Magazine

A worn out baby security blanket with a stuffed rabbit head on a crib mattress

The 3 AM bunny and blanket crisis that broke me

My hands were elbow-deep in a hamper of sour-smelling sleep sacks at three in the morning. The radiator in our Chicago apartment was making that metallic rhythmic clanking sound it always makes when it drops below zero outside. From the...

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A half-empty coffee cup next to a folded merino wool baby blanket

That 2 AM Wool Blanket Panic (And What I Finally Figured Out)

Maya was four months old, it was the middle of January, and the radiator in our apartment was making that rhythmic clanking sound that meant it was tryingβ€”and failingβ€”to produce actual heat. I was sitting on the couch at 2:14...

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A folded babydecke aus merinowolle resting on a nursery chair.

The truth about using a decke aus merinowolle for baby sleep

The radiator in our Chicago apartment clanks at exactly three in the morning. That was usually my cue to drag myself out of bed, shuffle across the freezing hardwood floor, and do the two-finger neck check on my daughter. It...

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A confused dad holding a toddler's anti-allergy duvet while looking at a smart room thermometer.

Debugging infant sniffles: My search for an allergie bettdecke

It's 3:14 AM and I'm watching the infrared feed on the baby monitor like a security guard waiting for a museum heist. The audio feed is just a continuous, wet, whistling sound. My eleven-month-old sounds exactly like our espresso machine...

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A dad looking confused at a thermometer while his baby sleeps under a wool blanket

Why I Googled Decke Merinowolle at 3 AM to Stop Baby Sweats

It was 2:43 AM on a Tuesday in late November. Rain was furiously hammering the window of our Portland duplex, and I was standing over my 11-month-old son’s crib holding a digital infrared meat thermometer. He was screaming, obviously, but...

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A stressed dad holding a folded organic cotton baby duvet in a dimly lit nursery.

Finding a Bettdecke fΓΌr Allergiker When Your Baby Hacks All Night

The timestamp on the baby monitor was exactly 3:14 AM, and the little volume graph was flashing a hostile, aggressive orange. Our eleven-month-old wasn't crying, which almost made it worse. He was just lying there, producing this dry, rhythmic hacking...

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Tired mom staring at baby monitor while infant sleeps on stomach in crib

Help! Baby Rolls Onto Stomach While Sleeping But Can't Roll Back

"Let them figure it out," my mother-in-law told me while aggressively stirring her Earl Grey tea in my kitchen, acting like infant survival was just character building. "Just roll him back immediately or he'll suffocate," the excessively perky mom in...

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Exhausted dad staring at a glowing baby monitor in a dark nursery

Dear Past Marcus: Debugging The Extraterrestrial Baby Phase

It's 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and you're staring at the night vision feed on the Nanit monitor like it's a security camera at a haunted house. His eyes are open. They're glowing an iridescent, terrifying white because of the...

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A dad playing an acoustic guitar while sitting next to a wooden baby play gym

Learning Baby I Love Your Way Chords Fixed Our Broken Bedtime

At 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, my daughter's sleep architecture completely collapsed. We were eleven months into this parenting experiment, and Maya was standing in her crib, shaking the rails like a tiny inmate demanding to speak to the warden....

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