The Real Baby Steps Uncensored: Surviving the Messy Parenting Journey

My mother-in-law cornered me by the kitchen island last Thanksgiving while I was wearing a sweater that actively smelled like sour milk and told me that Leo’s occasional toddler swiping needed to be handled with "immediate, absolute authority." Two days later, my friend who makes her own oat milk and only wears linen told me I just needed to "hold space for his aggressive energy" because he’s an Aries. Then I opened Instagram and an ad told me I was already failing because I wasn't using a specific neuro-development app to track his behavioral micro-corrections.

I was so tired my teeth hurt. I was drinking my third cup of lukewarm coffee—the kind that just tastes like pure despair—and I remember thinking that everyone is full of crap. Complete crap.

Anyway, the point is, parenting is completely overwhelming when you try to swallow it whole. You just can't. You have to take these tiny, microscopic, incredibly frustrating baby steps forward, and half the time you're just sliding backward anyway.

The Time Dave's iPad Almost Ruined Our Lives

Okay, but before we even get into the emotional labor of raising decent humans, let’s talk about the digital minefield, because oh god, I almost had a heart attack last week. Dave—my husband who still thinks wearing socks with sandals to get the mail is a valid life choice—was watching the kids on a Sunday. He let Maya, who's seven going on sixteen, play around on his iPad. Which, fine, we're a screen-time-is-survival family on weekends. But she comes wandering into the kitchen and says some older kid at school was talking about a game called "Baby Steps."

Naturally, I go to look it up to see what the hell this is. If you go searching the internet for the uncensored truth about baby steps, expecting to find some raw, unfiltered motherhood advice or a cute toddler walking simulator, you're in for a terrifying surprise. It turns out, there's a literal, mature-rated indie video game with that name, and if you search for the uncensored version of it, you get a main character who's just... completely exposed. Like, full-frontal grown-man nudity exposed.

I practically threw my mug across the room to snatch the iPad out of Dave's hands. Maya hadn't seen anything yet because the Wi-Fi was being slow, thank god. But seriously, turn your parental controls on. Yesterday. The internet is an absolute garbage fire and these game developers love using innocent-sounding names to trap us. Anyway.

What Dr. Miller Actually Said About Small Habits

So back to actual parenting. After the Thanksgiving mother-in-law incident, I brought up Leo's behavior at his checkup. I was fully expecting our pediatrician, Dr. Miller, to hand me a pamphlet on discipline or tell me I was ruining him. Instead, she basically told me that their little developing brains are just terrifyingly absorbent sponges for our anxiety.

From what I vaguely remember her saying—or maybe I read it on a bathroom stall, but I'm pretty sure it was her—kids' self-esteem is physically built by absorbing our tone of voice and body language. Like, if we sigh heavily every time they drop a toy, they internalize it as a permanent character flaw. Which is horrifying. I don't fully understand the neurology behind it, probably something to do with cortisol or mirroring or whatever, but the gist is that we just have to catch them being good. Taking the tiniest baby steps toward positive reinforcement. I try to just say, "Hey, you didn't throw your waffle at the dog today, good job," and it feels ridiculous, but she swears it works better than yelling.

If you scream and hit things when you're mad, your kid is going to scream and hit things when they're mad. That's just how human observation works, so just try not to throw things, I guess. Moving on.

My Target Incident and the Magic of Drawstrings

If there's one thing that physically embodies the struggle of the baby stage, it's pants that won't stay up. When Leo was about eight months old and in his aggressive crawling phase, we were in aisle 4 at Target. The aisle with the seasonal throw pillows that nobody actually needs but you always stop to touch. He was scooting around on the floor—yes, I let my kid crawl on the Target floor, sue me, my immune system is powered by germs and anxiety—and his pants just kept falling down. Every three seconds, I was exposing his absurdly bulky diaper to an old woman who was intensely judging my life choices.

Dave hates pants without drawstrings. He constantly complains about it. And honestly, he's right. That day I went home and immediately threw out half of Leo's wardrobe.

Now we basically only use the Baby Pants in Organic Cotton from Kianao. I'm not kidding when I say these soft ribbed drawstring bottoms saved my sanity. They have an actual, functional drawstring. Not those fake decorative string bows that clothing companies put on baby clothes just to mock us, but a real drawstring that you can tie so their pants don't end up around their ankles while they're trying to explore the world. Plus, they've this harem-style drop crotch so they fit over massive diapers, and the organic cotton means I don't have to stress about weird chemical dyes giving him a rash on top of everything else.

Seriously, they're the only bottoms he wears now. I bought them in like four colors and I just rotate them until they're covered in too much oatmeal to be socially acceptable.

Surviving Mealtime Boredom (Or Not)

I also went through a phase where I thought buying the right aesthetic gear would fix my parenting problems. I bought the Bamboo Baby Spoon and Fork Set hoping it would magically make Leo sit still at the high chair for more than forty seconds and tolerate the boredom of actually eating a meal.

