Magazine

A sleep-deprived dad holding a glowing thermometer and looking confused at his smartphone screen in the dark.

3 AM Teething Panics And The Nikki Baby Google Search Spiral

At 3:17 AM on a Tuesday, I'm standing in the middle of the nursery holding a glowing infrared forehead thermometer like a phaser set to stun. My 11-month-old is thrashing around in his crib like a fish on a dock,...

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Exhausted mother comforting a baby in a dimly lit nursery

The Morbid Truth About Rock a Bye Baby and Why It Still Works

Don't open up a search engine at three in the morning to research the origins of nursery rhymes while bouncing a screaming infant. It's a terrible idea that only leads to weird historical rabbit holes and more anxiety. I know...

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A toddler sitting on a playmat while an older girl reads a graphic novel on a green sofa

Why The Modern Baby-Sitters Club Reboot Is Actually Good

Sitting on my sofa last weekend, I made a critical error in judgment. I queued up the baby-sitters club 1995 movie for my ten-year-old niece, Maya, expecting a beautiful bonding moment over vintage denim and childhood innocence. Don't do this....

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A tired father wearing his baby in a carrier while working on a laptop at a kitchen island.

Debugging Fatherhood: What Silverbacks Taught Me About Babies

I was standing in our Portland kitchen at 3 AM, wearing a stained t-shirt and intensely color-coding my son's diaper output in a spreadsheet, when I realized my troubleshooting manual for fatherhood was completely corrupted. The lactation consultant at the...

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A basket of newborn clothes sitting next to an unmarked bottle of laundry detergent

Dear Jess: The Unfiltered Truth About Buying Baby Detergent

Dear Jess from six months ago, I see you standing there in aisle 14 of the H-E-B in Corsicana, completely frozen. You've got your two-year-old hanging off the front of the shopping cart trying to eat a bruised banana, your...

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Mom holding a baby in a simple brown organic cotton bodysuit with felt ears

Why I Stopped Buying $45 Polyester Baby Pumpkins (And What I Do Now)

There I was, sitting on the porch steps in the humid Texas heat, trying to pry a screaming six-month-old out of a rigid polyester pumpkin suit that somehow didn't have a single snap at the crotch. My oldest daughterβ€”who's now...

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A dad holding a messy baby while frantically checking his phone.

System Failure: Searching for Baby Clothes Near Me in Portland

The sound was suspiciously similar to a ketchup bottle emptying its final contents, but we were miles from a diner and my eleven-month-old daughter was entirely too pleased with herself. We were at Mt. Tabor park, I was trying to...

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A dad looking confused at a pregnancy tracking app on his phone

The truth about baby bump timelines and why apps lie to you

I was standing in our kitchen holding a retractable Stanley tape measure against my wife's stomach, trying to log exactly how many centimeters her abdomen had grown since the previous Tuesday. She looked down at me like I was trying...

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A tired dad holding a wooden buffalo next to some Hundred Acre Wood decorations

The Accidental Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower Guide for Anxious Dads

Dear Tom from six months ago. You're currently hiding in the downstairs loo. I know this because I'm you, and I remember the exact texture of the bathmat you're presently sitting on while trying to escape the chaos of your...

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