The Parent’s Lounge
Pull up a chair. Judgment-free, accurate answers for prospective, new, and current parents, from two lines on a stick through the first year, all in one place.
Hi, we're John & Haley: close friends, basically family, each raising our own kids alongside our own wonderful partners. Little Story Magic is our labor of love. We started it because we love our kids (and our nephews and nieces), and because we were lucky. We had an amazing support cast to guide us and mentor us into being parents, and partners who are amazing co-parents. Not everyone gets that cast. The Parent's Lounge is our way of passing it on: the information we found useful, and the information we wish we'd had before we became parents, gathered in one judgment-free place.
Expecting the runway
🗓️ From Positive Test to Birth
The appointment map trimester by trimester, tests and vaccines, real labor vs. false alarms, and exactly when to call.
Read🧸 Products & Gear
Car seats done right, the safety standard behind every real essential, the banned-but-still-circulating list, and what to skip.
Read🏡 Building Your Village
Picking a pediatrician before birth, hiring a nanny without regrets, and the honest daycare-vs-nanny trade-off table.
ReadBaby's here the deep end
🐣 The First Twelve Weeks
The fourth trimester: feeding math, diaper counts, the crying curve, baby states, checkups, and what normal looks like.
Read🍼 Feeding & Formula
How formula works (the store brand is fine), safe prep, breastfeeding explained plainly, solids, and the never list.
Read🌙 Sleep & Soothing
Safe sleep rules, the 5 S's, wake windows, sleep associations, and what the evidence says about sleep training.
Read🔎 What to Look For
The 100.4° rule, true emergency signs, the big table of scary-looking-but-normal, and milestones with act-early flags.
ReadThe parents you count too
💛 Your Wellbeing
Baby blues vs. PPD, urgent warning signs up to a year out, recovery that counts in 15-minute wins, and every helpline number.
Read🧔 For Dads & Partners
The playbook: skin-to-skin, feeding support that actually helps, night shifts, watching for PPD in her, and in you.
Read🌱 Screens, Sugar & Play
The 2026 screen-time guidance, the new no-added-sugar-through-age-4 rule, tummy time, serve-and-return, and play by age.
Read📚 The Bookshelf
Twelve famous parenting resources, one honest paragraph each: what's worth your 3 a.m., and what each one is for.
ReadHandy Tools quick answers, nothing stored
🗓️ Due Date Calculator
Last period in, due date and your current week out. All on your screen; nothing saved.
Work it out🌡️ Fever: What Now?
Age + temperature = the checked answer: call now, call today, or care at home.
Check it📋 Registry Checklist
The real essentials, the never-buys, and the 30-second recall check. Printable.
Print itIf you memorize one thing
100.4 °F (38 °C). In a baby under 3 months, a rectal temperature of 100.4 °F or higher means call the pediatrician right away, day or night, and don't give fever medicine before the baby is seen. More on fever and warning signs →
When you get a quiet minute ✦
Little Story Magic also makes free, gentle games and storybooks for little ones: no ads, no accounts, no tracking of children. (And per our own screen-time guide, games are for toddlers with a grown-up nearby. Babies get faces and books.)
Story Smash Story Match Magic Story Maker