What I Wish I Knew About Giving Babies Water Before I Panicked
It's July 2020. I'm wearing a pair of maternity bike shorts that have a mysterious, hardened yogurt stain on the left thigh, and I'm sweating through my second t-shirt of the day. My husband, Dave, is standing next to our...
Why an innocent sip of water is your baby's worst enemy
It was August, the kind of oppressive, sticky London August where the pavement smells vaguely of roasted bins and the air in our second-floor flat had achieved the exact consistency of soup. The twins were four months old. They were...
When Can Babies Start Drinking Water: A Nurse's Honest Guide
July in Chicago is an absolute swamp. The humidity hits four hundred percent, the air feels like soup, and everyone loses their minds. When my daughter was two months old, we had a family barbecue during one of these heat...
The brutal truth about water babies and safe infant hydration
I was sitting on the edge of the Oak Street Beach splash pad last August when I watched a well-meaning grandmother twist the cap off a bottle of smartwater and bring it to the lips of a newborn. The kid...
Why giving your toddler a baby stanley is a pediatric nightmare
Tuesday morning. My fourteen-month-old has both hands wrapped around the base of my forty-ounce metal tumbler, trying to deadlift it off the coffee table. He is vibrating with effort. The cup outweighs his head. He manages to tilt it just...
The brutally honest truth about when your baby can drink water
We were sitting on my back patio in Chicago, the humidity hovering somewhere around ninety percent, when my mother-in-law casually pulled a tiny stainless steel cup from her purse. She filled it with tap water from the kitchen and moved...
Debugging The Stomach Bug: A Dad's Guide To Pedialyte For Babies
There I was at 2:14 AM, standing in the kitchen in my boxers, holding a plastic cup of Portland tap water while my 11-month-old son aggressively formatted his own hard drive all over my shoulder. The dad-logic in my sleep-deprived...
The Great Hydration Panic: Why Infant Water Rules Feel Backwards
It was the great London heatwave of 2022, the kind of oppressive humidity that makes you reconsider all your life choices, when I caught my mother-in-law creeping toward the pram with a miniature plastic cup of tap water. The twins...
When can babies have water: surviving the summer hydration wars
July in Chicago is a specific kind of swampy misery. Two years ago, the air conditioning unit in our third-floor apartment wheezed its last breath right in the middle of a heatwave. I was sweating through my nursing tank top,...