Raising a baby boi: When people expect a tiny, burly lumberjack

I'm currently holding my mate Dave’s six-month-old son at arm's length, waiting for the inevitable geyser of urine to subside. When you've twin girls, as I do, you get used to a certain radius of danger during nappy changes. With a baby boy, the blast zone is roughly the size of a small suburban driveway. Dave dropped him off two hours ago with a diaper bag the size of a camper van and a cheerful "you survive twins every day, one lad will be a breeze!" Page 47 of my old parenting books suggests remaining calm in these high-stress moments, which I found deeply unhelpful as warm pee hit my favorite sweater.

While I was trying to wrestle the child into a clean sleepsuit and furiously wiping down the changing table, my 19-year-old cousin texted. She knew I was babysitting and asked if Dave's kid had "baby boi carti" energy. I stared at my phone screen, squinting through deep sleep deprivation, genuinely wondering if a Playboi Carti baby boi was some new, incredibly niche brand of organic, hypoallergenic rash cream I was supposed to have on hand. I tentatively googled it with my one clean thumb.

It turns out she was talking about a rapper, and whether this infant possessed a specific Carti baby boi aesthetic. I wanted to text back that the only baby boi Playboi Carti vibe happening in my living room was the rhythmic, bass-heavy sound of this child forcefully filling his nappy. I'm a thirty-four-year-old man covered in regurgitated milk. I don't know how to dress a six-month-old in avant-garde streetwear. He is just a baby, currently screaming because his own hand unexpectedly touched his face. We will worry about his personal brand later.

The terrifying plumbing situation

Let's talk about hygiene, because frankly, the mechanics of male infants terrify me. When our girls were born, the hospital gave us a straightforward, albeit intimidating, crash course in cleaning. But when my friend James had his son last year, he showed me the NHS leaflet they handed him about circumcision care, and it read like a technical manual for defusing a very small, very angry bomb.

I vaguely remember James's pediatrician—a woman with the exhausted aura of someone who has seen far too many panicked fathers—telling him that for circumcised boys, standard baby wipes are essentially sandpaper on an open wound. The official medical advice, at least the way James frantically explained it to me over a pint, was that you're supposed to use only warm water, gently dab the area, apply a truly staggering amount of petroleum jelly, and stick a bit of gauze on it so the wound doesn't cement itself to the inside of the nappy. I think she said the redness goes away in about a week, assuming you haven't completely botched the gauze application.

The sheer volume of anxiety wrapped up in that one tiny area of a child's body is astounding. James was instructed that if he saw pus-filled blisters, he shouldn't ask the internet, but should instead run screaming to A&E. Luckily, Dave's kid isn't circumcised, but even just doing a standard wipe-down requires a level of tactical evasion I haven't practiced since dodgeball in primary school. You have to pin the legs, throw a washcloth over the primary weapon to block the spray, and clean at lightning speed.

The feeding and the freezing

For the first few months of any child's life, I'm fairly certain their only actual jobs are eating, sleeping, peeing, and pooping. I remember dragging the twins to our doctor when they were newborns, completely convinced they were broken because they slept 16 hours a day and only woke up to yell at me. The doctor assured me this was normal, noting that newborns usually take down about an ounce or two of milk every couple of hours before passing out again. Everything else you read on the internet about newborn enrichment is just marketing designed to make you feel inadequate.

Dave's boy is past the newborn stage, which means he's currently crushing eight-ounce bottles like a tiny, milk-drunk sailor on shore leave. And with the feeding comes the dummy situation. With the girls, we lost pacifiers to the dark void beneath the sofa on a daily basis. I'd find them weeks later, covered in dust and dog hair, entirely useless. Dave, however, came prepared.

He handed me his kid already attached to a Kianao Wood & Silicone Pacifier Clip. I'll admit, I'm usually skeptical of baby accessories that look like they belong in an architectural digest. It looks a bit like a tiny piece of modern art, but it actually works. The metal clip grips the onesie with the strength of a nervous crab, and the wooden beads haven't shattered when he inevitably bashes them against my kitchen island. The silicone beads are apparently food-grade, which is good because he spends more time chewing on the clip than the actual dummy. It kept the pacifier off my suspiciously sticky kitchen tiles all afternoon, which is the absolute highest praise I can give any product in this house.

Teething: the great equalizer

Right around the time they figure out how to sleep for more than three consecutive hours, they start growing teeth, which instantly ruins the fragile peace you just established. Dave's lad is currently in the thick of it. He spent a good twenty minutes gnawing on my shoulder, which is quite unpleasant when they've those two razor-sharp bottom teeth poking through.

In an attempt to save my collarbone, I rummaged through our old baby gear and found the Sushi Roll Teether Toy I had bought as a joke gift for my wife months ago. It’s BPA-free and made of that squishy food-grade silicone, which is great from a health perspective, but mostly it's just highly amusing to watch a six-month-old aggressively chew on a piece of fake nigiri. I vaguely remembered reading that cold things help numb inflamed gums, so I chucked it in the fridge next to last night's leftover curry for ten minutes. It distracted him from crying for a solid half hour, making it worth its weight in gold. He seemed to really like the textured bits that look like rice.

