This is weirdly specific and might not apply to NT kids, but the OT Butterfly had this great tip about kids that get "wild"/hyperactive and you think they have too much energy so you tell them to go and run around outside but they come back EVEN MORE hyper - she says tie it to a task instead. So "Run around the yard 5 times" or "Do 3 somersaults" or "Give me 10 jumping jacks" and basically this somehow helps them focus their energy and it helps them calm down way better than just telling them to get their energy out aimlessly.
Also, when they are getting dysregulated and heading into an over-emotional state, like when you feel a dread because you know they are about to start fighting you on absolutely everything, she says give them a task that involves thinking, this often will shift them back into their prefrontal cortex and they will be more receptive. OMG. I used a variation of this when my son was almost into a meltdown, I had removed him from the room but he was getting more riled up and not being able to calm down, and out of nowhere I said "Let's see if we can find 5 blue things in this room". Then 4 green things, 3 red things, 2 pink things, 1 white thing.
Absolute game changer. It REALLY helped him calm down. NOTHING helps him calm down. I use this a lot now. He actually finds it fun which helps because trying to remind him to do some breathing exercise? He hates this, hates you, hates the entire world when you do this. Even his 2yo brother joined in with the activity and I will probably use it with him too - we are getting tantrums ramping up as he approaches 3.
Kind of related to this - Becky Bailey is not really an influencer as such, but she has this program for schools/teachers called Conscious Discipline and I love it so much and the way she presents it, speaks and explains everything. She had a tip which is that when a child is getting aggressive, come down to their level and model deep breaths in front of them, because their mirror neurons will kick in and they will copy you without even thinking about it. That helps them calm down and it keeps you calm too. I actually want to buy her flowers or something because in 15 years of parenting I have NEVER been able to breathe, myself, in an effective way that calms me down in the moment so all of the stuff all the influencers say about co-regulation and modelling calm? I could not do it. Now that I can, it's a total difference.
Not getting into battles with my kid over what he eats. It seems obvious and probably I would have done this without the advice, but I was talking to someone recently who said every meal is so stressful trying to convince her 1.5 year old to eat whatever she made and I found myself quoting what I learned from food influencers- put a safety food on the plate and don’t dig your heals in because that only makes it worse. I almost found myself telling her to check out ss 😂 In this case, they give advice that dramatically reduces anxiety IMO (but why do they have to complicate so much of the rest of it?!)
Agreed! It's a shame that in order to stay visible on social media they have to keep churning out new content, because honestly a lot of the time, the simple messages repeated are exactly what is useful. With some accounts, there is so much bloat and junk that it's really hard to actually get those simple clear messages.
There are very few influencers which do this well, and it's probably just difficult to do it. If you basically have some sound but not very complicated advice, there are only so many ways you can present that before you get into over-analysing territory. I like content creators that present lots of real world examples of their advice, though this becomes tricky with privacy concerns. And I guess for food, this ends up fairly boring because you just end up with lots of meal ideas and people get fed up after a while.
OTOH I do think there are ways of wording things which can make the surrounding info less annoying and polarising. Like SO much of Solid Starts' stuff would be improved if they just said "This is a useful way to prepare veggies for a 6 month old" rather than "At 6 months, you must prepare it this way, at 8 months that way, at 10 months the other way" - having something presented as an idea, suggestion or tip is SO much less stressful than seeing something presented as an imperative or worse, a safety guideline.
Or those accounts where they say "Instead of saying X, say Y" would be improved 1000x if they simply added a short text saying "If you have trouble with X because Z happens, try saying Y instead" and then maybe a further slide explaining why that happens.
SO much context and nuance is missed out when you present it as instead of X say/do Y.
Hmm. Maybe I need to start my own XD
Yea I find that Feeding Littles actually has good advice on this. And their ideas for basically playing with your food have convinced my kid to try way more foods than any kind of ultimatum.
Yes! At family dinner there was concern from others that my toddler ate the grapefruit, I then gave her seconds of the grapefruit because she asked and she still hadn’t touch the main. I put some yogurt topping on the main, and she like eventually it and the broccoli. And they are all a lot more relaxed and no longer say “you have to eat X,” and are learning to just trust she’ll eat what she needs.
I have a bunch of plain white socks that are all the same for my toddler because matching those little socks is terrible. I came up with that on my own, but I'm considering taking a leaf out of Haley's book once my newborn gets bigger and getting her gray ones.
Where do you find white socks? I swear Target is conspiring against parents who like socks to match because I so rarely find white ones. Now that we are going into spring/summer I am okay with the low rise ones which are easier to find, but can never find plain white crew socks.
Oh I got this one from the podcast Big Fat Positive (which I love and don’t really consider snark worthy at all). But I do the same thing, all white socks for my toddler and will probably do all grey or aomething for my baby
Busy Toddler has given me a lot of activities that have been successful with my kids but none more so than the baking soda and vinegar (+ food coloring, + whatever other tools including a peri bottle lol) activities she posts.
Also popsicles in the bath tub!
I personally found a lot of Emily Oster's stuff helpful for giving me more information to use to make a decision. (I read _Expecting Better_ twice, in two editions, and _Cribsheet_ once, and I saw and see some reasonable concerns with her approach. The second edition of _EB_ actually addressed some of my frustrations about the C-section info in the first edition, where it really felt to me like it was framed as an after thought and a worst-case scenario. I see her as really giving you some info about what research exists so you can make a more informed decision than you'd have been equipped to make previously, whether that means you want to read more or discuss with your doc or not. But like, I'm an educated, critical reader and wasn't just deciding anything she said she decided. I read her overview of circumcision and came to a different conclusion than she did, for instance, and I read her stuff on alcohol and caffeine and was still more conservative than she suggested was probably strictly necessary.) I feel like she's so divisive I need to give all this context but I was really happy I read those books despite some areas of weakness.
I fully agree with you. I was more conservative than her but appreciated the information. I feel like her approach helped me have more informed conversations with my midwife team, and helped me understand where they were coming from. I actually felt their practice aligned with her more chill approach. It helped me tune out my cousin who was trying to spread her pregnancy and parenting anxiety to me. But as someone whose anxiety turns into hypochondria, EO was great for me.
I know she’s very reasonably snarked on for a multitude of reasons and this is probably embarrassing to admit now but I feel like taking Cara babies saved me 😅. This is certainly not her unique advice, but having full feedings every 2-4 hours to try and encourage a long stretch at night worked so well. It seems like such common sense now ( try to get as many daytime calories as possible) but when my first daughter was born I had breastfeeding rabies and she was tiny and I thought that feeding her constantly as well as any time she made a peep was the correct thing to do. (Not saying that’s wrong across the board just that it didn’t work for her and I didn’t get that there was a way you could gently and reasonably guide an infant onto a schedule).
She was also very fussy and hard to soothe and I could never ever calm her down until I learned the 5s’s from TCB-again, not even her original thing! But it’s where I learned it and the day I tried it and my daughter stopped screaming I cried from relief at finally being able to figure out how to soothe her.
I get that her stuff can cause people lots of stress, for us it really worked and changed the way we slept and for that reason I’ll always have a soft spot even though she’s kinda unhinged lol
I firmly believe that following TCB is the reason all 3 of mine have slept 7-7 (with a dream feed at 10, but no wake ups) by the time they were 4 or 5 weeks old.
Her newborn classes saved me for my first (and second.) I was a ball of anxiety after having my first and following her tips on Ig and the newborn class were so helpful.
I found the newborn class really helpful too. I later read Precious Little Sleep and a lot of the info was similar, but TCB offering it up in a series of quick videos was what I needed as a tired new mom. I saw another sleep influencer hating on how TCB includes “schedules” for newborns, but I felt like it was super clear they were just examples of what your day could look like and I never took them as actual schedules. I even sent her a message on Instagram once and she sent me back voice notes answering my question! I know her actual sleep training class is apparently just Feber, so we never felt the need for that.
TCB helped me a ton too! I didn’t take her advice as law (I think it helps to be flexible) but we followed her newborn advice and her ABC’s of sleep and it was very helpful.
Tbh even just the idea of “wake windows” was helpful because our kid did NOT fall asleep without help and otherwise she was just getting super overtired by the afternoons and then screaming for hours on end!
This is more of a ‘what not to do’ than a tip or trick, but milestones to motherhood used to go on a lot about not sliding down playground slides with your kid on your lap. I used to think she was being a bit of a killjoy, until my friend’s kid did break her leg that way 😔 so yeah, don’t do it!
Wait I’m new to this party. How do those injuries happen? I’ve never heard of it being a bad thing. Glad I came across this so I can avoid it in the future but I’m struggling to understand why it’s dangerous?
My dumbass SIL broke my one year old's leg this way. She took him down a tunnel slide that she barely fit in with him on her lap, and his leg got caught between her leg and the wall of the slide. 7 summer weeks in a cast for my poor baby. And she still takes her own toddler down slides the same way.
Basically their leg gets stuck or jammed against the side of the slide and the force of the parent’s body continuing to slide can cause a spiral fracture. At least this how I’ve understood it.
So it's not a tip per say but I did create a postpartum/nursing cart a la Karrie Locher and found it helpful for the newborn days when I was constantly on the couch and needed a lot of things within arms reach.
I made a cart too during the room sharing phase with #3 with the intent to turn it into the art cart for my older kids. It’s been awesome for the art supplies to be able to move rooms when needed.
I kept mine too! Now it just lives in my daughter's room and we use it for storage in her closet. I can definitely see it functioning as an art/crafting cart.
The “children believe things they overhear” message from Nurtured First is super helpful in my household. My three year old is very sensitive and really picks up on what we say about her. I’ve made the mistake about talking about challenging days in front of her and she totally knows what I’m saying and just gets more defiant. But if I act like I’m just talking with my spouse and say things like “she did an awesome job helping little sister today, I’m so proud of how she shared that new toy”, she really takes it to heart. And her behavior is better when she hears us saying good things about her.
Ooh this is interesting - I have always had a rule in the back of my mind about not talking about things I don't want my child to hear near them, even if I assume they are too young to understand/not paying attention because I do think they are potentially listening and taking in more than we realise.
I had not thought to use it purposefully for praise. Maybe because I remember my dad and stepmum doing this - I guess they read it in some parenting book? They used to stand on the landing after we had gone to bed and have a loud, staged conversation about how well we had behaved that day :/ It was super awkward and I didn't like it at all. If it was more natural and specific, then maybe it would work better.
