Magazine

A mother holding her newborn baby in a hospital room

Why nobody warns you about ugly babies and how to survive them

I spent four hours in the maternity ward trying to find an Instagram filter that would make my son look less like a bruised, angry potato. I know we aren't supposed to say that out loud. You're supposed to weep...

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Pregnant woman sitting on a bathroom floor looking worried while holding a phone

When Can You Hear Baby Heartbeat Without Losing Your Mind

It's 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm lying flat on the cold hexagonal tiles of my master bathroom floor, wearing a pair of maternity leggings that are already too tight even though I’m only nine weeks pregnant, and my...

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Tired mom holding a crying baby who is angrily rubbing their cheek and ear during a late-night wake up.

The Real Signs of Ear Infection in Baby (And What to Ignore)

I'm just gonna be real with youβ€”if I had a dollar for every time my mother-in-law gasped and said, "Oh, he's tugging his ear, it's an infection!" I could have paid off my student loans by now. When my oldest,...

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Exhausted dad looking at his phone in a dark room while a new born baby sleeps in a bassinet.

Total System Crash: Troubleshooting Our New Born Baby on Night Four

It’s 3:14 AM on our fourth night home, and I'm standing over the bassinet holding my phone flashlight like an idiot, trying to count the chest rises of a 7-pound human. My wife is asleep for the first time in...

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A tired dad looking at a laptop while holding a baby

What An Overdue Celebrity Baby Taught My Debugging Brain

The time was 3:14 AM, and the only sound in our Portland apartment was the rhythmic, aggressive squeak of a purple yoga ball against the hardwood floor. My wife was violently bouncing on it, trying to physically dislodge our stubbornly...

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A dad holding his hiccuping baby upright after a bottle feed

Why Babies Hiccup Constantly (And How to Actually Troubleshoot)

I was holding a plastic spoon with exactly one drop of literal hot sauce on it while my wife Sarah stared at me from the rocking chair like I had lost my mind. My mother-in-law had just texted me a...

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Exhausted mom checking her sick baby's temperature in the middle of the night

How to Reduce Fever in Baby Naturally Without Losing Your Mind

It was exactly 2:14 AM when my middle child, Carter, rolled over into my arm and felt like a literal baked potato fresh out of the oven. I'm talking radiating heat. I sat up in the dark, frantically feeling his...

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Sarah drinking lukewarm coffee while looking stressed at a baby weight chart printout.

Dear Past Me: Please Stop Stressing Over the Baby Weight Chart

I was cleaning out my messy Google Drive about 6 months agoβ€”looking for a recipe I never ended up makingβ€”and I found a draft of a letter I had started writing to my past self. I was looking at old...

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Exhausted mom holding a congested baby in a dimly lit nursery at night

The 3 AM Baby Vicks Rub Panic and How I Finally Got My Kid to Sleep

It was exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in mid-November, and I was standing in the middle of the nursery wearing yesterday’s yoga pants with an unidentifiable crusty stain on the knee, holding a half-empty mug of room-temperature coffee that...

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