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Challenge: Best Parent Hacks

The Best Parenting Hacks You Wish You’d Known Sooner

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Parenting is everything you heard it would be and then some more. It’s beautiful, frustrating, enlightening, patience-testing, fun, and poignant. Sometimes all this within an hour.

And sometimes, you wish it could be just that little bit easier. You feel like if you had eyes in the back of your head and two extra pairs of arms you’d
a) look like a mystical deity, and,
b) get through every day with a little more grace and your patience intact.

In all these years as a Mom to two live wires I’ve learned a few tricks, and the internet has been a goldmine of truly useful tips, too. So here, without much ado, is a carefully curated collection of the best parenting hacks I wish I’d known sooner.

1. Get a lint roller for arts and crafts. If your kids like to make things with glitter on (and what kid doesn’t?), you must get yourself a lint roller. It easily picks up glitter for a faster cleanup.

2. Add a laundry basket to bath time. When your little one is still so small that the bath seems like a swimming pool, try seating them in a laundry basket in the bath. Their toys won’t float away, making for a happier bath time.

3. Turn chores into a game. I got this wise idea after a few rounds of cajoling, ordering, and short tempers (and that was just me!) I made a home made chore chart out of a cork board and some bottle caps – my kids flip the cap when they’ve done the chore, and when all the caps are flipped they get to choose an activity.

4. Takeout sauce containers make great little travel packs for your kid’s favorite pacifiers. No more grabbing a pacifier from your bag only to find it’s covered in lint and a few things you don’t even want to guess about. Save your takeout sauce containers, wash them thoroughly, and you’ve got portable pots that keep pacifiers clean.

5. Got a baby gym? The plastic links from a baby gym double as handy toy catchers for a highchair or stroller. Clip your child’s toys to the edge of the stroller or high chair and you won’t need to pick them up from the floor every five minutes.

6. Inflatable paddling pools aren’t just for the garden. Inflate a paddling pool and put it in your family room or den. Your child now has a soft, safe, child-friendly play area that makes it easier to keep an eye on them.

7. Wrap trampoline springs with pool noodles. Kids love playing on the trampoline, but the exposed springs around the edge pose a hazard for little hands, feet and knees. Wrap each spring in a pool noodle to reduce bumps and grazes.

8. A rubber band stops your kids getting locked in the bathroom. Simply loop one end around the handle, twist the band, and loop the other end around the other handle. The door will shut, but not lock. This is ideal for smaller kids who can easily get locked in and get a fright.

9. Make an easy outdoor fort from a clothesline and some blankets. My two little ones love making forts, but if I’m totally honest, moving all the furniture into place and gathering enough sheets and blankets takes up a lot of time. Now I just string a clothesline between two trees in the yard and drape plenty of blankets over it, with one blanket on the floor to sit on. Instant tent-shaped fort, and my kids love it.

10. Oilcloth turns a plastic play table into a water-resistant wipe-clean table that’s ideal for arts and crafts, or for a picnic. Grab one of those tables with a bench on either side, and wrap the table surface and benches in oilcloth. You now have a waterproof table that your kids will love.

11. If your little ones have a tendency to run around in socked feet, get yourself some puffy fabric paint. It’s cheap, easy to use, and washable. Simply dot a few puffs in a pattern on the soles of their socks for instant grips that reduce the risk of slips and falls.

12. Is your little one learning left from right? When my kids were learning which foot was which, I made it easier by getting some stickers of their favorite cartoon characters and cutting them in half. Stick one half inside each shoe, on the inside line of the sole. Your kids can figure out which shoe goes on which foot by matching the two halves of the picture together.


Little hacks can make all the difference to your busy day. Try out some of these and see which ones work best for your family.

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