Dress Your Baby In Sage and Taupe: A Handbook for the Sad Beige Parent

by Hayley DeRoche

From Hayley DeRoche, the humorist who first coined the term “Sad Beige Mom,” a tongue-in-cheek illustrated guide to the neutral aesthetic sweeping nurseries everywhere.

Welcome to the wonderful world of beige parenting, where newborns are swaddled in soothingly sophisticated taupe muslin blankies and toddlers play only with wooden toys in shades ranging from oatmeal to sand. In Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, Hayley DeRoche, the creator known online as @sadbeige, delivers a witty, illustrated satire of the perfectly monochromatic curated lifestyle embraced by modern parents. In a collection ranging from essays and quizzes to advice columns and poems, she takes aim at buzzy parenting trends such as feeding children artisanal baby superfoods or choosing obscure names for their kids like Tawny and Sorrel. This guide walks new parents through every step of the sad beige parenting journey, from decorating the nursery (take care to choose a suitably existential theme such as the Vastness of the Universe), all the way to the milestone that is the first birthday party (be sure to eschew plastic party favors in favor of hand-whittled wooden toys.) Along the way, she gently encourages new parents to realize that they are already the ideal caregiver for their unique little person, with or without the latest limited edition baby carrier or must-have sleep course. With custom illustrations by Julia Emiliani, this heartfelt blend of humor and social commentary is a breath of fresh air for both overwhelmed parents and those striving for Instagram perfection.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Parenting

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2026

About the author

Hayley DeRoche's work has been featured in McSweeney's, Audible and more; she is the creator of the viral "Sad Beige Werner Herzog" TikTok series, praised by the BBC as "skewering...very funny...hysterical" and by John Green as "incredible," in addition to being featured in The Washington Post's THE LIST, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Yahoo! News, Mom.com, Today's Parent, and Hyperallergic, and others. She lives in Petersburg, Virginia.

Reviews

[Mai H.]

With the popularization of gender-neutral baby names also came gender-neutral clothing and nurseries. I used to hate the rubber duck yellow outfits that popped up at baby showers, but I'd take a baby yellow set for my yellow baby now.

This book is clearly sarcasm, and I found it funny as such. As a millennial that lived through millennial greige (OPI Berlin There Done That was one of my favorite nail colors back when I shaped them into short squovals), the Sad Beige Life is choosing me. I want sad beige toys for my sad beige children. I also go beige for my cat toys.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Countryman Press

[Hannah Ambrosino]

Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe - a handbook for the sad beige parent by Hayley DeRoche is an extremely refreshing piece of literature, and today it is such an apt commentary, with cheeky poetry in a post-modern fashion that is both painful relevant, accurate, and yet, DeRoche is able to bring us back to center after critique of the post modern American culture - ugliness and all, one that seems to only have consumerism left in order to feel like you belong to a community and have a steady identity - and how it can take you for a ride; selling you solutions to problems you apparently have and need to fix in dire need - and the lucrative ways it is done especially to new and expecting parents. DeRoche’s use of unconventional format is almost imperative to slaying the elitist and arrogance conditioned onto us, is wonderfully so personal, so raw, so resonating and vulnerable - truly a beautiful piece of work and shines. For me, a future parent but not at the moment - find solace and safety in this certain type of beautiful, matriarchal, and inspiring reassurance - that the things we may need most, the things our children- our precious babies need most, and and what there needs to be more in the world is such an open pure heart like this. DeRoche acts like a spotlight to both the most sacred in our personhood, community, and experiences with the juxtaposition of the biting and exhaustive horrors of the 2020s in America - and the legwork to get through it; seemingly in progression I feel as if you can feel the strength and self assurance grow stronger as opposed to what our screens hear and see and then tell us in what ways to be insecure. Just absolutely wonderful book, beautiful poetry book (and I am the most pretentious annoying person ever with poetry, but we need more of this please ❤️)- that highlights once again the importance of humanity and vulnerability to get through to others. Hopefully this doesn’t look too unformatted as this was typed on a phone. I’m almost through the book for the second time but will be rereading for the next few weeks for sure. I want to say I think so far - besides the biting wit from her post modern & Détournement - mom group chats AND body back. Body back is so beautiful. As it grows to be a classic for me I will make sure to update this to reformat and fix anything I’m overlooking. This book transcends past parenthood and expresses many things finally needing to be acknowledged - I can feel so much of the emotion during your journey and it’s beautiful. It’s brought me to tears.

