A Letter To Past Me: That Cry Baby Movie Was A Huge Mistake!

Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago,

Right now you're standing in the kitchen. It's exactly 6:14 AM on a Tuesday, and you're wearing those awful gray maternity sweatpants—yes, the ones with the mysterious bleach stain on the left thigh that you refuse to throw away because they've the good pockets. You're aggressively stirring a chipped mug of instant coffee because the actual coffee maker decided to die yesterday, and Mark said he would "look at it this weekend," which we both absolutely know means we're buying a new one in 2026. Leo is currently pulling on your leg. He is screaming, at a volume previously unknown to modern science, about some baby m... something. A baby movie? He wants to watch that show about the crying babies.

Stop what you're doing right now and don't grab the television remote.

Your nineties nostalgia is a massive, dangerous trap

You think you know what he's talking about because you're severely sleep-deprived and your brain instantly goes to the 90s nostalgia vault. You're like, oh yeah, I remember that! Johnny Depp in a leather jacket! You're literally about to type the title into the Roku search bar and hit play for a four-year-old. Oh god, please don't do this. I'm begging you across time and space. That film is a PG-13 John Waters camp-fest.

Do you remember what actually happens in it? Because I absolutely didn't until I made the catastrophic mistake of pulling up the Wikipedia plot summary on my phone while Leo was literally hanging off my left kneecap screaming. There's aggressive, deeply uncomfortable French kissing involving Iggy Pop. There are teenagers brazenly drinking straight from silver flasks in broad daylight. There are massive, chaotic brawls with baseball bats and literal fistfights in a juvenile detention center, and an entire overarching plot built around teenage pregnancy and rebellion against traditional values. It's absolutely, positively, 100 percent NOT a cute cinematic experience for toddlers. It's a brilliant cult classic for teenagers who want to be incredibly edgy and wear way too much dark eyeliner, not for a preschooler who still accidentally pees on the bathroom rug when he misses the toilet.

Anyway, the point is, don't trust your sleep-addled memory of pop culture from thirty years ago when you're desperately trying to soothe a screaming child before the sun comes up.

The plastic nightmare disguised as a television show

What Leo actually wants, because he saw it on a friend's iPad at daycare and is now deeply obsessed, is this modern animated franchise called Cry Babies Magic Tears. It's an animated series where these enormous-headed infants wear brightly colored animal and fruit pajamas and live in a magical world where their literal tears turn into weird consumable items like perfume or jelly drops. Sounds completely unhinged, right? It's.

It's basically a hyper-stimulating commercial perfectly engineered by a toy company to brainwash your children. I took Leo to his checkup last month and our doctor, Dr. Miller—who always looks like he desperately needs a nap and a strong drink just as badly as I do—kind of sighed heavily when I brought up our daily screen habits. He was explaining how the American Academy of Pediatrics says we should be aiming for zero screens before 18 months, and then maybe an hour of high-quality stuff after age two. But what does "high-quality" even mean?

He mumbled something about how fast-paced shows with a million rapid scene cuts and flashy neon colors kind of short-circuit their developing neurology. I honestly don't fully understand the science behind it, something about dopamine receptors and attention spans getting fried, but I just know that after Leo watches twenty minutes of those magical crying infants, he acts like he just downed three double-shots of espresso and immediately tries to bite his sister. The whole thing is just a massive marketing machine specifically designed to make you buy plastic dolls that leak real water from their plastic eyes. Hell, I almost bought one at Target last week just to make the whining stop in the checkout aisle.

Finding things that don't require triple-A batteries

Instead of buying into the plastic tear-drop ecosystem, I wish I had just redirected his weird obsession with animal-babies into something that didn't flash or sing or require tiny screwdrivers to change the batteries. Like, remember when Maya was teething and we were basically living in a state of constant, low-grade torture? Her crying was so loud I thought my eardrums were going to permanently detach from my skull.

I ended up getting this Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy for my sister's new baby recently, and oh my god, it's actually amazing. I'm intensely jealous we didn't have this when Maya was little. I distinctly remember Maya chewing on my literal car keys in the grocery store parking lot because we lost her teething ring under the car seat. This panda one is completely flat and perfectly designed for tiny sweaty hands to grip independently. Plus it's made of that premium food-grade silicone stuff that doesn't harbor nasty black mold in weird hidden crevices. I threw it in my sister's dishwasher on the top rack and it came out totally fine and sanitized. It really soothes their gums with these little textured bumps without lighting up and playing a chaotic electronic circus tune every time they touch it.

And since Leo is currently in that phase where he's obsessed with building things and then violently knocking them over—mostly just to test Maya's patience—I got him the Gentle Baby Building Block Set. I'm just going to be incredibly honest with you, past-Sarah: they're just okay. They're soft rubber and they've cute little animal symbols and fruit pieces on them, which is perfectly fine, but they don't stack with that satisfying heavy click that solid wooden blocks have. They're great for the bathtub because they float and they're super easy to clean, but Leo kind of loses interest after ten minutes of stacking. Still, they don't cause excruciating, tear-inducing pain when you step on them barefoot at 2 AM on your way to the bathroom, which is honestly a massive win in my book.

