Magazine

Baby sitting safely on a dry mat reaching for a wooden toy

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...

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Toddler drinking safely from a soft silicone cup instead of a metal tumbler

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...

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Pediatric nurse mother intercepting a cup of water from her infant on a hot summer day.

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...

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An exhausted dad looking at a pediatric dosing chart on his phone

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...

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Confused dad holding a bottle of baby water next to twins

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...

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Tired mother holding a silicone cup away from a reaching infant

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,...

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A tired mother holding a teething baby while looking at her phone in a dim room.

Why raising a toddler feels exactly like domesticating a wild mammal

It was three in the morning and my son was slick with sweat, drool, and the unmistakable rage of a creature who had just discovered teeth. He was thrashing against my chest, refusing the bottle I was offering. I was...

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