When Do Babies Finally Start Holding Their Own Bottles?
Dear Tom of eighteen months ago. You're currently sitting on the IKEA armchair that smells faintly of sour milk and big defeat, a twin wedged in the crook of each arm. You're trying to balance two plastic bottles using your...
Instant Pot Baby Back Ribs: A Warning To My Panicked Past Self
Dear Tom of six months ago. You're currently standing in the meat aisle of the Tesco on Cromwell Road, holding a massive, bloody slab of pork while one of your twin daughters screams because she dropped a slightly damp rice...
The honest guide: how to stop baby hiccups after feeding
The digital clock on the microwave glowed a hostile 3:14 AM, and the flat was finally entirely silent except for the low hum of the fridge. Florence, the slightly heavier of our twins, had just finished her bottle. I had...
The completely unvarnished truth about making homemade baby food
My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen and said I had to boil dal water for three straight hours or my son's intestines would simply shut down. My coworker from the pediatric ward texted me to skip purees entirely, advising...
The Honest Guide to Feeding Crustaceans to Your Infant
I was standing in my kitchen at ten in the morning on a random Tuesday, holding a twenty-dollar tin of pasteurized lump meat like it was a live grenade. The smell of cold brine was filling the room. My son...
Surviving the great baby pancake experiment of our weaning era
I'm currently scraping a piece of fossilised banana oat batter off the kitchen ceiling with a plastic spatula. It's 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, and the great weaning experiment has officially breached containment. Maya is covered in a sticky paste...
The Messy, Sweet Potato-Covered Truth About Using Baby Spoons
It was 2019, and there was pureed sweet potato on my living room ceiling fan. Not a light splatter, y'all. A heavy, gravity-defying clump. My oldest son, bless his heart, had just karate-chopped the hard plastic baby spoon I was...
Dear Past Me: The Real Truth About Finding A Local Baby Cafe
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago. You're sitting in the passenger seat of your sister's 2018 Subaru Outback, wearing those black leggings with the tiny hole in the left knee, balancing a sweating, lukewarm half-caff iced Americano between your...
Surviving the Baby Bull Phase: Blenders, Bulldogs, and Purees
I was standing in my kitchen wearing yesterday's yoga pants, staring at a splatter of neon orange sweet potato on my ceiling while our rescue pit mix tried to lick the matching orange stain off my six-month-old's foot. The myth...