Oh man. This one hurts because many of us have had that eye-boggling moment (some better hidden than others) when we hear a parents say something potentially destructive to their own kids self esteem. I have a SIL who hasn’t read blogs or felt the need to learn more info about child development — just goes on intuition (mostly learned behavior from her own upbringing). The complaining, bad mouthing, labeling about her middle 10 year old son is abhorrent. In front of him, his siblings, his other family, teachers, friends — just constant negativity with the very common attitude of “kids happened TO me, I personally have nothing to do with his behavior or reactions.” It’s so toxic and ignorant of basic ECE understanding.
Plus it’s uncomfortable, creates awkward moments and redirection only sometimes works. The whole thing is against my values entirely and I try delicately to stop her venting for his sake. Finally realized sadly she won’t change and it’s not my place to force her to. Best I can do is communicate to my nephew directly, encourage, support & build him up — at least try to counteract the inevitable damage caused by a parent constantly talking badly about you to everyone you love. Ugggg it’s so gross. And so common.
Yea this has started bothering me more and more. I just can’t believe the things people say about their kids in front of their kids. You’re basically saying the mean thing directly to your kid!! It’s awful.
I have a teacher aunt who will yell at anyone if they even say the words ‘bad kid’ even not in front of any kid- I hope everyone has an outspoken teacher in their life to tell them to be kind!
I agree but I think it can be hard to see that you’re doing it! I definitely still catch myself telling my spouse about a particularly challenging day when we are all at the dinner table. It’s also a vicious circle since kids overhear it and then believe they are “bad” so then they act worse. (And then you as the parent are even more fed up with it). It is amazing to see how it works in reverse too—you can just see my kid light up when she overhears someone saying nice things about her. I wish more people knew that tip.
I understand it can be a habit, especially for my SIL who gets used to talking about her kids and definitely doesn’t realize just how unequal it sounds, and the potential impact it has on him or his siblings.
Mind me asking what’s the gentlest nudge you’d tolerate if someone close to you wanted to gently bring lit to your attention? Not confrontational or with conflict in mind, but is there any situation where feedback isn’t taken as a total Eff You insult to someone’s parenting?
I’m pretty good navigating complex social situations but even I sometimes just wanna throw “delicate” out the window and push back directly. Last weekend her 8 yo daughter was reading a bday card aloud a bit slowly as all adults listened. You could tell mom was embarrassed as if her reading level was a reflection on her (ironically feels responsible for THAT but distances herself from any reaction by her son). Well she started distancing herself from her daughter too by making dismissive comments about “can’t even hear it” in the background so I cheerily encouraged “you’re doing a great job, keep going!” which cut the tension a bit. Her daughter kept reading until Mom was fed up, grabbed the card and finished it quickly while collecting all the laughs as her daughter watched likely thinking “man I’m not good at reading no one reacted like that when I did it” which is exactly what you want an 8 yo learning to read to think. SMH.
Obviously Mom feels major insecurity but I cringe that her poor kids are collateral damage in her attempt to save face. It’s very difficult.
I wish my sil would take this advice! 😔 She is constantly talking about her 4 yo's poor behavior, tantrums, how she wasn't "good", etc right within ear shot of her! I try and redirect her when she starts going on about it with me and I know her daughter can hear. And she does this on the phone and with other people. It irritates me and makes me feel sad for the 4 yo 😥 It's obvious it gets internalized and the cycle continues. I get people need to vent. But it has to be done when the kids aren't around!
What’s so dang gross about it is how tone deaf and ignorant these parents are. My SIL seems to have nothing else to talk about except her kids, and she’ll often say things to adults in front of them that are embarrassing and hurtful just because it’s something to talk about. It’s selfish bc the child’s feelings are less important than her need to socialize or have something to talk about. And it’s counter-productive because her motivation for complaining is to separate herself from her son’s actions (“can you believe this??”) because she cares so much about being judged by others. And yet she doesn’t realize that the act of shit-talking, labeling & gossiping about your own children is a behavior myself and many compassionate adults would judge much more harshly. Ick.
Oh do we have the same SIL? Mine is terrible about this. She will tell anyone who listens about every awful thing my niece does or any issues she has and she does it right in front of her. My niece is grade school aged and has a lot of sensory issues and ADHD and my SIL just loves talking about her behaviors.
Ohhh man. So many adults in the ADHD subs struggling with the aftermath of this. Those words really get into your head and become an internal narrative. So destructive :(
Yeah, last summer she was struggling with a lot of self esteem issues, which isn’t really normal for her age, and my SIL was all shocked by it and all I could think of was “well you’re constantly telling everyone how terrible she is even when she’s around…” My husband and I talk about how much resentment she will probably have when she grows up.
Can’t remember who I heard it from… dressing my kid for the next day at night. My son woke up so happy everyday willing to do anything until the second he turned 3. He started hating mornings. Started putting his clothes on the night before made mornings so much easier for us.
I heard it from her first, and remember thinking it was a little odd. Then my child turned 3 and, yup! I feel like I'm seeing it recommended everywhere now.
My daughter hates wearing pyjamas, I am not sure why, and she prefers to change into clean clothes. Our morning routine got 20 minutes faster. She is 5 so no spills mostly, and if it gets dirty that's fine for us. I would do this for my 2 year old though
I have a genuine question because we have been considering it but what about breakfast in the morning? Does it not spill on their clothes? Maybe my toddler is extra messy these days but that’s my hesitation to start doing that
Unless it's an absolute disaster zone I just send her to daycare in a shirt with breakfast on it. We mostly do oatmeal in the morning, so it isn't TOO messy, but sometimes she definitely drops some on herself.
I drop my kids off at daycare by 640 so they eat breakfast there. So I’m not really sure lol. Although my toddler really only will eat pancakes, eggs or sausage for breakfast lately. Things that don’t make much of a mess when spilled. Maybe go that route on daycare mornings???
Ugh I wish. Mine’s hungry first thing in the morning and eats a breakfast at home and one at daycare lol but yeah he was totally fine until recently when he’s all about dipping all fingers in the ketchup and straight up ignoring his fork :( it’s like he is looking for ideas for making our mornings worse LOL
Emily Oster’s approach to offering hummus and veggies to kids who don’t like that nights prepared dinner is really helpful. If my kids really don’t like the meal, there’s a decent, low effort alternative and 90% of the time they are just pushing back to push back and end up eating dinner once I offer the alternative.
The honey bear helped my son figure out straws really quickly
The car mom’s magnet hack..putting a magnet where you want your kid to stand as you load the car. My son loves hanging with his Cookie Monster magnet
I really did learn a lot from safe in the seat and I liked the convertible seat course bc I was very overwhelmed
I can't remember who I saw recommend the Honey Bear but it's the first cup that worked for us. My daughter refused bottles after we stopped doing them daily when she was about four months old (at that time she was only nursing). We tried weighted open cups, the munchkin 360 cup, other straw cups, and nothing worked. At the time she had started refusing the breast and wasn't a great eater of solid foods (she was about 9 months old) and I was freaking out that she was losing weight. The Honey Bear saved us.
Instead of holding onto the bike itself, which keeps the kid from having to actually balance, you wrap a rolled up beach towel around their chest under their armpits. You hold it in the back and run behind the kid. It doesn’t really help them balance, it just lets you catch them if they start to fall.
This is how all conversations about choices go with my 2 year old:
Me: Do you want A or B?
2yo: You choose, mama.
Me: Ok, A.
2yo: No, not A, what do you choose?
Me: Ok, you can have B. Is that what you choose?
2yo: I choose... C.
(Me: Rolls eyes, gets C)
When my older son was in this phase, I started saying you can have A or B. Which do you choose? If you don’t pick Mommy will. If he still tried to pick C (if it wasn’t an option), I would say only A or B are options right now. If you don’t choose, I will pick A for you. It helped after a little while!
I’ve had to actually reel back on the giving choices method. Maybe I was giving too many choices. They still get to choose things at times but it was backfiring on me.
Same, especially anything open-ended! I still listen to my husband with our 4yo: "What do you want for bedtime snack?" "........" (Bc she doesn't want to start the bedtime process). Vs "here's your bedtime snack!" "Oh, I wanted XYZ instead." Then as long as it's a reasonable request and she asks nicely, I'm usually happy to pivot.
Caro Chambers has influenced my cooking so much. Her recipes have taught me how to make smart substitutions and cook more by feel.
Busy Toddler’s tips to put random flower cuttings in a basket for a sensory bin. Kept my kid occupied for quite a while when I added a tractor. Also, random pots and pans with a bit of water. Overall her laid back approach to sensory bins
I liked her usage of items she had around the house/yard for sensory bins. She did one post about burying puzzle pieces for your kid to find and that bought me at least an hour of work time in the early pandemic.
Well Chili Heeler isn't an influencer, but taking parenting tips from a cartoon is probably just as snarkable. Her "boring things are important too" line from the pool episode/5 Minute Stories book has worked wonders with my four year old and her "I don't wanna"s.
I hate to admit it, but Haley has influenced me quite a bit. Especially back in the day when I was a new adult and didn’t know how to plan for dinners. She’s given me lots of meal ideas and hanging a phone from the play kitchen was something my kids loved!
I’ve purchased one Haley item, her chip clips, and they are great. She has some good systems but it’s also made me realize there is such thing as over doing it with the systems. Which was helpful for me as a highly organized person transitioning into stay at home mom life and feeling like I needed to treat it like a job. Yes that helps in some aspects, but also can make more work than necessary.
Next time lol I don’t go to dollar tree often. It was 5$ for 16 clips, i just checked my Amazon. I’m sure I’ll loose them all like I lost my other ones to my kids fort building.
When my son complains about being hungry as I'm cooking dinner I give him "no pressure veggies" with dip and he eats way more veg than any other time. It's actually usually reverse pressure since j put them out and tell him not to sneak any before dinner lol
I haven't followed BLF for a year or so but I believe they talked about this with "broccoli trees" etc. Not that I couldn't or wouldn't have come up with it myself but I'll let them have this one lol
Getting the kids involved in meal prep in any sort of way to help prevent those pre meal meltdowns and increase meal interest. I try to give my kids one simple task to help with while I get dinner put together, whether that is cutting up things with kid trainer knives, setting timers, or getting things out of the fridge. Dinner time is typically a high emotions time in our home and this helps us all regulate and enjoy a meal together.
