ€”the bubbly, sequin-wearing contestant...

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A sleep-deprived dad staring blankly at a hardware-mounted stair barrier while twin toddlers plot to dismantle it

The Complete Disaster of Buying a Baby Gate for Stairs

I'm halfway down the staircase, suspended entirely in mid-air at 2:14 in the morning, clutching a sticky bottle of strawberry Calpol in one hand and a shrieking twenty-pound toddler in the other. My left foot has just hooked firmly under...

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A cautious dad inspecting a grassy backyard for baby snakes while his twin toddlers play safely on an elevated wooden deck

Surviving the American baby copperhead panic as a clueless dad

The humidity in North Carolina in late August is a physical assault, the kind of oppressive heat that makes your clothes feel like a wet apology. I was standing on my American in-laws' patio, clutching a rapidly melting gin and...

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