Magazine

A tired dad staring in disbelief at an NHS red baby book while twins crawl away

Normal Baby Weight at Birth: A Letter to My Terrified Past Self

Dear Tom from six months ago. You're currently hiding in the downstairs loo at a family barbecue, trying to field questions from your brother-in-law about what constitutes a normal baby weight. His wife is being induced on Tuesday, and you're...

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A stressed British dad holding twin toddler girls outside a busy baby daycare centre in London.

Surviving Baby Daycare: What I Believed vs What Actually Happened

I'm currently sitting in a 2014 Skoda Estate, engine off, staring blankly at a laminated sign that reads "Little Acorns" through a windscreen smeared with what I sincerely hope is just mashed banana. My twin daughters, Isla and Freya, are...

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A dad looking exhausted while his one-year-old twins play with wooden toys on a rug

Surviving the Chaos: The Truth About Raising a One-Year-Old

I was on my hands and knees, using a blunt butter knife to scrape a disturbing amount of smashed avocado out of the grooves of our Victorian skirting board, when I realised the greatest lie of modern parenting. The lie...

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A messy living room floor with wooden building blocks and a lukewarm cup of coffee

Dear Past Me: The Truth About Baby Rudin And Math Milestones

Dear Sarah of exactly six months ago, You're currently sitting on the cold kitchen floor in Leo's old oversized Ninja Turtles hoodie, aggressively googling baby Rudin while eating stale Goldfish crackers out of a plastic bag at 2:14 AM. You're...

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Mom holding a baby with a visible VP shunt behind their ear

Hydrocephalus Baby: The 2 AM ER Trip That Changed Our Entire Lives

I remember the exact hum of the vending machine in the Lubbock pediatric ER. It was somewhere around three in the morning. I hadn't washed my hair in four days, I was wearing leggings permanently covered in lint from packing...

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A confused mom looking at lil baby albums on her phone while holding coffee.

The Absurd Truth About Searching For Lil Baby Albums Online

"Play Mozart or he'll fail third-grade math," my mother-in-law practically whispered into my ear at my baby shower, aggressively shoving a CD into my hands. Yes, an actual, physical compact disc in a jewel case. Who even owns a CD...

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A slightly terrified London dad pushing twin toddlers in a bucket swing over a damp lawn

The terrifying physics of your first garden baby swing setup

I'm standing in our damp, aggressively overgrown London garden, holding twenty feet of braided nylon rope and staring at a branch on our neighbor's encroaching oak tree, while Florenceβ€”who's supposed to be sitting quietly on a blanketβ€”attempts to eat a...

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Tired British dad holding twin girls after their infant immunisations at the clinic

Exactly what vaccines do babies get? A twin dad's messy guide

We were sitting in the waiting room of our local GP surgery, surrounded by faded posters from 1998 warning about the dangers of excessive screen time, which felt deeply ironic given I was desperately playing a brightly coloured cartoon on...

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Close up of a tired father looking at his baby's slate grey eyes

The Unvarnished Truth About Your Infant's Shifting Eye Colour

Dear Tom from eighteen months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of the nursery at three in the morning, holding an iPhone torch uncomfortably close to Maya's face to see if her irises have developed any gold flecks, while...

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