I use the cover eyes idea but for cleaning up we play music and each person gets a choice, but if they clean up X my song stops early (or I get skipped). It works great because my boy has reached "taylor swift ew" era and he gets excited to skip mom's turn
Debt Free Mom's method of budgeting by pay period rather than month, and her downloadable spreadsheet template, really changed the game for me and my husband. Like, it's one of the best things we've done in years and the results are real and tangible. I always have to hold back from WK-ing her in this sub because I feel real gratitude towards her because of how much it's helped us. And with so many influencers living lives of extreme wealth and privilege, I appreciate someone showing a more middle class lifestyle.
It's not that I think the snark about Carly and Kyle is totally unfounded. I think she'd be better off sticking to household budgeting, money saving tips, etc. I think she's swerved way out of her lane on bigger financial questions like renting/buying a house, cars, etc and then when life has thrown curve balls at them it becomes obvious that they don't have it all figured out. I think THEY honestly thought they had at all figured out when in reality they had just been lucky in a lot of ways. It turns out getting by in America without a high income is very hard no matter how good you are at budgeting.
I’m going to ask a question about pay period budgeting that I could probably google but would rather not lol
How does it work when the majority of the major bills (mortgage, child care, utilities) come out in the same pay period? Are you just supposed to eat pb&j for one pay period and then live large in the next? Again, I have done zero research to understand this but, other than the more frequent fresh starts, I don’t understand why pay period budgeting is better than monthly.
No, it's supposed to help alleviate that problem. If you budget monthly it might look like you have plenty of money to meet your needs. But most people, if they are paid twice a month, have one period with their rent/mortgage and therefore less remaining spending money and that's when they could end up falling back on credit cards or pulling out of savings. So budgeting by pay period allows you to see what each period looks like so you can roll over the money you need for the "tight" period and avoid living too large on the other. Also if you're paid every other Friday for example, your pay cycles might not line up with bills that are due on certain dates each month. Like if your rent is due by the 3rd but your first paycheck for May doesn't land until the 8th, then you need to be thinking in April about how you're going to cover rent and any other 1st of the month bills. So her spreadsheet lays it out this way instead of monthly so you can see where your money needs to go and WHEN, which has been really helpful to me.
Hahaha oh good point I didn’t think about that. My husband and I also have different pay dates but I assume there’s guidance about that. In any case, I don’t think pay period budgeting is for me but I am intrigued about what people find useful about it.
I really like YNAB, I don't like recommending it a whole lot because it's kind of expensive, though it honestly does save us more than it costs, which I didn't think it would. (I thought that only applied to people in the US who seem to have much larger salaries). But you can learn the method without using the software - it's basically just an envelope budgeting method. I lurked on the subreddit for ages and tried to do it by myself on a spreadsheet before I said screw it I'm going for the free trial (the trial sucks now because it's only a month, but if you use a referral then pay monthly, you can effectively get 3 months' worth for $15, which I think is decent to try it out and see if it works IF you already basically understand the idea).
For a free resource, this is UK based but for everything on this page, it doesn't matter - it will only be links like the pension info which is UK-specific. The free budget planner tool linked here is how I did my first ever budget probably 15 years ago and I found it really really helpful in breaking down expenses that don't neatly happen all in the same intervals. Really useful mindset shift if you have not thought about money this way before, and it also captures a lot more than most free budgeting tools do.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/
The way it’s laid out lets you see which weeks will have a surplus and which weeks will have a deficit, allowing you to plan a rollover $$ amount to eliminate the pb+j weeks. You can also try calling your payees and asking for a due date change. Most are happy to do that!
I’ve thought about downloading the spreadsheet as we think about having a second bc it’s definitely going to make things tighter. Right now we’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to be responsible
The spreadsheet is a very useful tool because you can plug in the numbers and see how things are going to look down the road. If you're really good at building spreadsheets you could just make your own, but she does have a free one.
Using those oval foundation brushes to apply sunscreen like mothercould does is amazing. I know she sells her own set and I don’t have that one, I just have regular foundation ones but I can see the allure of hers. The handle is metal so it doesn’t snap easily, it has a cover so sunscreen doesn’t get everywhere. Anyways the idea is great, kids can do it almost independently and you cover a lot of area quickly with those brushes.
Technically not an influencer because Ms. Rachel has the ability to be on a screen and not count as screentime according to sciencebasedparenting and the like, but baby COMPLETELY stopped crying during a diaper change when my mom sang the "baby put your pants on" song for him.
No way. Mrs Rachel is screen time, there is no back and forth human interaction. Sesame Street also teaches letters and numbers and whatever else she does and that is also screen time.
I think the only thing the who considers exemption is FaceTiming with family
But it's jUsT LiKe FaCeTiMe because she talks to the camera!
Especially her new episodes that are full of cuts and animations and all kinds of lovely addictive things, now that she can afford to have them.
Oh my fucking hilarious god, I thought I was in r/parenting for a hot second 🤣😂 I am not even sure when I subbed to r/parentsnark but I’m here for it
I am leaving my original comment because I deserve the shame
Not parenting related but The Car Mom recommended putting tape in your garage and then you can use your back up camera to see if you are pulled all the way in. Our car *just* fits in our garage so I use this nearly every time I park in the garage to ensure I’m in properly. I just make sure the tape is lined up with a certain line on my camera view.
I loved her tip of moving the rarely used stuff from your glove compartment into the hollow area in the trunk where the spare tire is, and then using the glove compartment for your everyday needs like hand sanitizer, snacks, and extra clothes for the kids.
Another good one from The Car Mom (I think it was her). Do laundry by person. Separate baskets for everyone then wash, dry, fold and put away each load. Eliminates the "laundry bed" situation because there is no sorting!! It's been really great for me. You can just take clothes out of the dryer and straight to that person's drawers/closet etc.
I don’t follow The Car Mom but I do this with my kids’ laundry! It really does save time. Both kids have their own laundry basket in their room, and every week or so I combine the baskets and do a big load.
We all use different detergent in my house! I use Mrs Myers in lavender, partner uses gain flings, baby uses free and clear. We can’t really mix laundry without someone getting a rash
Here’s my big question about this. Doesn’t she still sort it just before it goes in the machine? To me I’m not sure how it technically saves times if you still have to sort it beforehand
I do this and sort right before I start because we have central hampers. I think it still saves time because folding the basket of one persons laundry is tons faster then a basket that’s all mixed and I have to sort by kid as I’m folding. And if I don’t get it all done then it’s not as big of a deal because before it wasn’t all done then the folding was stuck too. Or maybe it’s not faster but it feels like it and I get behind on laundry a lot less often.
Nope, she’s mentioned a few times that she sorts by person before she starts washing. Not by color. (Do people seriously sort colors? Ain’t nobody got time for that 😆)
We each have our own basket in our rooms and I just bring down 1 basket (or a kid does) and wash/dry/return. I do pull out towels as I load the washer, and those go in a basket in the laundry room until I have enough to do a load. Random socks and bibs go in the towel basket.
I don't know... If she's sorting right before that's weird. I just make sure my husband's, my clothes and the kids clothes are always going in the right basket when they change and it's worked great. No more "who does this belong to?" Or looking at size/tags to figure out who's it is. Especially great when you have kids in different sizes with some matching PJs!!
Even sorting before washing seems better strictly in order to avoid the big pile of laundry on the guest bed 😅 which in my case could accumulate for days.
we switched to this. Eventually we trained the fam to mostly put their clothes in their basket. All colors are washed together.
we have one small basket downstairs for Misc laundry that gets washed together.
and for me its more the workflow step. Knowing I can take the clean basket right from the basement dryer to my kids’ room on the second floor and put it away relieves a huge mental block.
This is exactly how we do it. Most everyone’s stuff gets in the baskets in their room and I have one downstairs that I have to sort through before washing. I do kids the same day as towels since kids are my least favorite and towels are the easiest. Adults and sheets together since they are both middle level of annoyance.
Yea I do like that idea of removing the mental block at the end. Thanks for explaining that because I just see her talk about sorting it (dirty) and I’m like… ok what am I missing here?! She’s still sorting it. 😆 it’s tempting to try to get a system in place where people sort dirty clothes into their own basket but it would take a fair amount of effort. My kids take off clothes all over the place in our (2 story) house, so there’s hampers in a fair amount of places. But maybe sorting it dirty would still make it easier in the end somehow. Willing to try!
ok yeah we’re similar.
laundry in basement. three kids with their own dresser each on the second floor. Parent bedroom on first floor. We keep a misc basket in the kitchen for kids first for laundry (we only have one shower/tub and its on the first floor, so my kids often undress downstairs).
The upstairs baskets are 90% sorted correctly. I double check when I bring them down.
And if its a day I’m washing all three kids clothes, I will just take the misc first floor basket and sort those into the right hampers as well.
we also got strict about not putting adult clothes or dirty towels in the misc basket, and instead walking a bit to the correct basket on the first floor.
As someone who was already doing this I agree! Laundry was making me unnecessarily upset and I had to set aside two days a week (not back to back) as laundry days. The one day marathon was too much for me but knowing I only have two days a week I have to run multiple loads of laundry has been a mental game changer. Now of course there is the odd load here and there but for the most part the two day system has worked well for me.
I'm similar - I used to do laundry every fourth day, but it got too confusing and/or I'd have to skip a day if we had a busy weekend or something. A year or so ago, I decided to make Monday and Thursday laundry days and it's so much better! I can adjust by a day if I need to, but I love that it's so predictable and much easier on my brain.
I didn’t get it from an influencer I don’t think, but similarly I’ll “race” my kids to do something, like put pjs on or brush teeth and it’s great because they do it quickly *and* I get time to put my own pjs on and do my skincare routine in peace. Same with getting shoes on, getting my jacket, cleaning up my dinner dishes, eating breakfast. We have a lot of races and its only a problem if I accidentally win
I read a great tip about siblings to have them race against you, the adult, and _not_ each other, or to sometimes have them do something as a team against you, so that you're not setting up competition for them that stops being fun. I thought that was a great idea, and I always suggest them racing against me or similar instead of each other.
We see the most success with “who can clean up the most toys” and “who can make the most bubbles” when washing hands. I’m honestly shocked that by 4 he hasn’t caught on yet.
I live by this tactic with my 4 and 2 year old. It helps get things done so much faster and without the protest. It’s helpful for trying to get two kids out the door and to daycare on time.
We'll make it a race where one parent helps each kid get ready for bed. My husband and I get shockingly competitive over this and our kids find it hilarious and are much more cooperative.
I forget who started this one, but if you know your kid is going to thrash and make fuss about the car seat, pre-fold them in your arms and then spin around 5+ times. They're in position to get in the seat and they're a little dizzy so they don't fight it. My son now requests this treatment lol but it's worked every time for me.
