I am always looking for a way to make my life easier with three kids running or crawling around. There’s times we accidentally come up with a hack just because it was a last minute fix. These are the greatest hacks because, if it works, you know it was for a good reason (and will definitely be used again)!
Take a look at some of our favorite parenting hacks:
- Use an external battery pack for when the monitor goes out:
We needed to use this hack when our first baby monitor went kaput in the middle of the night. Our battery charger that came with the monitor stopped working, so we needed a quick fix to keep the monitor running through the night. We used our external battery pack, and it worked like a charm. If you don’t have an external battery pack, you can find them here. They are great for travel charging and, in this case, as a backup battery!
- Use the plastic container for Binkys:
Usually when you buy baby bottles and nipples, the company sends you these small plastic containers to hold the nipples when not in use. We actually use these small plastic containers to hold our babies’ pacifiers on-the-go! The pacifiers fit perfectly in them!
- Fitted sheet over play yard or plastic pool:
It’s the tail end of summer, so you may not need this hack for this summer, but it also works with play yards. For a pool that you do not want to deflate overnight, simply put a fitted sheet around it and voila! Bugs and leaves stay out of the pool. In addition, you can use this hack for play yards as well. If you’re out in the sun, put a fitted sheet over part of the play yard and keep your baby shaded.
- Using thumbtacks to hold cords so kids can’t play with them:
We love that our monitor comes with a super long cord so we can adjust where it is going to go in the baby’s room, but we don’t like the idea of a cord dangling in the room for little hands to get a hold of. Simply thumbtack the cord around the place where you want the plug to be!
- Rubber Band Around Wipes:
I can’t take credit for this one, but it’s a well-known hack when you don’t want 50 wipes….just 1.
- Inflatable Pool Ball Pit:
Want to keep your kids occupied for a while? Clean out that inflatable pool and put it somewhere in your house. Fill it with ball pit plastic balls and watch them play for hours. Easy entertainment for them!
- Baby chair in baby pool:
When it was super hot in the summertime, we always put our babies in their baby chairs (we like this Fisher Price one), and set the chair in a small plastic baby pool filled with just a bit of water. Keeping the baby safe and secure but it allows her to get cooled off, too!
- Glow sticks in the tub:
I am always looking for ways to entertain my kids in the tub. We have thousands of plastic “guys” (figurines) for the tub, thousands of tub crayons, but the glow stick idea is fantastic! It’s like a party in the tub for the kids! If your kid is not afraid of the dark, turn off the lights and light the glow sticks for loads of bath time fun!
- Pumping bottles for bottles-on-the-go:
For those Moms who were pumping for their babies, but switched to formula, this is a hack for you. The small bottles you received with your breast pump kit (which you can get for free now!) come with small bottles with a lid. We fill these bottles up with the amount of water needed for our baby’s bottle, put the required number of scoops of formula in the bottle they’ll drink out of, and throw them in a bag. It’s an easy way to take a bottle-on-the-go and less cumbersome than taking your entire formula container and trying to measure it all out while you’re away.
- Juice box “Wings”:
My kids are into juice boxes-as most kids are. However, they still haven’t grasped the idea that they should not squeeze the bottle. An easy hack is to take the sides of the juice box, lift them up and create “wings”. Then the kids can drink their juice box by themselves by holding onto the “wings” to take a drink.
- Washing Hands:
I know many parents who struggle to get their kids to wash their hands before eating, etc. In our house, we made it a fun experience. Our kids sing the “Happy Birthday” song while they wash. This keeps them preoccupied while they wash hands and allows them to get clean hands before eating their meals!
- Fake remotes-save them!
Kids love picking up the remotes to all the things and pressing all kinds of buttons. We like to save all of our old remotes-video game controllers, tv remotes, etc. After taking the batteries out we hand them over to our kids. They think they are really controlling the tv or games and they’ll play for a while with them!
We gotta do what we can to survive these days as parents, am I right?!
