The Parenting Journal

The moment your baby pulls up on the coffee table and takes three shaky steps toward you, something shifts. It’s thrilling. And it’s the moment your home stops being a place you live and becomes a place you manage.Developmental motor...

Six months is a strange inflection point. Your baby is still immobile enough that you feel like you have time. You don’t.Most parents start babyproofing when they see their child moving, which means they’re already behind. The window between "rolling...

Every skill your baby learns in the first year is a reason to celebrate. It is also, almost always, a reason to reassess your home.That sounds alarming. It isn’t meant to. What it means is that development and danger are...

Every baby goes through the same basic developmental arc, but the hazards that matter most shift significantly in the first year. What threatens a two-month-old is almost nothing like what threatens a ten-month-old. Most parents babyproof in one big sweep...

Most parents think of babyproofing as a project they’ll get to eventually. Then their baby gets up on all fours and covers six feet of floor in about four seconds, and "eventually" becomes this afternoon.Month seven is the deadline. Not...

Babies mouth everything. That’s not a parenting failure; it’s developmental biology. But when the thing getting mouthed is a silicone corner protector you’ve stuck to a coffee table corner, the question is worth taking seriously: is that safe?The short answer...

Every bouncer sold in the United States carries a printed warning on the frame or seat: floor use only. Most parents have seen it. Many have ignored it anyway.That gap between knowing and doing is where injuries happen.The Answer Is...