Home & Lifestyle

A carrier is the single most useful thing most Indian families buy — crowds, markets, stairs and a baby who only sleeps on you. Two rules make it safe.

The walker is the most commonly gifted item in Indian babyhood and the one paediatricians most consistently advise against. Here is why, and what works instead.

Most childhood injuries happen at home, and the Indian hazards are specific: water buckets, balcony grilles, hot vessels on the floor, and cleaning fluids in soft-drink bottles. Here is the room-by-room list.

A baby in a lap is not restrained — in a crash they become a projectile, and the adult holding them cannot hold on. This is the one purchase where the physics does not negotiate.

Indian pavements, lifts and staircases decide this purchase far more than the brochure does. Here is what to check before you spend.

Not all screen time is the same. The difference between the good and the bad is mostly about pace, autoplay and whether an adult is anywhere nearby.

The safest sleep setup is the cheapest one: a firm flat surface with nothing on it, in your room. Everything else is convenience.

Five minutes of knowing what to do decides the outcome in most childhood emergencies. Here is the short list, including the traditional remedies that actively cause harm.

Holi is the festival children love most and the one with the most avoidable injuries. A little preparation the night before changes the whole day.

Young children cannot tell an advertisement from a programme, and a great deal of what they watch is an advertisement wearing a friendly face.

The monsoon brings mosquito-borne fevers, waterborne infections and a season of colds. Most of it is preventable at home — and the dengue warning signs are worth memorising.

Filters are the smallest part of online safety. The thing that protects a child most is knowing they can tell you anything without being punished for it.

Prevention is the part that works, and it is also the part that is safe. No substance should be treated as safe for a home with a crawling baby simply because it is described as natural.

Most school safety is decided by things you can check in one meeting — and by a handful of rules your child needs to know by heart.

Screens do not permanently damage eyes, and they do cause real strain, headaches and neck pain — and the rise in short-sightedness in Indian cities has a related cause worth knowing.

Most screen rules fail because they are too complicated and apply only to the children. Here is a plan built to survive a normal Indian week.

Of everything screens are blamed for, the sleep effect is the best evidenced — and the easiest to fix.

Indian summers are dangerous for small children in ways that are easy to miss. Here is the practical season plan, from hydration to heatstroke.

Festival season is a month of late nights, sugar, crowds and relatives — and a toddler who did not agree to any of it. Here is how to get through it with the fun intact.

The first birthday is largely for the adults, which is fine — as long as the baby is not the one who pays for it in exhaustion, and the family is not paying for it for months.

Travelling with a baby in India is entirely doable — it just needs different planning. Here is what actually matters, and what you can leave at home.

Almost every Indian family building or arranging a child's room hears vastu advice, usually from someone certain about it. Here is what the tradition actually says — and what changes a child's sleep and concentration whichever direction the bed faces.

The bag everyone over-packs for a month and then under-packs forever. Here is the list that survives contact with an actual outing.

Indian winters bring two opposite risks — an under-dressed baby in an unheated house, and an over-bundled one with a heater burning oxygen in a closed room. Here is the balance.

A baby's first Diwali is mostly about managing three things — noise, smoke and sleep — so the rest of it can be enjoyed.