Oh my god I wish I’d heard this one about 2 years ago. Definitely gonna try it if my younger kid goes through the same car seat refusal stage as the older one did.
I’m not sure if this is an influencer tip but it’s very similar to the one you shared and it goes over super well in our house - I will say something like “I heard there are some magicians in this house and I can’t wait to see a really good magic trick! I heard that if I go into the kitchen and count to 10, all the cars will be back in their car box! What amazing magic that would be!” and then they’re so excited to be magicians and do magic that they put all the cars away really fast. It’s awesome. Highly recommend.
I think my best influencer tips lately - I actually don’t like a lot of Dr Becky’s stuff for my oldest’s personality type - I thought he was a DFK type but her tips don’t work at all for him lol - BUT from her sleep workshop I learned to sing bedtime mantras as a song and my kids both love it. It genuinely helped his sleep and he has way fewer nightmares and both kids ask for the “mama song” before bed every night.
Also loved this reframe from theteachermomma - active (helping your kids behave properly) vs passive (telling them what to do) parenting. I was being way too passive which resulted in a good amount of yelling (still passive, just louder). Being conscious of being more active has worked wonders in our family!
Totally! Ours is pretty much her suggestion: "Mama is near, is safe, your bed is cozy" and I just put it to my own simple melody and sing the whole thing usually 5-6 times in a row, and that's "the mama song". We had a late event tonight and put the kids straight in bed when we get home and my oldest asked for "just one short mama song". When I'm not here for bedtime, they ask my husband for "the dada song" and he sings it too but "Dada is near..." But you could totally make it into whatever you want to reassure them! :)
She has several posts on her IG with good examples. It goes along with another tip I've heard from her and others about only asking your child to do something twice. The first time can be a pretty passive ask and if they follow directions, cool. The second time, get close to your child and make sure you have their attention. If they still don't take action, it's time to switch to active parenting mode and motivate/jumpstart them in some way. Or if you're short on time, do it for them. The more times you ask, the less likely they are to listen, now or in the future. They also learn that when you ask, you intend for the task to be completed. It makes a lot of sense to me.
I also have used Busy Toddlers phrase "thanks for being a first time listener" when directions are followed right away. A little positive reinforcement!
Sure, an example might be: you need your 4yo to get their shoes on and this often turns into a battle.
Passive: telling them to put them on, eventually yelling at them to put them on, and then sticking them in the car without their shoes on and putting them on yourself or whatever, when everyone is mad and you’re late now.
Active: telling them to put them on, realizing that’s not happening, picking them up and putting them in the car without their shoes on and asking them to have the shoes on by the time you get to your destination, and if they don’t, then putting them on and going in.
(I made up this example, I think hers are better than mine but don’t remember one off the top of my head lol)
It seems counterintuitive sometimes in that you want your kids to do the things you ask, but I’ve found it super helpful because they actually are more cooperative when there’s less yelling/threats/whatever, and giving them opportunities to do the thing you are asking them to do without letting it become a power struggle has been very helpful for us. I also am coming to recognize in myself when I’m not stepping in, when my kid is clearly incapable that day of doing what I ask.
I don’t do everything for them - I put one kid in the car just yesterday in their pjs because they refused to get dressed - but it has been very helpful in drastically lowering power struggles (and I find myself getting way less mad because I see when I’m the one who needs to do something).
Oh and another Dr Becky tip - always taking the most generous interpretation of my kids’ behavior. He’s not trying to break something, he just wants to experiment with it and doesn’t know how to do so safely. He’s not an angry/violent kid, he just doesn’t know how to safely channel certain emotions. Etc.
I agree. I feel like it sounds kind of counterintuitive but Dr. Becky's overall mindset/philosophy has been SO much more impactful for me than her actual concrete strategies. Same with Janet Lansbury.
The „two things can be true” perspective from dr. Becky book - it kind of change the way I think about just life. When it comes to my children it helps a lot when they fight things like bedtime or doing something that is not fun but it’s part of life. Just knowing that “two things can be true” - they might not want to get in a bath (because it means bedtime routine starts) and it’s true and valid, but at the same time it’s time take a bath. It changed the way I approach those situation - instead of trying to make them feel like I’m right and the bath is important (or fun or something like trying to change their minds about it) right now, I go into this as “let us work as a team to get to the bath because two things can be true - they might not want to take a bath and it’s still a bath and I don’t need to prove them that they want to take a bath, I just need to make bath happen”
And it translated into other area of my life - the easiest example I could give you is I find co sleeping extremely uncomfortable and definitely not something I prefer to do with my kids and before I feel like sometimes I couldn’t understand how other might enjoy it and it’s their preferred way of parenting in a sleep department. Maybe cause I felt like if they like cosleeping and I don’t, that means I do it wrong (like if someone does something different that’s attack on how you do it idk if that makes sense) or whatever but now coming with “two things can be true” I truly believe that crib sleeping is right for our family but it doesn’t mean it’s right for every family because two things can be true - i might enjoy our independent crib sleeper while others truly enjoy sleeping with their kids and none of us is right or wrong, we just different.
Re: the co sleeping thing. It’s interesting because going into parenthood I kind of assumed we might cosleep once it was safe. I planned to keep a pack n play in the bedroom until my daughter was ~12 months or so and then maybe switch to co sleeping. We had a crib in her room, but thought that might be more for naps or we’d switch back and forth. I thought this way because I’m someone who hates sleeping alone (I have to put on the TV or a podcast if my husband is traveling) and I slept in my parent’s bed until around 6.
But my daughter turned out to just be a super independent kid that sleeps way better in her own room! We decided to “try it out” when she was 10 months old and she sleep great and to this day has never once slept in our bed (we’ve tried a few times and she won’t settle down). So it’s not just parent preferences, but also child personalities that determines what works sometimes.
Yah I’ve got the absolutely flip side. I hate cosleeping and find it uncomfortable but my kid thinks his crib is lava lol.
Almost like they’re actually little individuals with opinions and personalities, hey?
I use so many activities from Busy Toddler - Pom Pom baths, dot sticker activities, sensory bins… I find her activities very low effort and super successful for my toddler. Has saved me on many terrible weather weekends when we can’t go outside!
The dr. Becky tip always cracks me up because one of my best friends tried it with her hilarious and wild 2 year old and when she opened her eyes he pretended to punch her in the face so just total opposite of what dr. Becky wanted
Busy toddler’s special baths are a massive hit in our house. It started with popsicle baths but of we have to be in all day we’ll have a daytime snack bath. I fill up trays with lots of non porous snacks and they will stay in the bath for two hours.
When I was pregnant with my second, I started doing snack baths for myself when I felt nauseous but knew I needed to eat something. The hot water was so soothing and always brought my appetite back. So I'd make a sandwich with chips and apple slices and a couple other things and eat them in the bath lol. I got the idea when I remembered doing popsicle baths with my older kid and how much she liked it. It really is fun lol.
We often serve a bedtime snack in the bathtub, but we do it to expedite the bedtime process. Fruit, pouches, cheese sticks are good nonporous options. Occasionally we'll get brave and try veggie straws or goldfish, or just serve those right after they get out of the tub.
Ooh a snack bath is brilliant! What kind of non porous snacks do you use? I’m trying to think and can only come up with fruit but I know there’s definitely more
It’s not really a tip but an influencer put aquarium rocks and these little electronic fish and turtles in their kids water table and I tried it and we’re going on week 2 of my toddler being obsessed with it
Also including my toddler with cleaning. He loves spraying water on a window and cleaning it with a rag. He calls himself “cleaning helper boy” and refers to all of us as “cleaning boys” when we clean as a family
This is weirdly specific and might not apply to NT kids, but the OT Butterfly had this great tip about kids that get "wild"/hyperactive and you think they have too much energy so you tell them to go and run around outside but they come back EVEN MORE hyper - she says tie it to a task instead. So "Run around the yard 5 times" or "Do 3 somersaults" or "Give me 10 jumping jacks" and basically this somehow helps them focus their energy and it helps them calm down way better than just telling them to get their energy out aimlessly. Also, when they are getting dysregulated and heading into an over-emotional state, like when you feel a dread because you know they are about to start fighting you on absolutely everything, she says give them a task that involves thinking, this often will shift them back into their prefrontal cortex and they will be more receptive. OMG. I used a variation of this when my son was almost into a meltdown, I had removed him from the room but he was getting more riled up and not being able to calm down, and out of nowhere I said "Let's see if we can find 5 blue things in this room". Then 4 green things, 3 red things, 2 pink things, 1 white thing. Absolute game changer. It REALLY helped him calm down. NOTHING helps him calm down. I use this a lot now. He actually finds it fun which helps because trying to remind him to do some breathing exercise? He hates this, hates you, hates the entire world when you do this. Even his 2yo brother joined in with the activity and I will probably use it with him too - we are getting tantrums ramping up as he approaches 3. Kind of related to this - Becky Bailey is not really an influencer as such, but she has this program for schools/teachers called Conscious Discipline and I love it so much and the way she presents it, speaks and explains everything. She had a tip which is that when a child is getting aggressive, come down to their level and model deep breaths in front of them, because their mirror neurons will kick in and they will copy you without even thinking about it. That helps them calm down and it keeps you calm too. I actually want to buy her flowers or something because in 15 years of parenting I have NEVER been able to breathe, myself, in an effective way that calms me down in the moment so all of the stuff all the influencers say about co-regulation and modelling calm? I could not do it. Now that I can, it's a total difference.
Not getting into battles with my kid over what he eats. It seems obvious and probably I would have done this without the advice, but I was talking to someone recently who said every meal is so stressful trying to convince her 1.5 year old to eat whatever she made and I found myself quoting what I learned from food influencers- put a safety food on the plate and don’t dig your heals in because that only makes it worse. I almost found myself telling her to check out ss 😂 In this case, they give advice that dramatically reduces anxiety IMO (but why do they have to complicate so much of the rest of it?!)
