Magazine

An exhausted dad staring at his laughing 11-month-old baby in a soft organic cotton bodysuit

System Specs vs Reality: Surviving Your Comedic 11-Month-Old

It's 2:43 AM, and I'm holding a tiny human who's laughing hysterically at a completely blank wall. I'm staring at my phone's spreadsheet where I track his input/output logs and exact ambient room temperature (68.4 degrees, for the record), trying...

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Jess holding a baby wrapped in a towel looking stressed about bath water

Why The Filter Baby Concept Actually Matters For Your Sanity

I was standing in our tiny primary bathroom, the exhaust fan rattling like a helicopter overhead, while my oldest son Wyatt screamed bloody murder. He wasn't even six months old yet. I had just pulled him out of the bathtub,...

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Tired mother holding a sleeping baby wrapped in a soft blanket on a neutral play mat

The Truth About The Perfectly Put-Together Infant

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing a maternity bra that hadn't been genuinely white since the Obama administration. My second kid, Maya, was exactly three weeks old and smack in the middle of a cluster-feeding...

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Priya sitting in a dimly lit Chicago nursery holding a sleeping infant

Dear past me: What I wish I knew about raising happy Dutch babies

It's three in the morning and you're sitting on the edge of the glider in a freezing Chicago nursery. You're holding a screaming six-month-old who hasn't slept a solid stretch since he was born. You pull out your phone, desperate...

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A tired mother holding a teething baby in a dark room

The Middle-of-the-Night Panic Search For Your Baby's First Tooth

I was staring at the ceiling of our Chicago apartment at 3:14 AM. The radiator was clanking. My son was gnawing on my collarbone like a starving hyena. His chin was a waterfall of drool, soaking right through my third...

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A woman looking stressed at her phone while holding a coffee cup

The Truth About Taylor Swift and the Pressure on Women to Have Kids

When I was twenty-nine, I was sitting in a aggressively air-conditioned Starbucks wearing leggings that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine since Tuesday, crying into a venti iced macchiato because I had just received three completely conflicting pieces...

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An exhausted dad looking at his phone while holding a sleeping baby in a dark room.

A 3 AM Deep Dive Into Sleep Coaches and 19th-Century Babies

The thermostat on the baby monitor says exactly 69.8 degrees, which is supposedly the good thermal threshold for an 11-month-old human, yet my daughter is currently thrashing against my chest like a malfunctioning Roomba. It's 2:14 AM. We're in the...

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Frustrated mom adjusting a rear-facing baby car seat in the Texas summer heat.

The Sweaty, Stressful Reality of Baby Car Travel and Seat Safety

I was heavily pregnant with my second, sweating completely through my maternity tank top in a Target parking lot in the middle of July, trying to rip an infant seat base out of my husband's truck so I could move...

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Exhausted dad holding two babies while staring confused at a massive pink tulle tutu

Surviving the Frilly Nightmare of Cute Baby Girl Clothes

I'm currently standing in the disabled toilet of a Costa Coffee in Wandsworth, staring in abject horror at my daughter’s back. She is wearing a gift from a well-meaning great-auntβ€”a vintage-style, sage green dress featuring no fewer than fourteen microscopic...

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