On the flip side, we also had a Llama Teether hanging around the toy bin. It’s perfectly fine. It's soft, it’s also silicone, it has a little heart cutout in the middle. But for some reason, Dave's kid just looked at it, looked at me like I had deeply offended his ancestors, and threw it across the room. I think it might be slightly too wide for his current grip, or maybe he just has a deep-seated prejudice against South American camelids. Who knows. Babies are entirely irrational dictators. The sushi roll definitely won the afternoon.

If you're also drowning in baby paraphernalia and just want things that actually serve a purpose rather than cluttering up your living room, you might want to browse Kianao's organic cotton baby essentials—it’s mostly just soft, practical things that won't give your kid a mysterious rash.

Safe sleep and the tyranny of blankets

Eventually, the sushi teether worked its magic, the bottle took effect, and his eyes started rolling back into his head. with putting them down, the paranoia really sets in for me. The official CDC guidance always talks about the ABCs of sleep—alone, on their back, in a bare crib. The way I understand it from the mountain of pamphlets we were given at the hospital, a boring crib is a safe crib.

This means no stuffed animals, no pillows, no bumper pads, and absolutely no loose blankets. Which sounds easy, until you're staring at a baby in a bare cot in November, convinced they're going to freeze to death. This is why we all migrated to sleep sacks. Swaddling is great when they're tiny potatoes, but the second they hit about two months old, they start trying to roll over like little stranded turtles. If they flip onto their stomach while their arms are pinned inside a swaddle, they're stuck, which is a massive suffocation hazard.

I also read somewhere—in a medical journal or perhaps on a forum at 4 AM—that using a dummy can actually reduce the risk of SIDS. The theory is that it keeps their airway open or prevents them from falling into too deep a sleep. This is why I'm so fiercely defensive of that pacifier clip I mentioned earlier. I unclipped it from his onesie before I put him in the travel cot, naturally, because you can't have loose cords in there either. It’s a minor miracle that any of us parents ever sleep at all, frankly, given the amount of danger we're constantly scanning for.

Why do we expect male infants to chop wood?

thing is I’ve noticed about baby boys today, having watched Dave's son and comparing it to my experience raising the twins. People treat them differently almost immediately, and it's bizarre.

Strangers in the park will come up to my girls and tell them they're beautiful, or sweet, or ask about their little cardigans. When I take Dave's son out, people tell him he's a "big lad" or "strong." He is six months old. His primary achievement today was successfully getting his own foot into his mouth. He is not strong. He has the core stability of a wet noodle.

There seems to be this unspoken, pervasive cultural rule that boys need less physical affection as they grow. I read a study once suggesting that parents really subconsciously cuddle infant boys less than infant girls. That's profoundly tragic to me. They don't need to "tough it out" when they drop their pacifier. They need to be picked up, hugged, and allowed to express sadness without someone trying to distract them with a toy tractor. Helping them figure out what emotions are early on probably stops them from just converting all their distress into anger later in life.

The whole concept of holding back emotional comfort to build some sort of rugged, lumberjack masculinity in a person who literally can't hold up their own head is absurd. They need just as much skin-to-skin contact, just as much soothing, and just as much softness.

Anyway, Dave's son woke up from his nap, screamed for ten minutes, and is now currently asleep again, this time entirely slumped on my chest, drooling a small, warm puddle into my shirt. I'm not going to move him, partly because he's heavy and I'm tired, and partly because I've finally achieved a moment of silence in this house.

Before you descend into the absolute chaos of the FAQs below, take a second to look through Kianao's teething toys collection—if only to find something to save your own shoulders from being chewed on by a miniature human.

Questions I'm too tired to fully answer but will try anyway

Do I really have to stop swaddling at two months old?

Basically, yes, or whenever they start looking like they might even think about rolling over. If they manage to flip onto their stomach while their arms are pinned tight inside a swaddle, they can't push themselves back up. It's a terrifying thought. Just buy a wearable sleep sack and accept the fact that they'll flail their arms around like tiny, uncoordinated orchestra conductors until they get used to the freedom.

How do I clean a circumcised baby without causing a complete meltdown?

Very, very carefully, and with a lot of deep breaths. Ditch the regular wipes for the first week or so, as the chemicals and friction will just cause pain. Use warm water squeezed from a clean sponge, and apply a truly terrifying amount of petroleum jelly on the front of the nappy so the healing skin doesn't stick to the fabric. If it looks red and angry past a week, or you see pus, don't ask strangers on the internet—just take the kid to a pediatrician immediately.

Are those silicone teethers really safe to freeze?

Put them in the fridge, not the freezer. If you freeze them solid, they turn into little ice bricks that can seriously bruise their delicate gums, which completely defeats the point of giving them a soothing toy. Ten to fifteen minutes in the fridge next to the milk is usually enough to get them nice and cold without turning them into a weapon.

Is it completely normal for a newborn boy to sleep all day?

According to our pediatrician, yes. They can sleep up to 16 or 17 hours a day in those early, blurry weeks. They usually wake up every two or three hours just to demand milk, absolutely ruin a nappy, and pass out again. Enjoy the quiet while it lasts, because the four-month sleep regression is real, and it's coming for you.

Can I put a thin blanket over him if his room is really cold?

Absolutely not. Loose blankets in a cot are a massive hazard for SIDS, no matter how thin they're. If your house is freezing, layer up their clothing or use a thicker, higher TOG-rated sleep sack. A bare crib is the only safe crib, even if it looks a bit sad and institutional to our adult eyes. They don't care about decor; they just need to breathe.