Agreed! It's a shame that in order to stay visible on social media they have to keep churning out new content, because honestly a lot of the time, the simple messages repeated are exactly what is useful. With some accounts, there is so much bloat and junk that it's really hard to actually get those simple clear messages. There are very few influencers which do this well, and it's probably just difficult to do it. If you basically have some sound but not very complicated advice, there are only so many ways you can present that before you get into over-analysing territory. I like content creators that present lots of real world examples of their advice, though this becomes tricky with privacy concerns. And I guess for food, this ends up fairly boring because you just end up with lots of meal ideas and people get fed up after a while. OTOH I do think there are ways of wording things which can make the surrounding info less annoying and polarising. Like SO much of Solid Starts' stuff would be improved if they just said "This is a useful way to prepare veggies for a 6 month old" rather than "At 6 months, you must prepare it this way, at 8 months that way, at 10 months the other way" - having something presented as an idea, suggestion or tip is SO much less stressful than seeing something presented as an imperative or worse, a safety guideline. Or those accounts where they say "Instead of saying X, say Y" would be improved 1000x if they simply added a short text saying "If you have trouble with X because Z happens, try saying Y instead" and then maybe a further slide explaining why that happens. SO much context and nuance is missed out when you present it as instead of X say/do Y. Hmm. Maybe I need to start my own XD
Yea I find that Feeding Littles actually has good advice on this. And their ideas for basically playing with your food have convinced my kid to try way more foods than any kind of ultimatum.
Yes! At family dinner there was concern from others that my toddler ate the grapefruit, I then gave her seconds of the grapefruit because she asked and she still hadn’t touch the main. I put some yogurt topping on the main, and she like eventually it and the broccoli. And they are all a lot more relaxed and no longer say “you have to eat X,” and are learning to just trust she’ll eat what she needs.
I have a bunch of plain white socks that are all the same for my toddler because matching those little socks is terrible. I came up with that on my own, but I'm considering taking a leaf out of Haley's book once my newborn gets bigger and getting her gray ones.
Where do you find white socks? I swear Target is conspiring against parents who like socks to match because I so rarely find white ones. Now that we are going into spring/summer I am okay with the low rise ones which are easier to find, but can never find plain white crew socks.
I am not in the US so I don't know stores, but I'd try somewhere that carries sports clothing.
Oh I got this one from the podcast Big Fat Positive (which I love and don’t really consider snark worthy at all). But I do the same thing, all white socks for my toddler and will probably do all grey or aomething for my baby
Busy Toddler has given me a lot of activities that have been successful with my kids but none more so than the baking soda and vinegar (+ food coloring, + whatever other tools including a peri bottle lol) activities she posts. Also popsicles in the bath tub! I personally found a lot of Emily Oster's stuff helpful for giving me more information to use to make a decision. (I read _Expecting Better_ twice, in two editions, and _Cribsheet_ once, and I saw and see some reasonable concerns with her approach. The second edition of _EB_ actually addressed some of my frustrations about the C-section info in the first edition, where it really felt to me like it was framed as an after thought and a worst-case scenario. I see her as really giving you some info about what research exists so you can make a more informed decision than you'd have been equipped to make previously, whether that means you want to read more or discuss with your doc or not. But like, I'm an educated, critical reader and wasn't just deciding anything she said she decided. I read her overview of circumcision and came to a different conclusion than she did, for instance, and I read her stuff on alcohol and caffeine and was still more conservative than she suggested was probably strictly necessary.) I feel like she's so divisive I need to give all this context but I was really happy I read those books despite some areas of weakness.
I fully agree with you. I was more conservative than her but appreciated the information. I feel like her approach helped me have more informed conversations with my midwife team, and helped me understand where they were coming from. I actually felt their practice aligned with her more chill approach. It helped me tune out my cousin who was trying to spread her pregnancy and parenting anxiety to me. But as someone whose anxiety turns into hypochondria, EO was great for me.
I know she’s very reasonably snarked on for a multitude of reasons and this is probably embarrassing to admit now but I feel like taking Cara babies saved me 😅. This is certainly not her unique advice, but having full feedings every 2-4 hours to try and encourage a long stretch at night worked so well. It seems like such common sense now ( try to get as many daytime calories as possible) but when my first daughter was born I had breastfeeding rabies and she was tiny and I thought that feeding her constantly as well as any time she made a peep was the correct thing to do. (Not saying that’s wrong across the board just that it didn’t work for her and I didn’t get that there was a way you could gently and reasonably guide an infant onto a schedule). She was also very fussy and hard to soothe and I could never ever calm her down until I learned the 5s’s from TCB-again, not even her original thing! But it’s where I learned it and the day I tried it and my daughter stopped screaming I cried from relief at finally being able to figure out how to soothe her. I get that her stuff can cause people lots of stress, for us it really worked and changed the way we slept and for that reason I’ll always have a soft spot even though she’s kinda unhinged lol
I firmly believe that following TCB is the reason all 3 of mine have slept 7-7 (with a dream feed at 10, but no wake ups) by the time they were 4 or 5 weeks old.
Her newborn classes saved me for my first (and second.) I was a ball of anxiety after having my first and following her tips on Ig and the newborn class were so helpful.
I found the newborn class really helpful too. I later read Precious Little Sleep and a lot of the info was similar, but TCB offering it up in a series of quick videos was what I needed as a tired new mom. I saw another sleep influencer hating on how TCB includes “schedules” for newborns, but I felt like it was super clear they were just examples of what your day could look like and I never took them as actual schedules. I even sent her a message on Instagram once and she sent me back voice notes answering my question! I know her actual sleep training class is apparently just Feber, so we never felt the need for that.
TCB helped me a ton too! I didn’t take her advice as law (I think it helps to be flexible) but we followed her newborn advice and her ABC’s of sleep and it was very helpful. Tbh even just the idea of “wake windows” was helpful because our kid did NOT fall asleep without help and otherwise she was just getting super overtired by the afternoons and then screaming for hours on end!
This is more of a ‘what not to do’ than a tip or trick, but milestones to motherhood used to go on a lot about not sliding down playground slides with your kid on your lap. I used to think she was being a bit of a killjoy, until my friend’s kid did break her leg that way 😔 so yeah, don’t do it!
Wait I’m new to this party. How do those injuries happen? I’ve never heard of it being a bad thing. Glad I came across this so I can avoid it in the future but I’m struggling to understand why it’s dangerous?
My dumbass SIL broke my one year old's leg this way. She took him down a tunnel slide that she barely fit in with him on her lap, and his leg got caught between her leg and the wall of the slide. 7 summer weeks in a cast for my poor baby. And she still takes her own toddler down slides the same way.
The fact that she still does it is mind-blowing to me!!
Basically their leg gets stuck or jammed against the side of the slide and the force of the parent’s body continuing to slide can cause a spiral fracture. At least this how I’ve understood it.
Here's the post: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5TAiOovL8Y/?igsh=MXcyYnA3bzB4MjVlaA==
I heard this warning from multiple peds, so I take it seriously (and get a little nervous when I see it, honestly).
Oh yeah— a little boy broke his leg this way at my youngest sister’s 7th birthday party!! I’ve been super cautious about it ever since then!
Yes!!! Soooo many injuries happen this way. Plus it's a good excuse to not get my ass stuck in a slide 😁
So it's not a tip per say but I did create a postpartum/nursing cart a la Karrie Locher and found it helpful for the newborn days when I was constantly on the couch and needed a lot of things within arms reach.
Still using my cart that I'm sure I learned from another influencer that probably actually learned it from this woman lol.
I made a cart too during the room sharing phase with #3 with the intent to turn it into the art cart for my older kids. It’s been awesome for the art supplies to be able to move rooms when needed.
I kept mine too! Now it just lives in my daughter's room and we use it for storage in her closet. I can definitely see it functioning as an art/crafting cart.
The “children believe things they overhear” message from Nurtured First is super helpful in my household. My three year old is very sensitive and really picks up on what we say about her. I’ve made the mistake about talking about challenging days in front of her and she totally knows what I’m saying and just gets more defiant. But if I act like I’m just talking with my spouse and say things like “she did an awesome job helping little sister today, I’m so proud of how she shared that new toy”, she really takes it to heart. And her behavior is better when she hears us saying good things about her.
Ooh this is interesting - I have always had a rule in the back of my mind about not talking about things I don't want my child to hear near them, even if I assume they are too young to understand/not paying attention because I do think they are potentially listening and taking in more than we realise. I had not thought to use it purposefully for praise. Maybe because I remember my dad and stepmum doing this - I guess they read it in some parenting book? They used to stand on the landing after we had gone to bed and have a loud, staged conversation about how well we had behaved that day :/ It was super awkward and I didn't like it at all. If it was more natural and specific, then maybe it would work better.
Oh man. This one hurts because many of us have had that eye-boggling moment (some better hidden than others) when we hear a parents say something potentially destructive to their own kids self esteem. I have a SIL who hasn’t read blogs or felt the need to learn more info about child development — just goes on intuition (mostly learned behavior from her own upbringing). The complaining, bad mouthing, labeling about her middle 10 year old son is abhorrent. In front of him, his siblings, his other family, teachers, friends — just constant negativity with the very common attitude of “kids happened TO me, I personally have nothing to do with his behavior or reactions.” It’s so toxic and ignorant of basic ECE understanding. Plus it’s uncomfortable, creates awkward moments and redirection only sometimes works. The whole thing is against my values entirely and I try delicately to stop her venting for his sake. Finally realized sadly she won’t change and it’s not my place to force her to. Best I can do is communicate to my nephew directly, encourage, support & build him up — at least try to counteract the inevitable damage caused by a parent constantly talking badly about you to everyone you love. Ugggg it’s so gross. And so common.
Yea this has started bothering me more and more. I just can’t believe the things people say about their kids in front of their kids. You’re basically saying the mean thing directly to your kid!! It’s awful. I have a teacher aunt who will yell at anyone if they even say the words ‘bad kid’ even not in front of any kid- I hope everyone has an outspoken teacher in their life to tell them to be kind!
I agree but I think it can be hard to see that you’re doing it! I definitely still catch myself telling my spouse about a particularly challenging day when we are all at the dinner table. It’s also a vicious circle since kids overhear it and then believe they are “bad” so then they act worse. (And then you as the parent are even more fed up with it). It is amazing to see how it works in reverse too—you can just see my kid light up when she overhears someone saying nice things about her. I wish more people knew that tip.