[Valerie]

I read it in one sitting, I loved it so much. Just the right amount of humor, heartfelt connection and pointing out exactly how the internet and companies prey on new parents

[Tracy Herd]

The ultimate guide to sad beige parenting. It walks you through the first few years of sad beige parenthood with thoughtful commentary on every aspect of sad beige life.
I discovered @officialsadbeige last year on my personal account with her haunting poetry and was hooked. I highly recommend everyone go and watch her videos over and over again.
The book was a funny walkthrough of early parenting years and how you may want to keep an aesthetic and how your child will absolutely want the opposite. Filled with several formats such as haikus, illustrations, marketing emails, group chat transcripts, messages from your algorithm plus much more.
I have 2 kids myself (6 and almost 4 years old) and I like that none of the content came across judgmental. While I didn’t want sad beige babies, I know what it’s like to see life and parenthood portrayed a certain way and want that for some inexplicable reason? I really liked the voice of the book and I really recommend adding this to your TBR!
The book would be great for any current or future parents. It comes out in April so please go preorder now!

#DressYourBabyInSageandTaupe #netgalley
Thanks to NetGalley, W W Norton & Company, and the author for the ARC!

[Desi]

Humor or not, this isn’t usually a title that would catch my eye. I have no intention of becoming a parent and very little interest in engaging with the parenting lifestyle. However, I really enjoyed Hayley’s TikToks, which is how I found out she was coming out with a book. It was pure curiosity that prompted me to add it to my TBR and I’m glad I did.
I’m sure your algorithm has dropped you off in the middle of some drama you have absolutely no connection to. Sometimes I’ll find myself going down a rabbit hole specifically when it comes to parentTok (or whatever that side of TikTok is called) because what do you mean there’s a discontinued fabric for a meh dai that resells for an absurd amount of money? There’s conventions??? For baby clothing and accessories??? The title of this book was specifically reminiscent of some scandal my entire fyp was caught up in awhile ago where a mom took her kid’s colorful toys and spray painted them more neutral colors to match her “aesthetic”. There was a whole discussion around if you should even be a parent if you can’t let your kid have colorful toys. If you would be willing to sacrifice your children’s safety for your boring aesthetic.
Anyway this book kind of gets into that. It discusses our fear of making our homes look lived in. We prefer to buy new stuff to make everything matchy-matchy rather than reaching out to our community to find what we need. But babies and kids don’t subscribe to aesthetic. They will choose Mr. Tiddlywinks, the unsettling clown doll, over Anemone, the calico stuffed bunny. We watch our author come to terms with this realization over the course of the book.
I really enjoyed all the different recurring segments. Dear Abyss, Notes From Your Algorithm, In Your Inbox, Mom Group Chat. I think my favorite, though, was the illustrated depictions of the kid’s room at the beginning of each chapter. You start to see the kid develop their own interests outside of the parent’s beige color palette for the original nursery. Julia Emiliani does a wonderful job with the illustrations.
Like I said earlier, I went into this book kind of blind. I wasn’t sure what to expect other than some jokes on overpriced baby accessories and the latest trend in not personalizing anything in your life. I would have been content just having a couple laughs, but sneaking in the heartwarming story and message in the background was a nice little surprise.
Dress Your Baby In Sage and Taupe is a funny, cute reminder that it’s okay to have personality outside of the latest thing. Society puts a lot of pressure on new parents. I imagine it’s an isolating and impressionable place to be in. Everyone wants the best for their kids, but the message of this book is that the #1 thing a child needs is a parent’s support to become whoever they become. I’ve already recommended this book to some new parents in my life. I hope it’s a nice reprieve from all the “real” parenting books they’ve been reading.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this title.

Extra thank you to my mom for letting me have that hideous hot pink carpet and neon green walls for my childhood bedroom. I’ll help you paint over it whenever you want 🩷💚

[Dallas Reeves]

3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve never heard of/followed this author on social media - I just came across the pictures on the front of this book of things I love and thought it might be fun to read another perspective, even though I was pretty sure it’s making fun of me.

Raise your hand if you feel personally victimized. 🙋🏻‍♀️ Just kidding. I’m not a “beige” mom - I hate the color beige, but I did get called out for my love of all things Montessori, simple wooden toys instead of plastic bullshit and loving an aesthetically pleasing clutter free home. Since I only have a 4 month old, i haven’t experienced raising a baby who turns into a child who has their own desires and personality shining, so I can imagine a lot of what she says in this book, will come into fruition. (I’m especially not looking forward to the red hot car bed).

While I don’t agree with everything she makes light of, it was an easy and relatable read. However, it wasn’t funny enough to be a book I’d buy for a soon to be mom and it didn’t have enough real advice to be something I’d recommend reading. I’m not really sure who this book will appeal to. Surely not the beige moms?

I also feel that, while she focuses on how beige moms only care about aesthetics, it misses the point of what a lot of those vibes stemmed from. Montessori in and of itself, is not about social media aesthetics, it’s a holistic approach that focuses on raising a child with simplicity, natural objects and hands on learning. Simple wooden toys are about less stimulation in a fast world to make room for more imagination in a child. Less passive entertainment and more engaged learning.