Dress them in stuff that really breathes

While we're on the subject of things I wish I knew six months ago, please stop putting the kids in those cheap synthetic pajamas just because they've cute cartoon characters on them. You know exactly what I'm talking about. The polyester ones that feel like you're wrapping your child in a static-filled plastic grocery bag.

Dr. Miller casually mentioned during Maya's last checkup that a lot of those highly processed synthetic fabrics literally trap heat and sweat against their extremely sensitive skin, which is probably exactly why Leo kept getting those weird, raised red eczema patches behind his knees every single winter. I genuinely had absolutely no idea, I just thought he was developing a weird allergy to the expensive organic laundry detergent I was buying. We finally switched to the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie from Kianao, and it completely changed the game for us. It's 95 percent organic cotton and just a tiny bit of elastane so it really stretches over his massive toddler head without a ten-minute struggle that ends in tears. It's totally undyed, so there are no sketchy synthetic chemicals rubbing against him, and his skin miraculously cleared up in like, a week. It really breathes. It's such a simple, basic thing but it makes an unbelievable difference when they're running around the house sweating like tiny marathon runners.

Creating a space that doesn't scream at you

You seriously just need to take a massive deep breath and turn the television off and maybe throw a heavy blanket over it and hand him some actual tactile toys instead of freaking out about whether a 90s cult classic is appropriate for toddlers.

If you really want to lean into the whole baby-care aesthetic without the obnoxious screen time, there are so many better options out there. My absolute favorite thing right now is the Wooden Baby Gym | Rainbow Play Gym Set. We got one for the new baby in our neighborhood mommy group, and it's STUNNING. I'm not exaggerating. It has these beautiful, earthy-toned fabric shapes and a little wooden elephant that hangs down. It's incredibly calming to look at. It doesn't scream at you in aggressive primary colors. It just sits there in the living room, looking highly aesthetic and Scandinavian, silently encouraging motor skills while the baby stares at it like a tiny drunk philosopher figuring out the meaning of life.

Dr. Miller told me once that kids just need to be profoundly bored sometimes so their brains can really form proper neural connections, or something along those lines. He said putting them in front of hyper-commercialized, rapid-fire television just spikes their dopamine in a way that makes normal, everyday life feel incredibly gray and boring by comparison. I'm probably butchering the exact science, but it makes complete sense when I look at Leo's glazed-over, zombie-like eyes after a Netflix binge.

If you want to save yourself from the brightly colored plastic invasion and keep your living room looking vaguely like actual adults live there, you should definitely check out Kianao's full collection of sustainable baby gear. It will save your sanity.

So, past-Sarah, pour that awful instant coffee directly down the sink. Mark is going to bring home an overpriced latte from the good place downtown anyway. Let Leo cry about his cartoon babies for a few minutes. Give him a wooden elephant to chew on. Hide the Roku remote in the freezer behind the frozen peas. You've totally got this.

Before you inevitably end up googling frantically at midnight while the kids are finally asleep, here are the things I wish someone had just bluntly explained to me. Grab some beautiful wooden alternatives here before you dive into my incredibly messy advice below.

So why can't I just let them watch the 90s film instead?

Oh god, please don't do this. I thought the exact same thing because my memory of the 90s is basically just a hazy blur of cool leather jackets and catchy music. But it's rated PG-13 for a very, very good reason. There's underage drinking from flasks, aggressive making out, gang fights with actual weapons, and a ton of rebellious teenage behavior that your preschooler doesn't need to see. Common Sense Media basically screams at parents to keep this away from kids under 13. Just trust me, keep the John Waters cinematic universe far, far away from your toddler.

Is that magic tears preschool show really bad for their brains?

Look, I'm not a neurologist, but my doctor basically told me that these hyper-fast, insanely colorful shows act like pure junk food for a baby's brain. The American Academy of Pediatrics says no screens under 18 months, and then only high-quality stuff later. The problem with the crying infants show is that it's essentially a 30-minute commercial perfectly designed by a toy company to sell you plastic merchandise. It's incredibly fast-paced, which Dr. Miller said can mess with their attention spans and make normal play seem super boring to them. So yeah, I try to avoid it like the plague now.

What do I do when they throw a massive tantrum for the screen?

You basically just have to weather the storm and hold your ground while they scream like a tiny banshee. I used to give in because I was so incredibly tired, but honestly, handing them a physical, open-ended toy is so much better in the long run. When Leo demands his weird baby show, I just tell him the TV is sleeping and hand him his wooden blocks or a soft plushie. He yells for about five minutes and then eventually wanders off to build a tower and knock it over. It's absolute hell in the moment, but it passes.

Are wooden and silicone toys really better or is it just an aesthetic trend?

I genuinely used to think the whole neutral-wooden-toy thing was just for Instagram moms who wanted their houses to look like modern art museums. But then I noticed how my kids honestly play with them. Plastic toys that light up and sing basically do the playing FOR the kid. They just sit there and push a button. With wooden blocks or silicone teethers, the kid has to use their actual imagination. Plus, the silicone stuff is just way safer. Our doctor was telling me about how toxic some of the cheap plastic stuff can be, which utterly terrified me. So yeah, the organic cotton and natural wood stuff is genuinely functionally better for their development, not just prettier to look at.