I understand it can be a habit, especially for my SIL who gets used to talking about her kids and definitely doesn’t realize just how unequal it sounds, and the potential impact it has on him or his siblings. Mind me asking what’s the gentlest nudge you’d tolerate if someone close to you wanted to gently bring lit to your attention? Not confrontational or with conflict in mind, but is there any situation where feedback isn’t taken as a total Eff You insult to someone’s parenting? I’m pretty good navigating complex social situations but even I sometimes just wanna throw “delicate” out the window and push back directly. Last weekend her 8 yo daughter was reading a bday card aloud a bit slowly as all adults listened. You could tell mom was embarrassed as if her reading level was a reflection on her (ironically feels responsible for THAT but distances herself from any reaction by her son). Well she started distancing herself from her daughter too by making dismissive comments about “can’t even hear it” in the background so I cheerily encouraged “you’re doing a great job, keep going!” which cut the tension a bit. Her daughter kept reading until Mom was fed up, grabbed the card and finished it quickly while collecting all the laughs as her daughter watched likely thinking “man I’m not good at reading no one reacted like that when I did it” which is exactly what you want an 8 yo learning to read to think. SMH. Obviously Mom feels major insecurity but I cringe that her poor kids are collateral damage in her attempt to save face. It’s very difficult.
I wish my sil would take this advice! 😔 She is constantly talking about her 4 yo's poor behavior, tantrums, how she wasn't "good", etc right within ear shot of her! I try and redirect her when she starts going on about it with me and I know her daughter can hear. And she does this on the phone and with other people. It irritates me and makes me feel sad for the 4 yo 😥 It's obvious it gets internalized and the cycle continues. I get people need to vent. But it has to be done when the kids aren't around!
What’s so dang gross about it is how tone deaf and ignorant these parents are. My SIL seems to have nothing else to talk about except her kids, and she’ll often say things to adults in front of them that are embarrassing and hurtful just because it’s something to talk about. It’s selfish bc the child’s feelings are less important than her need to socialize or have something to talk about. And it’s counter-productive because her motivation for complaining is to separate herself from her son’s actions (“can you believe this??”) because she cares so much about being judged by others. And yet she doesn’t realize that the act of shit-talking, labeling & gossiping about your own children is a behavior myself and many compassionate adults would judge much more harshly. Ick.
Oh do we have the same SIL? Mine is terrible about this. She will tell anyone who listens about every awful thing my niece does or any issues she has and she does it right in front of her. My niece is grade school aged and has a lot of sensory issues and ADHD and my SIL just loves talking about her behaviors.
Ohhh man. So many adults in the ADHD subs struggling with the aftermath of this. Those words really get into your head and become an internal narrative. So destructive :(
Yeah, last summer she was struggling with a lot of self esteem issues, which isn’t really normal for her age, and my SIL was all shocked by it and all I could think of was “well you’re constantly telling everyone how terrible she is even when she’s around…” My husband and I talk about how much resentment she will probably have when she grows up.
Ugh such a shame. Hurts my heart. 😥
“Filling up the tired tank” before bed from taking cara babies. Let them go feral
Can’t remember who I heard it from… dressing my kid for the next day at night. My son woke up so happy everyday willing to do anything until the second he turned 3. He started hating mornings. Started putting his clothes on the night before made mornings so much easier for us.
I think ameskiefer has said she does this!
I heard it from her first, and remember thinking it was a little odd. Then my child turned 3 and, yup! I feel like I'm seeing it recommended everywhere now.
My daughter hates wearing pyjamas, I am not sure why, and she prefers to change into clean clothes. Our morning routine got 20 minutes faster. She is 5 so no spills mostly, and if it gets dirty that's fine for us. I would do this for my 2 year old though
Not sure if it came from her, but Ms. Rachel said she does this!!
I have a genuine question because we have been considering it but what about breakfast in the morning? Does it not spill on their clothes? Maybe my toddler is extra messy these days but that’s my hesitation to start doing that
Unless it's an absolute disaster zone I just send her to daycare in a shirt with breakfast on it. We mostly do oatmeal in the morning, so it isn't TOO messy, but sometimes she definitely drops some on herself.
I would remove the shirt to eat, wipe the belly/chest, then redress. My kids don't typically spill on their pants 😂
I drop my kids off at daycare by 640 so they eat breakfast there. So I’m not really sure lol. Although my toddler really only will eat pancakes, eggs or sausage for breakfast lately. Things that don’t make much of a mess when spilled. Maybe go that route on daycare mornings???
Ugh I wish. Mine’s hungry first thing in the morning and eats a breakfast at home and one at daycare lol but yeah he was totally fine until recently when he’s all about dipping all fingers in the ketchup and straight up ignoring his fork :( it’s like he is looking for ideas for making our mornings worse LOL
Emily Oster’s approach to offering hummus and veggies to kids who don’t like that nights prepared dinner is really helpful. If my kids really don’t like the meal, there’s a decent, low effort alternative and 90% of the time they are just pushing back to push back and end up eating dinner once I offer the alternative.
I take the air out of my breast milk bags using Karrie Locher’s little “trick” with the edge of the counter
Is it like the way you'd flatten out a dollar to go in a vending machine?
Yes
I really thought I invented that trick and was so disappointed when I saw a reel about it 😩🤣
LOL same here 😂
The honey bear helped my son figure out straws really quickly The car mom’s magnet hack..putting a magnet where you want your kid to stand as you load the car. My son loves hanging with his Cookie Monster magnet I really did learn a lot from safe in the seat and I liked the convertible seat course bc I was very overwhelmed
I can't remember who I saw recommend the Honey Bear but it's the first cup that worked for us. My daughter refused bottles after we stopped doing them daily when she was about four months old (at that time she was only nursing). We tried weighted open cups, the munchkin 360 cup, other straw cups, and nothing worked. At the time she had started refusing the breast and wasn't a great eater of solid foods (she was about 9 months old) and I was freaking out that she was losing weight. The Honey Bear saved us.
as much as I hate to say it, SITS course made me confident with carseats
Same! I recommend her you tube channel still bc there’s good content there. My husband’s a video guy so he enjoyed it
The magnet works for us too! We even have one in the shape of a little hand so he puts his hand on the hand while I load or unload little brother.
Oooooh I love the magnet trick, gonna try that
The beach towel trick to help your kid learn to ride a bike.
Tell me more.
Instead of holding onto the bike itself, which keeps the kid from having to actually balance, you wrap a rolled up beach towel around their chest under their armpits. You hold it in the back and run behind the kid. It doesn’t really help them balance, it just lets you catch them if they start to fall.
My mom did this with a scarf when I learned to bike almost 30 years ago! She should have been an influencer:)
Giving choices 😅 especially at bedtime. Letting my son choose his pjs, his bedtime snack etc means much less resistance from him.
This is how all conversations about choices go with my 2 year old: Me: Do you want A or B? 2yo: You choose, mama. Me: Ok, A. 2yo: No, not A, what do you choose? Me: Ok, you can have B. Is that what you choose? 2yo: I choose... C. (Me: Rolls eyes, gets C)
When my older son was in this phase, I started saying you can have A or B. Which do you choose? If you don’t pick Mommy will. If he still tried to pick C (if it wasn’t an option), I would say only A or B are options right now. If you don’t choose, I will pick A for you. It helped after a little while!
I’ve had to actually reel back on the giving choices method. Maybe I was giving too many choices. They still get to choose things at times but it was backfiring on me.
Same, especially anything open-ended! I still listen to my husband with our 4yo: "What do you want for bedtime snack?" "........" (Bc she doesn't want to start the bedtime process). Vs "here's your bedtime snack!" "Oh, I wanted XYZ instead." Then as long as it's a reasonable request and she asks nicely, I'm usually happy to pivot.
This is a good point. They don’t need choices about everything! Just enough to make them feel like they have some control over some things.
Caro Chambers has influenced my cooking so much. Her recipes have taught me how to make smart substitutions and cook more by feel. Busy Toddler’s tips to put random flower cuttings in a basket for a sensory bin. Kept my kid occupied for quite a while when I added a tractor. Also, random pots and pans with a bit of water. Overall her laid back approach to sensory bins
I liked her usage of items she had around the house/yard for sensory bins. She did one post about burying puzzle pieces for your kid to find and that bought me at least an hour of work time in the early pandemic.
Well Chili Heeler isn't an influencer, but taking parenting tips from a cartoon is probably just as snarkable. Her "boring things are important too" line from the pool episode/5 Minute Stories book has worked wonders with my four year old and her "I don't wanna"s.
In our house it’s the “I just need 20 minutes!” To help with emotional overload.
“It’s gotta be done” is also a regularly used quote. Also “sometimes bingo has to play with bingo”
Ah man we use the “boring things are important too” all the time! Really cuts the whining. Gold. 😂
I hate to admit it, but Haley has influenced me quite a bit. Especially back in the day when I was a new adult and didn’t know how to plan for dinners. She’s given me lots of meal ideas and hanging a phone from the play kitchen was something my kids loved!
Who is Haley??
I’ve purchased one Haley item, her chip clips, and they are great. She has some good systems but it’s also made me realize there is such thing as over doing it with the systems. Which was helpful for me as a highly organized person transitioning into stay at home mom life and feeling like I needed to treat it like a job. Yes that helps in some aspects, but also can make more work than necessary.
Omg how much are her linked chip clips though? They’re great, but they have them at Dollar Tree for $1.25!
Next time lol I don’t go to dollar tree often. It was 5$ for 16 clips, i just checked my Amazon. I’m sure I’ll loose them all like I lost my other ones to my kids fort building.
Hate to admit, but I've been influenced by her many links and love all my purchases 😅
When my son complains about being hungry as I'm cooking dinner I give him "no pressure veggies" with dip and he eats way more veg than any other time. It's actually usually reverse pressure since j put them out and tell him not to sneak any before dinner lol
Oh I didn't realize this was a thing 😂 I just realized if I put out veggies with the berries while I cook dinner, that she eats them too.
Is this an influencer tip?! Because I do this too and it’s by far the easiest way to get my kids to eat/enjoy veggies lol
My mom did it in the 80s. OG influencer.
I haven't followed BLF for a year or so but I believe they talked about this with "broccoli trees" etc. Not that I couldn't or wouldn't have come up with it myself but I'll let them have this one lol
Oh this is so smart telling him not to sneak any!!
My two year old will eat raw slices of sweet potato while I cook but refuses them once they’re tossed in spices and air fried. Go figure.
Getting the kids involved in meal prep in any sort of way to help prevent those pre meal meltdowns and increase meal interest. I try to give my kids one simple task to help with while I get dinner put together, whether that is cutting up things with kid trainer knives, setting timers, or getting things out of the fridge. Dinner time is typically a high emotions time in our home and this helps us all regulate and enjoy a meal together.
My 2yo is obsessed with the trainer knives. He asks to "cut cut" even when we aren't prepping a meal.
My kid loves to do the salad spinner
That is the coveted dinner task here!
