The Parenting Journal

Every baby monitor I’ve ever tested eventually got replaced by something smarter. That’s not a criticism of the old ones. It’s just that the gap between a basic audio monitor and a networked camera with motion zones, air quality sensors,...

Every year I do a full walkthrough of our house. Not because I enjoy crouching behind toilets or yanking on furniture straps, but because my kids keep changing, and a house that was safe for a six-month-old is a different...

Most new parents buy a baby monitor first. Then a sound machine, a swaddle set, maybe a white-noise app. The cabinet locks sit in the cart, unpurchased, for another few weeks. That’s the gap where injuries happen.Baby proofing feels like...

Most babyproofing lists read like they were written by someone with an unlimited budget and a contractor on speed dial. The reality for most families is a Sunday afternoon, a trip to the hardware store, and maybe $80 to spend...

Most parents think about babyproofing the way they think about filing taxes: something to handle once, check off the list, and never revisit. But babies don’t stay still, and neither do hazards. The corner protectors you installed in March look...

Renting changes the math on almost every babyproofing decision you make. You can’t drill into the tile. You can’t mount a gate to the wall without risking your deposit. And yet the hazards inside a rental are identical to the...

Every year, products you bought in good faith end up on a recall list. The question is whether you find out before something goes wrong.The CPSC issues recalls on baby and toddler products throughout the year, and 2026 is no...

Most households treat baby-proofing and pet-proofing as two separate projects. That’s a mistake. Your dog’s food bowl, your cat’s litter box, your baby’s play gate, the cabinet under the sink where you keep both the drain cleaner and the pet...

Every baby product aisle is a maze of acronyms. ASTM. CPSC. JPMA. Voluntary. Mandatory. Certified. Compliant. Parents encounter these terms constantly and rarely get a straight explanation of what they mean for the product sitting in their cart.Here is that...