It’s easy to make fun of the beige moms, but I like the direction a lot of them have gone with less technology, more intention, more health and a focus on quality over quantity. Obviously I don’t think it should just be an aesthetic, but there is some good to be had from it. Maybe this book hit a little too close to home for me to find it funny, or maybe I just need to raise my baby and experience it myself to find the humor here.

Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for this advanced early copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Leah Munson]

I think this short delightful read is honestly more suited for a parent who is out of the baby toddler stage, and isn’t seeking advice so much as entertainment and understanding of why it was the way it was. I laughed out loud multiple times because I did some of those things and now I can look back and laugh. Also this book will land with a select number of moms who had a baby in the last 10 years, anyone before the social media rise of mom influencers and adds had a vastly different experience. As a homeschool mom who leaned a bit into this ascetic, especially the nature aspect of it. We never could afford the nature schools and the waiting list were insane….but our curriculum has always been nature based. we just did it without all (but I was influenced into some and still have most …they have held up and lasted and grown with my child as advertised including the balance board) of the fancy/sad wooden toys and organic gear. I love the reminder even now you don’t need all the things. It’s consumerism, you’ve been influenced, and it’s a trap.

We to this day still love being outside and all things nature. My house beyond my daughter’s room is beige and sage. Beyond that I can relate to the child going just the opposite (she’s 8 her favorite color is red) her room makes my head hurt and she is sooooooo happy with it. She’s a screen obsessed, sugar addict, who is easily distracted by the brightest flashiest plastic item but thankfully pretty sheltered from adds and influence.

I enjoyed this book, I saw myself or my peers with same age children in it. The sarcasm was perfect and balanced with lovely bits of encouragement.

[Lauren]

I don’t have TikTok or Instagram, so this probably would have been funnier if I was a follower. I liked the schtick (children’s things should be 1) educational/useful/practical/backed by science and 2) appealing to the individual child. Fitting into a parent’s [sad beige or otherwise] aesthetic is so selfish, and sends the message that children are an inconvenience or an accessory and not sentient beings with their own identity that they are just beginning to explore.

There is also this trend among the rich of “poverty as glam”—e.g. a designer pair of sneakers that looks like it is held together with duct tape, even the minimalistic look to some degree… so when we see $800 baby clothes that makes them look like a peasant, there is a bit of poverty cosplay going on there, it says “lol as if,” like an air conditioned limousine ride through the hood where rich people can imagine themselves in that situation as if it is quaint, and think to themselves, “but I would do it right!”

So, while I support the parenting advice given, I guess it wasn’t necessary. I think she should have leaned into promoting this as the Werner Herzog’s guide to babies, and left out all the little bits of parenting advice!

Overall, a humorous ribbing of a silly trend that hopefully goes away soon.

[Miranda]

Who hasn’t seen the Sad Beige Clothes for Sad Beige Children meme? I was excited to get the ARC of Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, because I assumed that it would be a satire of a parenting book, full of laugh out loud moments. Unfortunately I was wrong--this is more serious of a parenting advice book than I expected. There’s the parody quizzes and advice columns sure, but there’s actual advice in there. This leaves the book in something of an unusual place--it's not quite as funny as I’d hope a satire book would be, and it’s a little thinner on the actual advice than I think a parent would actually want.

I also am woefully unqualified to review parenting advice books, as I do not have children, so that also leaves me, as a reviewer, in a bit of an odd spot. I can’t recommend this book to people who are simply amused observers of the sad beige mom phenomena, but I might purchase it as a gift for an expecting mother with the right sense of humor. This is more a gag gift than a reading experience.

I received an advance copy in exchange for this honest review.

[Laura KL]

This book was HILARIOUS! I couldn't stop cackling throughout. I feel so called out with the wooden toy cars I've bought, dreams of soft pastel forts & twinkling lights, and my linen cross-back apron. I feel simultaneously chastised and seen through her satirical, yet compassionate writing. She balances the humour of the beige millennial parent craze with the gentle encouragement of a parent who has been through the ringer and wants others to know they're not alone, that the love they give is all their child truly needs.

This book is perfect for anyone with a good sense of humour and parents who might be pulled in by the siren song of the all-knowing Algorithm, tempted to spend the money they don't have to feed the Capitalist machine. The sweet support and gentle hand-holding for parents is truly beautiful. with the last chapter giving me goosebumps and shivers.

I'm not a parent myself, but I would absolutely recommend this book for aunts, uncles, granparents, teachers...anyone with littles or mamas in their lives.

[Laura Partner]

What a unique, hilarious book for new parents. I am not a brand new parent, but as I read through this book, memories flooded back about alllll the things I was thinking about during that time of my life.

