Magazine

A frustrated dad inspecting the hardware on a knitted baby romper

Decoding the Knitted Romper: A Dad's Guide to Baby Hardware

My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen last Tuesday to declare that any kind of woven wool would immediately give the baby a full-body rash. Ten minutes later, my neighborβ€”a guy who brews his own kombucha in a garageβ€”leaned over...

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A confused dad staring at a massive pile of plain white baby bodysuits

Debugging the Base Layer: A Dad’s Guide to Bodysuit Blanks

Before my son was born, I received three distinct pieces of base-layer advice that completely crashed my internal logic board. My mother insisted I needed to wrap the baby in three layers of fleece because our Portland house is drafty....

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Half-finished knitted baby sweater on a wooden table next to a coffee mug

Why My First Baby Cardigan Knitting Pattern Was A Total Disaster

We were somewhere between Waco and Austin on I-35 when the screaming reached a pitch I didn't even know a human vocal cord could produce. I made my husband pull the truck over into a Buc-ee's parking lot, scrambled into...

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A slightly tangled ball of organic baby yarn next to a wooden teething ring

The great fluffy lie (and why I started googling babywolle kaufen)

The parcel arrived on a wet Tuesday, smelling faintly of lavender and aggressively good intentions. Great Aunt Muriel had knitted the twins matching cardigans. I pulled the first one out of the tissue paper and immediately realised we had a...

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A stack of soft wrap-style newborn clothes on a wooden nursery dresser

Why Japanese Newborn Clothes Actually Save Your Sanity With A Baby

Let me tell you the biggest lie the baby industry ever sold us: that newborns need to wear actual outfits. I'm talking about miniature denim overalls, stiff corduroy suspender sets, and tiny button-down flannels. With my oldest, bless his heart,...

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Dad holding two teething twins wearing soft organic cotton dribble catchers.

Dear Past Tom: Put Down the Plastic and Get Organic Cotton Bibs

Dear Tom of October last year. You're currently standing at the kitchen sink at 2:14 AM. You're furiously scrubbing a bright orange, polyurethane-coated dribble catcher with an old toothbrush, wondering why it smells faintly of a wet dog that has...

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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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A baby wearing a dark terry cloth bib while eating pureed sweet potato

LΓ€tzchen Frottee: A letter to my past self about solid foods

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the kitchen floor wiping sweet potato puree off the baseboards with a dried-out baby wipe while your son cries because he rubbed it into his left eyebrow. You think this...

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Baby in a green footless long sleeve romper crawling on a hardwood floor

Debugging Baby Clothes: The Infant Long Sleeve Romper Upgrade

6:14 AM. Portland is doing that gray, misty drizzle thing it does for nine months of the year. My 11-month-old is currently trying to pull himself up on the edge of the living room coffee table. He is wearing a...

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