The Parenting Journal

Renting with a baby is a particular kind of puzzle. You need every safety measure a homeowner would install, but you’re working under a lease that says you can’t put a screw in the wall without permission. The good news:...

Most parents use "baby proofing" and "childproofing" as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. And the gap between them is where a lot of kids get hurt. Both terms describe making your home safer for children. But they...

The weeks before your due date feel like the last quiet stretch you’ll have for years. You’re tired, your back aches, and the nursery still isn’t finished. But this window, roughly weeks 28 through 36, is the best time you’ll...

Standing in the baby carrier aisle, holding two different products, you may feel unsure which one won’t hurt your kid. The packaging all says "ergonomic" and "safe from birth," but none of it tells you what goes wrong. Here’s what...

Every stroller trip starts the same way: you buckle in, grab the handle, and head out the door. But the safety decisions you make in the first thirty seconds of that routine, and every thirty seconds after, are what keep...

Most parents miss the window. Not by much, but by enough. Your baby has been sleeping flat on their back in a bare crib, and then one morning you walk in and find them on their tummy in the corner...

There is no single day when you pack up the cabinet locks and declare the house safe. Baby proofing is a process that shifts with your child, not a project with a completion date. The measures that matter at 8...

Somewhere around 22 months, my older daughter figured out that dresser drawers make excellent ladder rungs. I walked into her room one afternoon to find her standing on the third drawer, eye level with the top of a five-drawer chest,...

Potty training is one of the first times you hand your toddler a key to a room you’ve spent two years keeping locked. That shift is real and necessary. Independence at the toilet requires independent access to the toilet. But...