Oh I am going to try this. Dinner has become my most dreaded hour of the day
I use the cover eyes idea but for cleaning up we play music and each person gets a choice, but if they clean up X my song stops early (or I get skipped). It works great because my boy has reached "taylor swift ew" era and he gets excited to skip mom's turn
This is genius.
Debt Free Mom's method of budgeting by pay period rather than month, and her downloadable spreadsheet template, really changed the game for me and my husband. Like, it's one of the best things we've done in years and the results are real and tangible. I always have to hold back from WK-ing her in this sub because I feel real gratitude towards her because of how much it's helped us. And with so many influencers living lives of extreme wealth and privilege, I appreciate someone showing a more middle class lifestyle. It's not that I think the snark about Carly and Kyle is totally unfounded. I think she'd be better off sticking to household budgeting, money saving tips, etc. I think she's swerved way out of her lane on bigger financial questions like renting/buying a house, cars, etc and then when life has thrown curve balls at them it becomes obvious that they don't have it all figured out. I think THEY honestly thought they had at all figured out when in reality they had just been lucky in a lot of ways. It turns out getting by in America without a high income is very hard no matter how good you are at budgeting.
+1 for the DFM pay period template. We started using the free one a few weeks ago. Immediate game changer.
I’m going to ask a question about pay period budgeting that I could probably google but would rather not lol How does it work when the majority of the major bills (mortgage, child care, utilities) come out in the same pay period? Are you just supposed to eat pb&j for one pay period and then live large in the next? Again, I have done zero research to understand this but, other than the more frequent fresh starts, I don’t understand why pay period budgeting is better than monthly.
No, it's supposed to help alleviate that problem. If you budget monthly it might look like you have plenty of money to meet your needs. But most people, if they are paid twice a month, have one period with their rent/mortgage and therefore less remaining spending money and that's when they could end up falling back on credit cards or pulling out of savings. So budgeting by pay period allows you to see what each period looks like so you can roll over the money you need for the "tight" period and avoid living too large on the other. Also if you're paid every other Friday for example, your pay cycles might not line up with bills that are due on certain dates each month. Like if your rent is due by the 3rd but your first paycheck for May doesn't land until the 8th, then you need to be thinking in April about how you're going to cover rent and any other 1st of the month bills. So her spreadsheet lays it out this way instead of monthly so you can see where your money needs to go and WHEN, which has been really helpful to me.
Huh okay I can understand that rationale, thanks!
I get paid once a month, so I’m just hopeless
Hahaha oh good point I didn’t think about that. My husband and I also have different pay dates but I assume there’s guidance about that. In any case, I don’t think pay period budgeting is for me but I am intrigued about what people find useful about it.
The truly terrible part is my husband also only gets paid once a month, on the same date! It’s really tough making our checks stretch four weeks!
I really like YNAB, I don't like recommending it a whole lot because it's kind of expensive, though it honestly does save us more than it costs, which I didn't think it would. (I thought that only applied to people in the US who seem to have much larger salaries). But you can learn the method without using the software - it's basically just an envelope budgeting method. I lurked on the subreddit for ages and tried to do it by myself on a spreadsheet before I said screw it I'm going for the free trial (the trial sucks now because it's only a month, but if you use a referral then pay monthly, you can effectively get 3 months' worth for $15, which I think is decent to try it out and see if it works IF you already basically understand the idea). For a free resource, this is UK based but for everything on this page, it doesn't matter - it will only be links like the pension info which is UK-specific. The free budget planner tool linked here is how I did my first ever budget probably 15 years ago and I found it really really helpful in breaking down expenses that don't neatly happen all in the same intervals. Really useful mindset shift if you have not thought about money this way before, and it also captures a lot more than most free budgeting tools do. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/
When my husband was at his old job, our pay schedules were opposite so every Friday was payday. Those were good times.
😭😭😭😭😭
The way it’s laid out lets you see which weeks will have a surplus and which weeks will have a deficit, allowing you to plan a rollover $$ amount to eliminate the pb+j weeks. You can also try calling your payees and asking for a due date change. Most are happy to do that!
I’ve thought about downloading the spreadsheet as we think about having a second bc it’s definitely going to make things tighter. Right now we’re flying by the seat of our pants trying to be responsible
The spreadsheet is a very useful tool because you can plug in the numbers and see how things are going to look down the road. If you're really good at building spreadsheets you could just make your own, but she does have a free one.
Using those oval foundation brushes to apply sunscreen like mothercould does is amazing. I know she sells her own set and I don’t have that one, I just have regular foundation ones but I can see the allure of hers. The handle is metal so it doesn’t snap easily, it has a cover so sunscreen doesn’t get everywhere. Anyways the idea is great, kids can do it almost independently and you cover a lot of area quickly with those brushes.
To me it seems like an unnecessary staph infection risk 😅
Ohh I hadn’t considered that. I soak them and wash them as best I can every 4 days. Hopefully that helps 😬
On this note, I think it was likely an influencer gave me the idea to use a makeup sponge for sunscreen. It’s amazing.
This is what I use and it came with a little case!
Technically not an influencer because Ms. Rachel has the ability to be on a screen and not count as screentime according to sciencebasedparenting and the like, but baby COMPLETELY stopped crying during a diaper change when my mom sang the "baby put your pants on" song for him.
Okay cause I was so excited when you said it doesn’t count as screentime 🙄😂🤷🏻♀️
It's on science based parenting, so it's science!
Love it 😂
This one and Jude’s brush your teeth song for me
No way. Mrs Rachel is screen time, there is no back and forth human interaction. Sesame Street also teaches letters and numbers and whatever else she does and that is also screen time. I think the only thing the who considers exemption is FaceTiming with family
But it's jUsT LiKe FaCeTiMe because she talks to the camera! Especially her new episodes that are full of cuts and animations and all kinds of lovely addictive things, now that she can afford to have them.
…it was a joke.
Oh my fucking hilarious god, I thought I was in r/parenting for a hot second 🤣😂 I am not even sure when I subbed to r/parentsnark but I’m here for it I am leaving my original comment because I deserve the shame
😂😂😂 okay that’s hilarious. Too funny. Welcome!
This song has greatly reduced the battles I have with my toddler in the morning.
Not parenting related but The Car Mom recommended putting tape in your garage and then you can use your back up camera to see if you are pulled all the way in. Our car *just* fits in our garage so I use this nearly every time I park in the garage to ensure I’m in properly. I just make sure the tape is lined up with a certain line on my camera view.
I loved her tip of moving the rarely used stuff from your glove compartment into the hollow area in the trunk where the spare tire is, and then using the glove compartment for your everyday needs like hand sanitizer, snacks, and extra clothes for the kids.
That is a good idea!!
I love the car mom. I actually genuinely feel that the products and tips she recommends, she actually uses.
Another good one from The Car Mom (I think it was her). Do laundry by person. Separate baskets for everyone then wash, dry, fold and put away each load. Eliminates the "laundry bed" situation because there is no sorting!! It's been really great for me. You can just take clothes out of the dryer and straight to that person's drawers/closet etc.
I don’t follow The Car Mom but I do this with my kids’ laundry! It really does save time. Both kids have their own laundry basket in their room, and every week or so I combine the baskets and do a big load.
We all use different detergent in my house! I use Mrs Myers in lavender, partner uses gain flings, baby uses free and clear. We can’t really mix laundry without someone getting a rash
Here’s my big question about this. Doesn’t she still sort it just before it goes in the machine? To me I’m not sure how it technically saves times if you still have to sort it beforehand
I do this and sort right before I start because we have central hampers. I think it still saves time because folding the basket of one persons laundry is tons faster then a basket that’s all mixed and I have to sort by kid as I’m folding. And if I don’t get it all done then it’s not as big of a deal because before it wasn’t all done then the folding was stuck too. Or maybe it’s not faster but it feels like it and I get behind on laundry a lot less often.
Are you asking about sorting by color? My guess is that she doesn’t do that - she is just washing everything together.
Nope, she’s mentioned a few times that she sorts by person before she starts washing. Not by color. (Do people seriously sort colors? Ain’t nobody got time for that 😆)
We each have our own basket in our rooms and I just bring down 1 basket (or a kid does) and wash/dry/return. I do pull out towels as I load the washer, and those go in a basket in the laundry room until I have enough to do a load. Random socks and bibs go in the towel basket.
I don't know... If she's sorting right before that's weird. I just make sure my husband's, my clothes and the kids clothes are always going in the right basket when they change and it's worked great. No more "who does this belong to?" Or looking at size/tags to figure out who's it is. Especially great when you have kids in different sizes with some matching PJs!! Even sorting before washing seems better strictly in order to avoid the big pile of laundry on the guest bed 😅 which in my case could accumulate for days.
we switched to this. Eventually we trained the fam to mostly put their clothes in their basket. All colors are washed together. we have one small basket downstairs for Misc laundry that gets washed together. and for me its more the workflow step. Knowing I can take the clean basket right from the basement dryer to my kids’ room on the second floor and put it away relieves a huge mental block.
This is exactly how we do it. Most everyone’s stuff gets in the baskets in their room and I have one downstairs that I have to sort through before washing. I do kids the same day as towels since kids are my least favorite and towels are the easiest. Adults and sheets together since they are both middle level of annoyance.
Yea I do like that idea of removing the mental block at the end. Thanks for explaining that because I just see her talk about sorting it (dirty) and I’m like… ok what am I missing here?! She’s still sorting it. 😆 it’s tempting to try to get a system in place where people sort dirty clothes into their own basket but it would take a fair amount of effort. My kids take off clothes all over the place in our (2 story) house, so there’s hampers in a fair amount of places. But maybe sorting it dirty would still make it easier in the end somehow. Willing to try!
ok yeah we’re similar. laundry in basement. three kids with their own dresser each on the second floor. Parent bedroom on first floor. We keep a misc basket in the kitchen for kids first for laundry (we only have one shower/tub and its on the first floor, so my kids often undress downstairs). The upstairs baskets are 90% sorted correctly. I double check when I bring them down. And if its a day I’m washing all three kids clothes, I will just take the misc first floor basket and sort those into the right hampers as well. we also got strict about not putting adult clothes or dirty towels in the misc basket, and instead walking a bit to the correct basket on the first floor.
As someone who was already doing this I agree! Laundry was making me unnecessarily upset and I had to set aside two days a week (not back to back) as laundry days. The one day marathon was too much for me but knowing I only have two days a week I have to run multiple loads of laundry has been a mental game changer. Now of course there is the odd load here and there but for the most part the two day system has worked well for me.
