Magazine

Mom holding a handful of green leaves next to a messy highchair

The Real Deal on Feeding Your Baby Spinach Without the Tears

My mom told me to boil it on the stove until it completely surrendered and turned into a gray mush. My mother-in-law, bless her heart, swore up and down that applying any heat at all destroys the vitamins and I...

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Quartered roasted potatoes on a silicone plate for a child

Sorting out the truth about cooking potatoes for your infant

My mother-in-law told me to boil them in full-fat milk and mash them with enough ghee to lubricate a small engine. She said it would make my son strong, calling him her little beta while ignoring my terrified first-time-mom face....

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A stressed millennial dad trying to wipe sticky fruit puree off a wooden highchair.

Why Feeding A Baby Peach Slices Is A Messy Physics Experiment

I'm currently staring at an orange, sticky smear on our kitchen ceiling. I don't know the exact trajectory it took to get up there, but I know the source, and I'm honestly impressed by the velocity. My wife Sarah and...

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A squished floret of cooked green broccoli on a baby high chair tray.

The Midnight Baby Broccoli Incident And How We Survived

2:14 AM. That’s exactly when the smell hit me. It wasn’t a dirty diaper, though heaven knows I checked with the flashlight on my phone while trying not to wake my husband. It was this creeping, sulfurous cloud rising from...

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Steamed baby bok choy cut into small pieces on a silicone baby plate

How to cook baby bok choy so your infant actually swallows it

It's somehow already dinner time in Chicago. The radiator is hissing, the kitchen smells vaguely of sesame oil and parental desperation, and my toddler is methodically wiping a bright green leaf across her forehead like a damp washcloth. I'm staring...

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A mom holding a bowl of roasted carrots in her kitchen

How are baby carrots made: The paranoid mom's guide

I was standing in my Chicago kitchen at two in the afternoon holding a plastic bag of orange nubs, just staring blindly at my phone. My six-month-old was sitting in the high chair, banging a silicone spoon against his tray,...

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A very sticky toddler looking confused while holding a rib

Dear Tom: Put down the Sweet Baby Ray's immediately

Dear Tom of six months ago. It's Sunday afternoon, you're standing in the back garden holding a plastic squeeze bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's, and you're about to make a terrible, deeply sticky mistake. I know exactly what you're thinking....

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Toddler reaching for a colorful candy wrapper on a kitchen counter

The Honest Truth About Giving Sugar Candy To Babies Before Two

Listen. My mother-in-law had a literal sugar babies candy poised right over my six-month-old's mouth at a family Diwali party last year. I intercepted that little caramel nugget like an off-duty linebacker. She looked at me like I'd just slapped...

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Toddler bundled in a winter coat eating fruit

Why I Stopped Trying to Replicate the Niche Chinese Babies Trend

It's 6:43 AM on a Tuesday, and Florence has gone fully rigid, achieving a level of plank-like stiffness that would genuinely impress an Olympic gymnast, purely to prevent me from putting her left arm into a winter coat. In a...

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