When Your Baby's Face is Red and Peeling: My Eczema Survival Story
I was sitting in my minivan in the HEB parking lot, crying over a steering wheel covered in crushed Cheerios, because the cashier had just asked me why I let my three-month-old get a severe sunburn in February. I hadn't,...
Dear Past Priya: The Honest Truth About The Baby Delight Bouncer
Dear Priya of six months ago. You're currently sitting on the cold hardwood floor of our Logan Square apartment, staring at a pile of gray metal tubes and a piece of canvas. Your coffee is cold. The baby is doing...
That Terrifying BRUE Baby Glitch: What I Wish We Hadn't Done
Whatever you do, please don't pick up your kid and shake them like a defective Wi-Fi router when they suddenly go completely limp, which is exactly the panicked instinct I had to fight back at 2:14 AM last Tuesday. My...
The Truth About Cry Baby Perfume & Why Fragrance Ruins Naptime
The clock on the microwave said 2:13 AM, and my living room smelled exactly like burnt caramel and aggressive strawberry milk. I was pacing the floorboards in my ratty nursing bra, bouncing my youngest—who we affectionately call Baby P—while he...
The Real Rules of the Bouncy Seat (And Why They Can't Sleep In It)
I was standing in my tiny, mildew-speckled master bathroom shower at exactly 6:14 AM on a Tuesday, wearing nothing but a layer of dried overnight spit-up and deep, bone-deep exhaustion, staring through the water-spotted glass at my three-month-old son, Leo....
Dealing with a Blocked Tear Duct Baby (Without Losing Your Mind)
I was standing over my oldest son's bassinet at six in the morning, holding my breath the way you do when you're praying you didn't just wake the baby, when I saw it. His left eye was completely glued shut....
The absurdly high stakes of keeping your bassinet baby alive
Before we even brought the twins home from the hospital, three different people gave me three mutually exclusive pieces of advice about where they should sleep. My mother-in-law insisted I needed to line their little bedside cribs with rolled-up cashmere...
The Truth About Baby White Noise (And My Jet Engine Mistake)
I was standing in the middle of my oldest son's nursery at two in the morning, holding my phone out in front of me like a paranormal investigator trying to catch a ghost, while a free sound-measuring app I had...
Decoding Baby Vocals 3 Months In: A Nurse's Guide to Cooing
I was standing in the dark at three in the morning, holding a screaming potato of a human, trying to follow advice from a very expensive parenting app. The app told me that early language development requires measured, calm adult...