Magazine

Folded organic cotton baby blanket on a wooden nursery rocking chair

What the hospital ruined about my cozy baby blanket fantasies

I'm currently staring at a hand-knit, cable-stitch monstrosity that my great-aunt sent from Delhi. It weighs about as much as a small dog. Before nursing school, before I had a child of my own who treats sleep like a hostile...

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Baby sleeping safely in a ribbed infant knit romper with secure snaps

The brutal truth about buying an infant knit romper for your kid

My mother called from San Jose on a Tuesday to warn me that wool would give my baby a rash that would scar him for life. The very next morning, my sister-in-law swore that unless I put him in thick...

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A wrinkled bamboo sheet stretched tight over a small mattress next to a laundry basket.

Why I Finally Ditched Cotton for Bamboo Mini Crib Sheets

There I was in a La Quinta Inn somewhere outside of Waco, wrestling a sandpaper-stiff cotton sheet over a travel mattress at two in the morning while my oldest, Tucker, screamed like he was being exorcised. Every time I got...

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A confused dad holding a wool baby sleep sack next to a thermostat

Sweating bullets over baby wool in a Portland heatwave

It was mid-July, the Nanit camera was flashing a menacing red 81 degrees, and our 1924 Portland craftsman was doing its best impression of a pizza oven. I was frantically trying to program a portable AC unit with one hand...

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A tired dad researching sleeping bags for infants online.

Why We Switched To Sleeping Bags For Infants (And You Should Too)

My mother-in-law told me to pile three heavy quilts on him because Portland nights are drafty and he was going to freeze. The exhausted NICU nurse at the hospital swaddled him so tightly in a receiving blanket that he looked...

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A very tired British dad staring at a badly wrapped baby blanket in the nursery.

Dear Past Me: The Brutal Truth About Wrapping Babies in Cotton

Dear Tom of twenty-four months ago, It's currently Tuesday evening, and you're standing in the nursery of our flat in Zone 3, staring at a stack of twenty-four identical white squares of fabric your mother-in-law just dropped off. You're holding...

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Baby sleeping comfortably in a ribbed organic cotton short sleeve pajama

The Truth About Short Sleeve Baby Pajamas (A Dad's Data Log)

It's currently 2:14 AM, and I'm standing perfectly still in the dark, staring at the glowing blue numbers of a digital room thermometer. It reads exactly 71.8Β°F. My 11-month-old is asleep in his crib, breathing with the rhythmic, heavy cadence...

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Modern wooden baby bed with a simple sage green fitted sheet and a tired dad

My Messy Journey Finding Gender Neutral Crib Bedding That Works

I'm currently sitting on the floor of what used to be my home office, holding a tiny, stripped Allen wrench, surrounded by a mountain of highly gendered, hyper-specific baby textiles. It's midnight, my wife Sarah is asleep, and I've just...

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Baby wearing an organic cotton footless newborn long sleeve romper on a rug

Why I Ditched Footies for a Newborn Long Sleeve Romper

It was three in the morning in our drafty Chicago apartment, and I was holding a screaming, poop-covered infant while trying to align what felt like eighty-four tiny metal snaps on a rigid fleece footie. My fingers were trembling, my...

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