The Parenting Journal

My older daughter figured out the round doorknob cover at 28 months. She’d watched me open it a dozen times, and one afternoon she just sat down, worked both thumbs into the seam, and popped it off like she’d been...

Plastic plug-in outlet caps have been in the "babyproofing starter kit" for decades. They cost almost nothing, they ship in packs of twenty-five, and they feel like a solved problem. They are not a solved problem.A 1997 Temple University study...

Every year, the CDC estimates that more than 3.5 million children under 14 are treated in emergency rooms for unintentional injuries, and a significant share of those involve falls against hard furniture edges. Corner and edge injuries are common enough...

The living room looks harmless. Soft couch, coffee table, maybe a rug. But the average living room contains more active hazards for a crawling or walking toddler than almost any other room in the house, and most of them are...

Most grooming kits marketed for babies are fine. A few are useful. And some include tools that belong nowhere near a newborn’s face. Knowing which is which saves you money, saves you panic, and keeps your baby safer during the...

Every diaper change away from home is a small logistical problem. The surface is wrong, the lighting is bad, your bag is unzipped, and your baby has already grabbed the wipes. A good portable changing pad doesn’t solve all of...

The bathroom is the most dangerous room in your house. Not the kitchen, not the stairs. The bathroom, because it combines water, hard surfaces, medications, and cleaning chemicals in a space roughly the size of a walk-in closet, and your...

Most standard baby gates top out at 32 inches wide. The average doorway in a home built after 1990 runs 32–36 inches. That math barely works, and it falls apart the moment you’re trying to close off a hallway opening,...