The Parenting Journal

Most parents think of the refrigerator as a food storage appliance. Toddlers think of it as a project. My younger daughter proved this definitively at 22 months. I answered the doorbell, was gone maybe 90 seconds, and came back to...

Every toddler I’ve met treats the stove like a magnet. The knobs are exactly at eye level, they click satisfyingly, and turning them produces an immediate result. My older daughter figured out the gas burner igniter at 22 months, long...

The kitchen is the most dangerous room in your house for a toddler. Not the stairs, not the bathroom. The kitchen, where you spend the most time, where your child wants to be near you, and where a glass oven...

Falls happen. Every playroom floor is either part of the solution or part of the problem. The surface your child lands on when they tumble off a foam block tower, miss a step down from a play loft, or simply...

The nursery is the room parents spend the most time decorating and the least time stress-testing. That’s a problem. A beautiful gallery wall above the crib, floating shelves lined with soft toys and succulents, a dreamy mobile spinning overhead. It...

Nearly 1.4 million pediatric door-injury emergency department visits were recorded over a single decade in the U.S. (NEISS, 1999–2008). Roughly 4 in 10 of those visits happened to children age 4 or younger. That number stopped me cold when I...

The nursery you’ve spent weeks setting up looks perfect at 2 p.m. At 2 a.m., it’s a different room entirely. You’re navigating in the dark, trying not to stub a toe on the glider, trying not to wake a baby...

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death in children ages 1–4 (CDC). Not car accidents. Not falls. Water. And most of those deaths happen in home water, in bathtubs and backyard pools and five-gallon buckets left out after...

Toddlers discover the stove knobs shortly after they discover the stove. My younger daughter cleared an entire under-sink cabinet in the time it took me to answer the door. The stove was next on her list. I know this because...