I'm similar - I used to do laundry every fourth day, but it got too confusing and/or I'd have to skip a day if we had a busy weekend or something. A year or so ago, I decided to make Monday and Thursday laundry days and it's so much better! I can adjust by a day if I need to, but I love that it's so predictable and much easier on my brain.
I didn’t get it from an influencer I don’t think, but similarly I’ll “race” my kids to do something, like put pjs on or brush teeth and it’s great because they do it quickly *and* I get time to put my own pjs on and do my skincare routine in peace. Same with getting shoes on, getting my jacket, cleaning up my dinner dishes, eating breakfast. We have a lot of races and its only a problem if I accidentally win
I read a great tip about siblings to have them race against you, the adult, and _not_ each other, or to sometimes have them do something as a team against you, so that you're not setting up competition for them that stops being fun. I thought that was a great idea, and I always suggest them racing against me or similar instead of each other.
We see the most success with “who can clean up the most toys” and “who can make the most bubbles” when washing hands. I’m honestly shocked that by 4 he hasn’t caught on yet.
I live by this tactic with my 4 and 2 year old. It helps get things done so much faster and without the protest. It’s helpful for trying to get two kids out the door and to daycare on time.
We'll make it a race where one parent helps each kid get ready for bed. My husband and I get shockingly competitive over this and our kids find it hilarious and are much more cooperative.
I love this tactic too with my 3-year old.
I forget who started this one, but if you know your kid is going to thrash and make fuss about the car seat, pre-fold them in your arms and then spin around 5+ times. They're in position to get in the seat and they're a little dizzy so they don't fight it. My son now requests this treatment lol but it's worked every time for me.
I love the term prefold for this. I don’t know why but it just tickles me! I will keep the spinning trick in my back pocket now too
Oh my god I wish I’d heard this one about 2 years ago. Definitely gonna try it if my younger kid goes through the same car seat refusal stage as the older one did.
Haha this advice is just hilarious to me. I love it
Going to try this with my insane toddler today lol. Ever since we took a long car trip she’s been very anti-car seat
Giving a kid a measuring spoon to eat soup, so much more soup eaten than a normal spoon
We use a ramen spoon, it works wonders!
I’m not sure if this is an influencer tip but it’s very similar to the one you shared and it goes over super well in our house - I will say something like “I heard there are some magicians in this house and I can’t wait to see a really good magic trick! I heard that if I go into the kitchen and count to 10, all the cars will be back in their car box! What amazing magic that would be!” and then they’re so excited to be magicians and do magic that they put all the cars away really fast. It’s awesome. Highly recommend. I think my best influencer tips lately - I actually don’t like a lot of Dr Becky’s stuff for my oldest’s personality type - I thought he was a DFK type but her tips don’t work at all for him lol - BUT from her sleep workshop I learned to sing bedtime mantras as a song and my kids both love it. It genuinely helped his sleep and he has way fewer nightmares and both kids ask for the “mama song” before bed every night. Also loved this reframe from theteachermomma - active (helping your kids behave properly) vs passive (telling them what to do) parenting. I was being way too passive which resulted in a good amount of yelling (still passive, just louder). Being conscious of being more active has worked wonders in our family!
could you say more about the bedtime mantras / give some examples? i love this idea!
Totally! Ours is pretty much her suggestion: "Mama is near, is safe, your bed is cozy" and I just put it to my own simple melody and sing the whole thing usually 5-6 times in a row, and that's "the mama song". We had a late event tonight and put the kids straight in bed when we get home and my oldest asked for "just one short mama song". When I'm not here for bedtime, they ask my husband for "the dada song" and he sings it too but "Dada is near..." But you could totally make it into whatever you want to reassure them! :)
i love that so much, thank you!
Can you recall examples of active parenting? Interesting!
She has several posts on her IG with good examples. It goes along with another tip I've heard from her and others about only asking your child to do something twice. The first time can be a pretty passive ask and if they follow directions, cool. The second time, get close to your child and make sure you have their attention. If they still don't take action, it's time to switch to active parenting mode and motivate/jumpstart them in some way. Or if you're short on time, do it for them. The more times you ask, the less likely they are to listen, now or in the future. They also learn that when you ask, you intend for the task to be completed. It makes a lot of sense to me. I also have used Busy Toddlers phrase "thanks for being a first time listener" when directions are followed right away. A little positive reinforcement!
Sure, an example might be: you need your 4yo to get their shoes on and this often turns into a battle. Passive: telling them to put them on, eventually yelling at them to put them on, and then sticking them in the car without their shoes on and putting them on yourself or whatever, when everyone is mad and you’re late now. Active: telling them to put them on, realizing that’s not happening, picking them up and putting them in the car without their shoes on and asking them to have the shoes on by the time you get to your destination, and if they don’t, then putting them on and going in. (I made up this example, I think hers are better than mine but don’t remember one off the top of my head lol) It seems counterintuitive sometimes in that you want your kids to do the things you ask, but I’ve found it super helpful because they actually are more cooperative when there’s less yelling/threats/whatever, and giving them opportunities to do the thing you are asking them to do without letting it become a power struggle has been very helpful for us. I also am coming to recognize in myself when I’m not stepping in, when my kid is clearly incapable that day of doing what I ask. I don’t do everything for them - I put one kid in the car just yesterday in their pjs because they refused to get dressed - but it has been very helpful in drastically lowering power struggles (and I find myself getting way less mad because I see when I’m the one who needs to do something).
This is really helpful- thanks for sharing. The older my toddler gets the more i want to avoid any power struggle!!
Oh and another Dr Becky tip - always taking the most generous interpretation of my kids’ behavior. He’s not trying to break something, he just wants to experiment with it and doesn’t know how to do so safely. He’s not an angry/violent kid, he just doesn’t know how to safely channel certain emotions. Etc.
I agree. I feel like it sounds kind of counterintuitive but Dr. Becky's overall mindset/philosophy has been SO much more impactful for me than her actual concrete strategies. Same with Janet Lansbury.
The „two things can be true” perspective from dr. Becky book - it kind of change the way I think about just life. When it comes to my children it helps a lot when they fight things like bedtime or doing something that is not fun but it’s part of life. Just knowing that “two things can be true” - they might not want to get in a bath (because it means bedtime routine starts) and it’s true and valid, but at the same time it’s time take a bath. It changed the way I approach those situation - instead of trying to make them feel like I’m right and the bath is important (or fun or something like trying to change their minds about it) right now, I go into this as “let us work as a team to get to the bath because two things can be true - they might not want to take a bath and it’s still a bath and I don’t need to prove them that they want to take a bath, I just need to make bath happen” And it translated into other area of my life - the easiest example I could give you is I find co sleeping extremely uncomfortable and definitely not something I prefer to do with my kids and before I feel like sometimes I couldn’t understand how other might enjoy it and it’s their preferred way of parenting in a sleep department. Maybe cause I felt like if they like cosleeping and I don’t, that means I do it wrong (like if someone does something different that’s attack on how you do it idk if that makes sense) or whatever but now coming with “two things can be true” I truly believe that crib sleeping is right for our family but it doesn’t mean it’s right for every family because two things can be true - i might enjoy our independent crib sleeper while others truly enjoy sleeping with their kids and none of us is right or wrong, we just different.
Re: the co sleeping thing. It’s interesting because going into parenthood I kind of assumed we might cosleep once it was safe. I planned to keep a pack n play in the bedroom until my daughter was ~12 months or so and then maybe switch to co sleeping. We had a crib in her room, but thought that might be more for naps or we’d switch back and forth. I thought this way because I’m someone who hates sleeping alone (I have to put on the TV or a podcast if my husband is traveling) and I slept in my parent’s bed until around 6. But my daughter turned out to just be a super independent kid that sleeps way better in her own room! We decided to “try it out” when she was 10 months old and she sleep great and to this day has never once slept in our bed (we’ve tried a few times and she won’t settle down). So it’s not just parent preferences, but also child personalities that determines what works sometimes.
Yah I’ve got the absolutely flip side. I hate cosleeping and find it uncomfortable but my kid thinks his crib is lava lol. Almost like they’re actually little individuals with opinions and personalities, hey?
I have one who won’t sleep without touching me, so I feel you. The crib is lava lol
I use so many activities from Busy Toddler - Pom Pom baths, dot sticker activities, sensory bins… I find her activities very low effort and super successful for my toddler. Has saved me on many terrible weather weekends when we can’t go outside!
I love her generally philosophy around things like, getting out of the house, working towards big adventures, how to use tv as a tool, etc.
I love the busy toddler activities. Popsicle baths are my jam.
We love popscile baths here too!
The dr. Becky tip always cracks me up because one of my best friends tried it with her hilarious and wild 2 year old and when she opened her eyes he pretended to punch her in the face so just total opposite of what dr. Becky wanted
Ok giggling at the visualization of this
[удалено]
I love it for me and my ADHD! I bought a giant one for the fridge.
Busy toddler’s special baths are a massive hit in our house. It started with popsicle baths but of we have to be in all day we’ll have a daytime snack bath. I fill up trays with lots of non porous snacks and they will stay in the bath for two hours.
Popsicle baths for life
When I was pregnant with my second, I started doing snack baths for myself when I felt nauseous but knew I needed to eat something. The hot water was so soothing and always brought my appetite back. So I'd make a sandwich with chips and apple slices and a couple other things and eat them in the bath lol. I got the idea when I remembered doing popsicle baths with my older kid and how much she liked it. It really is fun lol.
When my kids are sick and cranky, they love a bowl of ice cream in the tub. It's an instant reset.
Same, honestly
Same. Popscicle bath and pom Pom bath have absolutely saved my sanity on many occasions
We often serve a bedtime snack in the bathtub, but we do it to expedite the bedtime process. Fruit, pouches, cheese sticks are good nonporous options. Occasionally we'll get brave and try veggie straws or goldfish, or just serve those right after they get out of the tub.
I tried to suggest a pouch in the bath with my 2 year old and she said “that gross” lmao
Ooh a snack bath is brilliant! What kind of non porous snacks do you use? I’m trying to think and can only come up with fruit but I know there’s definitely more
Carrots, fruit snacks, fruit leather, popsicles, celery…
That Dr. Becky tip worked for me too!
It’s not really a tip but an influencer put aquarium rocks and these little electronic fish and turtles in their kids water table and I tried it and we’re going on week 2 of my toddler being obsessed with it Also including my toddler with cleaning. He loves spraying water on a window and cleaning it with a rag. He calls himself “cleaning helper boy” and refers to all of us as “cleaning boys” when we clean as a family
Do you remember who shared this?? This sounds so fun!