Magazine

Frustrated mom holding a baby while looking at old nursery gear

The Baby Grand Era: When Grandma’s Advice Makes You Want to Scream

I'm staring at a drop-side crib that looks like it survived the Oregon Trail, and my mother-in-law is patting the literal patchwork quilt she just laid inside it. She's telling me how my husband slept in this exact death trap...

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Close up of an eleven month old baby foot kicking on a wooden floor in Portland

Before and After: Debugging the Weird Hardware of a Baby Foot

Last Tuesday at 3 AM, I found myself holding my son's left ankle like I was inspecting a suspicious external hard drive, trying to figure out how his toes were suddenly jammed completely sideways inside his pajamas. The nursery monitor...

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A tired dad looking confused at a grocery store aisle full of baby food pouches

The real truth about baby food pouches and picky eating

My mother-in-law told me I need to boil and blend organic root vegetables until my kitchen looks like a nineteenth-century apothecary. The guy ahead of me at our Portland neighborhood coffee shop loudly proclaimed that purees destroy a baby's jaw...

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A tiny plush elf doll sitting next to an 11-month-old infant who looks completely bewildered.

Debugging the Holiday Magic: Our First Baby Elf Setup

"Put it on the mantle so he knows Santa is watching," my mother told me on Thanksgiving, handing me a felt doll with suspicious eyes and unnaturally long limbs. "Don't bring that surveillance state psychological warfare into your home," my...

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Frustrated dad looking at his phone while twin toddlers play on the floor

Dear Past Tom: The Baby Dragon Evo Is Not A Wooden Toy

Dear Tom of six months ago. You're currently sitting on the kitchen floor at 6:13 AM, watching Maya meticulously paint the skirting boards with organic oat porridge while Lily tries to negotiate with a rogue Cheerio she found under the...

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Tired mom holding a newborn baby in a pediatrician clinic waiting room

The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Choosing a Great Baby Doctor

I'm currently typing this one-handed on my phone in a clinic waiting room that smells aggressively like rubbing alcohol and cheap cherry lollipops, while my youngest tries to aggressively gnaw my collarbone off. The lady across from me is staring...

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A tired dad holding a newborn baby while looking at his smartphone in a dark room

What the bhad baby news taught me about newborn survival mode

The blue light from my phone was set to the absolute lowest brightness, but in the pitch black of our Portland bedroom at 3:17 AM, it still felt like staring directly into a laser pointer. My eleven-month-old daughter was asleep...

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Exhausted British dad holding twins and a stack of unhelpful baby manuals

The Myth of the Book Baby and Why My Twins Refused to Read It

At twenty past three on a damp Tuesday morning in our entirely too small London flat, I found myself holding a screaming infant in one arm while desperately trying to flip the pages of a sleep-training manual with my teeth....

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Tired dad holding a cup of hot coffee out of reach of twin toddlers.

The Burn Baby Burn Reality Check: Why Your Coffee is the Enemy

I'm currently standing in the exact centre of my kitchen, holding a mug of aggressively hot black coffee directly above my head like I'm presenting Simba to the animal kingdom, while two toddlers attempt to scale my pyjama trousers. This...

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