This book is a fresh take on modern parenting that folds in the realities of parenting with all the influences of social media. Sometimes you just gotta laugh so you don't cry lol this book helps support that! :)

I really loved:
- How each page felt fresh and surprising - this made me really excited to keep reading
- The quizzes and bingo card
- The graphics ... because well, I love pictures in books! Why don't more adult books have graphics?!
- There was so much heart baked into the jokes. My heart appreciated that - I felt seen and understood in many places.

I will definitely be adding this to all of my baby shower gifts in the future!

[Rebecca]

Dress Your Baby In Sage and Taupe: A Handbook for the Sad Beige Parent is a witty, tongue-in-cheek parody of modern “aesthetic” parenting culture, especially the minimalist, neutral-toned world of social media-driven nursery design. Hayley DeRoche leans fully into the satire, poking fun at the overly curated, monochrome lifestyle that somehow extends even to babyhood. It’s quick, clever, and very self-aware in its humor.

What makes it work is how sharply it observes online trends while keeping the tone light rather than mean-spirited. The illustrations and writing style amplify the joke, making it feel like a spoof handbook you’d actually find on a carefully styled coffee table. It’s a fast, entertaining read that lands best if you’re familiar with (or mildly amused by) the “sad beige” aesthetic in the first place.

[Franny M]

Hilarious and so well-written! I thought this would be like a picture book with a paragraph per picture, but it is clear the author put so much work and thought and humor into it. It’s truly a satirical self-help guide. I am not a mom and I don’t plan to become one. I don’t know any babies currently, and the babies I have met weren’t sage and taupe beige babies. Still, I absolutely loved this book. I bet it is even funnier if you do have kids!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Alicia Bayer]

This was surprisingly funny. A few hit a little close to home even though I don’t identify at all with the sad beige aesthetic. I am a nature mom so yes, I do know how to sift acorn flour (worse yet, I’ve written an entire book about acorn foraging and recipes) and yes, my toddlers knew how to forage wild mushrooms and had those wooden balance boards when they really wanted plastic happy meal toys. But it was all in good fun and parts had me literally snorting out loud (as close as I get to lol when reading). A fun read.

I read a temporary digital copy of this book via netgalley.

[Penelope Bloom]

Unfortunately, my baby’s name is Tawny, so I took this all as a personal attack. Just kidding. Although I hate plastic party favors for real. I adored this book. It was hilarious. I agree with the description that this is a humorous read that is also a social commentary. I think this is a delightful read for anyone with small kids but also probably a great gift for parents of young kids (in fact I may get a few copies for my own friends). I love a fun formatted book too, with bingo cards, lists,quizzes, etc.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC!

[Hannah]

Great boom to give to new mom's if they have a sense of humor.
Great to read after your through the baby and toddler stage as you look back through the years and remember how intense it was and how really hard you tried to be a beige mom.
Poor little Bulldozer never had a stroller from Flotilla + Barge.

[Deniz Saraç]

This is one of those rare books where I think the audiobook is the definitive experience. The author's deadpan delivery makes every sarcastic jab land exactly as intended. I found myself laughing out loud throughout. It’s so delightfully short that I wouldn’t hesitate to revisit it whenever I need a quick dose of wit.

[Molly]

Humorist and public librarian Hayley DeRoche, known for her "Sad Beige Parenting" social media videos, spoofs modern parenting trends in this hilarious book that also has some great truths. Mainly, that you are what your baby needs. I'm not a parent but I love DeRoche's content and I found this very funny and helpful too.

[Nawal Ciaramitaro]

A hilarious look at conformity and materialism! With the abundance of affordable kids consignment, why are we focused on maintaining a certain aesthetic? Along with the fact that many kids prefer the colorful, character-themed gear rather than bland, bespoke heirlooms.

[Holly]

Funny but a little repetitive.

Advanced Review Copy (ARC) was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Nicole Napolitano]

This book gets it, a baby shower gift staple!

[Jenny Lawson]

Come for the funny satire...stay for the actual good advice.

[Gem]

Really cute. Would be a great gift for new parents or parents-to-be. There are certain pros to the audiobook but I’m sure some sections are even better in the print book.

[Anna]

I will devour anything DeRoche creates. She is a genius

[Catherine]

I don’t have kids, but this is funny and also comforting. I’m sure parents will love it, too.

[Darby Brown]

I wanted to like this more than I did, it’s cute and kind of funny but also repetitive and the overly casual internet-esque writing style is not for me.

[Kimberly Loll]

so good.

[Amie]

A delightful book full of laughs and despair. It's all I needed in 2026.

[Hilary]

Very funny! I'm not a parent, but I follow this poet and fellow librarian and her work is great. Next time I get a pair of cats I'm naming them Gnocchi and Orzo. Or Werner and Herzog.

[Ashley Sparks]

This is a funny little parody book perfect for expectant or new parents. Don’t take any of it seriously and you will love it.