Magazine

A messy highchair tray with a green silicone baby bowl and half-eaten spaghetti

The Day I Threw Out Every Plastic Plate in My House

There was spaghetti sauce on the ceiling. I'm still not entirely sure how the physics of it worked, but my oldestβ€”who is the cautionary tale for 90% of my parenting decisionsβ€”had just execute a flawless, unprovoked karate kick to the...

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Tired dad holding a green silicone baby bib covered in sweet potato puree.

A Letter to My Past Self About the Great Baby Bib Migration

Hey past Marcus. It's currently November, which means you're standing in the kitchen at 2 AM, holding a cloth that smells vaguely of sour milk, trying to calculate if it's physically possible for a five-month-old to output more fluid than...

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Two toddlers covered in pasta sauce wearing full-body smock bibs

The ganzkΓΆrper lΓ€tzchen saved my twins from tomato sauce ruin

There's a persistent, incredibly damaging rumour floating around antenatal classes that starting your baby on solid food is a gentle, aesthetic journey. You're led to believe you'll hand your darling infant a perfectly steamed baton of sweet potato, which they'll...

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A tired father holding two identical personalized baby bibs in a messy kitchen.

Surviving Weaning and the Tactical Genius of a LΓ€tzchen mit Namen

I'm currently staring at a smear of pureed pumpkin that has somehow defied gravity to reach the ceiling rose of our Victorian terrace. It's seven in the morning on a Tuesday, and one of the twinsβ€”I'm fairly certain it's Florence,...

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A sage green silicone baby bib covered in smashed sweet potato on a white table.

LΓ€tzchen Silikon: Why I abandoned the cloth bib fantasy

It was day four of baby-led weaning. My son had managed to work a single wedge of roasted sweet potato into his hair, his ears, and the space between his toes. But the real tragedy was his chest. He was...

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Toddler covered in tomato sauce wearing a wipeable sleeved bib

The Myth Of Aesthetic Feeding And Why You Need LΓ€tzchen Γ„rmel

It’s 6:15 PM on a Tuesday in 2018, and I'm standing in the middle of my kitchen wearing what was once a highly respectable gray sweatshirt but is now basically a Jackson Pollock canvas of avocado smears and despair, just...

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Baby eating spaghetti while wearing a long-sleeve terry cloth smock

Why long-sleeve terry bibs actually saved my sanity and my rug

It was 11:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing a cream-colored cashmere blend sweater. I know. Stupidity at its absolute finest. Leo was exactly six months and four days old, strapped into his high chair like a tiny,...

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A messy toddler wearing a terrycloth bib eating spaghetti

The Frottee LΓ€tzchen Era: Why Terrycloth Bibs Finally Fixed My Meal...

It was a Tuesday night, about six years ago, and my oldest was covered in what looked like a marinara-themed crime scene. I’m talking sauce in his eyebrows, sauce down his neck, and somehow, sauce inside his diaper. He was...

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Toddler wearing a long sleeve smock covered in spaghetti sauce.

The aesthetic feeding myth and why you need a lΓ€tzli mit Γ€rmel

Instagram sells this absolute lie that babies learning to eat is a minimalist, beige-hued journey of discovery. The video always starts with a perfectly clean child in a ribbed neutral outfit, sitting in a wooden high chair. They gently mouth...

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