Honestly? They're just spoons. I mean, they're perfectly fine spoons! The silicone tips are soft so he doesn't destroy his gums when he aggressively misses his mouth, and I do feel vaguely superior knowing I'm not buying more plastic garbage that will outlive the sun. But they didn't magically fix mealtime. Leo still threw his peas at the wall, and Maya left the fork on the living room rug where our golden retriever immediately chewed the bamboo handle to splinters. So, they exist. If you want sustainable utensils, get them, but don't expect them to perform miracles on a toddler's attention span.

(If you're genuinely looking for things that will make your daily routines slightly less maddening without ruining the planet, you can browse Kianao's organic baby clothes and gear here. At least they look cute while they're destroying your house.)

Why I Am No Longer Allowed to Throw Out the Milestone Trackers

So here's something I got completely, embarrassingly wrong. I used to rant to Dave that those baby development apps were toxic garbage sent straight from hell to make mothers feel inadequate. With Maya, I was treating the BabySteps app like it was the damn SATs. If the app said she should be stacking three blocks by Tuesday, and she only stacked two, I was spiraling into a panic attack by Wednesday morning, convinced she was going to fail out of kindergarten.

I literally deleted all of them and told Dr. Miller I was doing a "rebel, anti-data, free-range parenting" thing.

Dr. Miller just stared at me. She genuinely told me to redownload them, which really annoyed me at first. She was like, "Sarah, I don't care if she's a week late on walking, and I definitely don't want you comparing her to the kids on Instagram. But I need you to track the milestones so we've the data."

Apparently, pediatricians rely on those trackers not as a competitive scorecard, but just to watch the trend lines. They need to know if the physical and cognitive development is generally moving forward, because when parents are sleep-deprived, our memories are completely unreliable. I couldn't tell you what I had for breakfast, let alone exactly which week Leo started pincer-grasping his Cheerios. So, keep the apps, but just use them as a boring filing cabinet for your doctor. Stop using them to compare your kid to the mom in your mommy-and-me class whose infant allegedly speaks fluent French. Screw her.

Getting Them on Their Feet (Literally)

When Leo honestly started pulling himself up on the coffee table—which we had to cover in hideous foam bumpers because he has zero self-preservation instincts—I panicked about shoes. My mother-in-law (again with the opinions) kept insisting he needed rigid, hard-soled boots to "support his ankles."

But everything I've read and heard from my doctor is that babies need to feel the floor. They need flexible soles to figure out balance. We ended up getting him the Baby Sneakers Non-Slip Soft Sole First Shoes, mostly because they looked like tiny boat shoes and I'm a sucker for anything miniature.

They honestly worked out incredibly well. They're soft enough that he can still wiggle his toes and figure out his center of gravity, but they've enough grip on the bottom that he doesn't completely wipe out on our hardwood floors. Plus, they've elastic laces, so when he goes rigid as a board in protest while I'm trying to dress him, I can still jam them onto his feet relatively quickly.

Parenting is basically just a series of tiny, exhausting, messy baby steps. You try a routine, it fails, you drink coffee, you try a different routine. You buy the pants with the drawstrings, you delete the apps, you redownload the apps. You just keep moving forward, even if you're wearing yogurt-stained leggings while you do it.

Ready to ditch the stiff clothes and plastic junk? Grab some sustainable gear that honestly works for your messy real life. Shop the Kianao collection now.

My Messy FAQ About Taking Small Steps

How do I stop my kid from hitting without just yelling at them?

Oh god, if you find the perfect answer to this, email me. But really, Dr. Miller told me it's about not mirroring their crazy. If they hit, and we scream, they just learn that loud aggression is the appropriate response to big feelings. Try just breathing heavily, holding their hands gently, and saying "we don't hit" in the most boring, monotone voice you can muster. It takes like four hundred repetitions, but eventually it kind of works.

Wait, what was that about the video game again? I'm terrified.

Yeah, it's called Baby Steps, published by Devolver Digital. It's NOT for kids. It's an adult walking simulator game that features explicit male nudity. If your kids hear the name at school and try to search it on YouTube or Google, they'll see things you don't want them to see. Check your parental control filters right now and block that specific title if they're allowed on YouTube.

Are those milestone tracking apps really going to ruin my mental health?

They absolutely will if you use them to grade yourself. The trick I learned the hard way is to only open the app when the baby does a new thing, log the date, and close it immediately. Don't look at the "What's Next" section. Let your pediatrician look at the timeline. You just collect the data and try to survive until nap time.

How many pairs of those organic pants does a crawling baby honestly need?

Honestly? Like, five or six. Babies are gross. They sit in damp sand, they smear avocado on their thighs, and their diapers leak at the most inconvenient times. Having a solid rotation of the Kianao drawstring pants meant I wasn't doing laundry every single night, which is a massive win in my book.

Should I feel bad if my kid refuses to use aesthetic wooden spoons?

Hell no. If your kid wants to eat mac and cheese with their bare hands like a tiny raccoon, let them. The bamboo utensils are great for when they really want to practice their motor skills, but don't force it. Pick your battles. Surviving dinner without a meltdown is always the primary goal.